A 47-year-old SeaTac man was sentenced Friday in King County Superior Court to life in prison without parole after being convicted of killing three people outside a Des Moines bar in 2021, bookending a 24-year criminal record that included two other killings.
Joshua D. Puloka’s sentencing hearing was interrupted at one point with screaming and shoving between his family and the families of his victims. The altercation spilled out into the rotunda outside the courtroom, where King County sheriff’s deputies and court marshals separated the groups. A large contingent of courtroom security personnel remained as the hearing continued.
King County Superior Court Judge LeRoy McCullough ordered Puloka to pay restitution in an amount to be determined at a future hearing and to not contact any of his victims’ families, according to a court filing.
Friday’s sentencing came nearly three years after Puloka opened fire into a large crowd outside La Familia Sports Pub and Lounge on Sept. 26, 2021, killing Angelia Hylton, 46; Antoine Matthews, 32; and Ezra Taylor, 26.
Two men, then ages 48 and 27, were injured but survived, according to court records.
Detectives reviewed cellphone video that showed Puloka in a fight with other men outside the pub, according to a probable cause affidavit. The footage showed Matthews swing once at Puloka, who fell backward and started shooting. Puloka continued firing as Matthews ran away, striking him twice in the back. He kept firing into the crowd, shooting Hylton in the back and Taylor in the back of the head.
Puloka, a felon who could not legally possess a gun at the time of the shooting, turned himself in to Des Moines police about one month after the triple homicide.
Puloka’s criminal history began in 1990, when he was 13, court records show.
In 2003, Puloka was sentenced in King County Superior Court to nearly eight years in prison for killing 24-year-old Zhonyak Rafael-Jerome Payne in a botched drug-deal robbery in Tukwila. Puloka pleaded guilty to a count of first-degree manslaughter and admitted to shooting Payne after trying to rob him of two kilos of cocaine in March 1999.
Puloka was sentenced again in King County Superior Court to another 4½ years in prison after being convicted in 2018 of first-degree assault in a fatal Seattle shooting that injured one man and killed 38-year-old Tory Holmes. Puloka was originally charged with second-degree murder and first-degree assault, but claimed self-defense and was acquitted by a jury on the murder charge.
King County prosecutors pointed to Puloka’s prior “violent and serious violent convictions” when requesting he be held without bail on Oct. 27, 2021. A Superior Court Judge granted the state’s motion the next day.
Following Friday’s sentencing, King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion said, “Justice was done in this case — justice for Antoine Matthews, Angelia Hylton and Ezra Taylor who were murdered, justice for the two additional surviving gunshot victims, justice for their families, and justice for our entire King County community.”
Seattle Times reporter Mike Carter contributed to this article.
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