Ex-Bellator fighter Vila charged with second degree murder
The 47-year-old MMA fighter is currently being held, without bond, at Turner Guildford Knight Correctional Center in Miami, FL.
Alexis Vila-Perdomo (aka Alexis Vila), a veteran of over 20 MMA fights, has been arrested in Miami-Dade County, FL and charged with Second Degree Murder. He is currently jailed at Turner Guildford Knight Correctional Center in Miami with no bond set.
News of Vila-Perdomo’s arrest appeared on Saturday evening via multiple outlets including Fightful and CagesidePress. Since those reports, Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting confirmed that Vila-Perdomo was arrested on April 17th after a warrant was issued for his arrest on March 29th.
Vila-Perdomo was born in Cuba in 1971. As a freestyle wrestler he represented Cuba at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, winning a bronze medal in the -48kg category. Vila-Perdomo also has three medals (two gold, one silver) from the World Championships (1993, 1994, 1995) and a gold medal from the 1995 Pan American Games.
After defecting to the United States Vila-Perdomo coached wrestling at Michigan State University. In 2004 he crashed his car into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida and served three years in prison for ‘airport violence’. In 2014 Vila-Perdomo told Luke Thomas of MMAFighting that he was suffering clinical depression at the time of this incident.
When he left prison Vila-Perdomo began his MMA career, fighting on the Florida regional circuit for a number of years before joining Bellator. He competed in Bellator’s bantamweight tournament in 2011, notably knocking out Joe Warren and defeating Marcos Galvao by decision before losing in the final to Eduardo Dantas.
Since then he fought once more in Bellator and three times in World Series of Fighting. Vila-Perdomo also fought as a flyweight for Titan FC, as recently as August 2016.
Vila-Perdomo is presumed innocent of all charges until proven guilty.