Hungarian who overstayed visa, charged with Miami, Miami Beach murders, pleads not guilty
The Hungarian man charged last month with murders in Miami and Miami Beach after overstaying his visa waiver pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief court hearing Wednesday morning.
Zsolt Zsolyomi, 26, wasn’t present as his attorney Arthur McNeil made the plea before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Ramiro Areces. A tentative trial date has been set for May 12.
Zsolyomi is charged with killing two older men two months apart and trying to cover up the murders. He was taken into custody on Feb. 19 after a seven-month odyssey that included charges of robbing a woman of $50 and a brief visit to the Krome Detention Center after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement discovered he’d overstayed a visa waiver by more than two years.
Carlos Alonso Villaquiran, 66, was discovered face down in six inches of bathtub water in his Miami Beach apartment in November. And Rodolfo Fernandez de Velasco, 71, was found dead in his vehicle with the driver’s side seat belt fastened tightly around his neck after his car careened into a fence in Miami in January.
Police believe Zsolyomi tried to cover up both murders, which were staged to appear as accidents. The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner determined both deaths were caused by strangulation.
During a press conference after Zsolyomi’s arrest, Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales and Miami Beach Chief Wayne Jones stopped just short of calling Zsolyomi a serial killer. They said they had little doubt he would have killed again and were concerned there may be other victims.
Feds had man who overstayed visa, but let him go
ICE records indicate Zsolyomi entered South Florida from Hungary in October 2022 on a 90-day visa waiver, but failed to leave as it expired at the end of the year. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar until April 2024 when the Broward Sheriff’s Office charged him with petit theft and he gave the fictitious name Thomas Kray.
In July of last year, police say, Zsolyomi committed another offense, this time robbing a woman on a Miami Beach trolley of $50. The woman and others on the trolley gave chase and pinned Zsolyomi just outside a Lincoln Road store, then called over a police officer.
ICE records show the agency finally took custody of Zsolyomi on Sept. 6, 2024. He was taken to Krome, fitted with an ankle monitor and released through the Alternatives Detention Program. Two weeks later Homeland Security’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program alerted ICE that Zsolyomi’s monitor had been tampered with. He had somehow managed to disable the monitor.
ICE said Zsolyomi was notified and told to report, but “he absconded.” On Sept. 25, Zsolyomi’s case was referred to ICE’s Fugitive Operations Unit. He remained a ghost for another two months, until he was identified after the November murder of Villaquiran in Miami Beach. He was also identified running from Villaquiran’s stolen vehicle after a crash the evening the Miami Beach man was killed.
Still, police and ICE couldn’t find Zsolyomi until a month after the January murder of Fernandez de Velasco in Little Havana, which police say was staged to look like a car wreck, but was actually a strangulation.
Zsolyomi has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder and grand theft auto. His case is expected to go before a grand jury which could up the charge to first-degree murder, a charge that could come with a death sentence.
