May 22, 2016
A local figure who describes himself as a civil rights activist faces multiple charges in connection to a May 18 incident in which he allegedly impersonated police and pulled a gun on an off-duty police officer.
Tony Soto, a 29-year-old resident of Northeast Philadelphia, drew widespread attention last year after publishing a controversial video in which he challenged the legal authority of Philadelphia police during a traffic stop. Within days, the video amassed more than 1 million views and positioned Soto as a vocal opponent of racial profiling and other forms of police injustice.
Last Wednesday night, Soto was arrested following a chain of events that allegedly stemmed from a dispute with neighbors over a parking space near Oxford Circle. Sources told NBC10 that Soto claimed to be a police officer. The neighbors, doubtful of his story, reportedly then went to alert an off-duty police officer who lives around the block.
Police claim that Soto eventually threatened the off-duty officer with a gun that had been brought to him from his home by a 19-year-old woman, later identified in court documents as Isabela Mota.
Soto has a criminal past that includes a 2008 conviction for impersonating a police officer, as well as prior convictions for theft, fleeing from police and straw purchasing firearms.
During the incident last March — filmed with a camera rig in his car — Soto allegedly flashed a badge and falsely told police he was fire marshal. He was attempting to invalidate the traffic stop based on a medical exemption for his tinted windows ultimately did not face criminal charges in that incident.
In yet another video filmed last August, Soto is seen parked on the 6600 block of Frankford Avenue. He had just left an NAACP conference attended by the family of Brandon Tate-Brown, who was fatally shot by police during a Mayfair traffic stop in December 2014. Soto observes the behavior of two police officers and predicts, accurately, that they will follow him when he leaves.
In response to Soto's tactics, the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police posted an alert warning officers and civilians that Soto is a "fraud" who attempts to bait police into misconduct.
Court documents show that Soto now faces a slew of charges in the May 18 incident: conspiracy, illegal gun possession, terroristic threats, aggravated assault, impersonating a public servant, resisting arrest, and simple assault, among others. After a Friday arraignment, he remains held at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on $900,000 bail.
Mota has also been charged with criminal solicitation, possession of an instrument of crime, conspiracy, terroristic threats, illegal gun possession. She is being held at Riverside Correctional Facility on $400,000 bail.
Soto, who has more than 32,000 followers on Facebook, released a message on Saturday calling on his supporters to help raise $90,000 to get him out of prison. A GoFundMe page created by his mother to facilitate donations has since been removed from the site.
