The Engels family said they waited three years for a jury to decide on whether James Preston Fulton should be held responsible for the tragic crash that killed Jeff Ellery Engels on Feb. 7, 2023.
It took 12 jurors at the Antelope Valley Courthouse about an hour of deliberation to render their guilty verdict for Fulton on all charges: the ones in connection in the fatal hit-and-run crash on Soledad Canyon Road, and an assault less than two weeks later against a witness who spoke out against him.
Fulton now faces up to 30 years in prison at his sentencing hearing.
He’s due back in court next month for a separate “bench trial,” when Judge Alan Z. Yudkowsky will consider Fulton’s criminal history of convictions that date back to 1988 as aggravating factors in the case.
He’ll then have a sentencing, which is scheduled for June 9.
Matthew Schoenholz, the witness victim in the attack, told jurors how Fulton and his friends brutally beat him with a tire jack on Feb. 20, 2023, and then fled in his truck, after Schoenholz contacted California Highway Patrol officers about seeing Fulton on the night of the crash 11 days earlier.
The jury believed Schoenholz, and witnesses who identified and provided footage to the CHP Newhall-area Office investigators who investigated the fatal crash.
Deputy District Attorney Shea Sanna, who took over the 3-year-old case weeks before trial began, took umbrage to the jury instructions during his closing arguments, telling jurors that the 2023 crash is described as an accident, but it was actually the start of a weekslong “crime spree” — the crash, fleeing the scene, then beating a witness and taking his car.
Fulton was found guilty in each instance.
Fulton’s attorney, Michael La Cilento, began by saying he was holding up a chocolate chip cookie, because just like the prosecution’s case, it needs to have all the ingredients in order to convict, and there was just too much reasonable doubt in the evidence.
La Cilento’s closing arguments involved questioning the whereabouts of the Russian family that owned the property where Fulton was seen shortly after the crash by Schoenholz, getting rid of evidence from the crash, according to Schoenholz. Fulton claimed he didn’t live on the property, he just kept some things there. That family was interviewed by CHP officers who relied on the translation of a family member, not a law enforcement official, La Cilento said.
He also said a main eyewitness’ identification was spotty shortly after the crash, but “miraculously” much clearer three years later, during trial.
Sanna’s case centered around how CHP officers had obtained surveillance footage from security cameras near the crash site, and where Fulton was seen separating Engels’ mangled motorcycle from Fulton’s oversized pickup truck and then driving off again — more than a quarter-mile from the collision site.
He also said the truck positively identified by security footage as one Fulton was driving only had his prints on the steering wheel.
Engels was heading north on Soledad Canyon Road, east of Briggs Road in Agua Dulce, around 6 p.m. Feb. 7, 2023, when a white Ford F-450 driven by Fulton made a U-turn directly into his path, according to testimony and statements from law enforcement officials in court documents obtained by The Signal.
Engels, a veteran who lived in Sun Valley, is remembered as “a hardworking man who deeply loved his son, his family, and the friends he made along his journey in life, and proudly served his country with honor, grace and sacrifice,” according to an email to The Signal from Brianne Brozey, one of Engels’ longtime friends.
