Former UFC fighter Diego Sanchez was arrested in Socorro, New Mexico, and booked on allegations of aggravated driving while intoxicated and violating probation, according to online jail records. Sanchez, 44, was booked at 5:17 p.m. local time Monday, with limited public information available about the circumstances leading to the arrest. Sanchez was being held in the Socorro County Jail as of Monday night.
Diego Sanchez Arrested
The aggravated DWI allegation carries extra weight because Diego Sanchez was already serving five years of supervised probation from a 2025 firearm case, and one reported condition of that sentence required him to avoid alcohol. Previous Gun Case The new arrest comes months after Sanchez received probation in Albuquerque District Court following an incident near I-40 and University in July 2025.
Prosecutors said Diego Sanchez fired a gun into the air from a Jeep while the vehicle passed a crash scene in Albuquerque traffic. Sanchez later pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree felony charge tied to discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle.
As part of a plea deal, a separate negligent-use-of-a-deadly-weapon charge was dismissed. Prosecutors sought a two-year prison sentence, but the court instead imposed five years of supervised probation. At his sentencing, Sanchez took responsibility for the incident and said he had been working on sobriety and mental-health treatment. His attorney, Max Pines, told the court Sanchez had made progress through treatment for substance abuse and mental health. Sanchez said he was attending Turning Point Recovery Center and taking medication after a bipolar diagnosis. The felony charge carried a possible maximum sentence of six and a half years.
The probation sentence allowed Sanchez to avoid prison at the time, although the court record made clear that violations could result in jail time. What Is Known Jail records list aggravated DWI and probation violation as the two current allegations.
No public report has yet outlined the location of the stop, any alleged driving behavior, a test result, whether anyone was injured, or the precise basis cited for the probation-violation allegation. Those details may emerge through court filings or law-enforcement records. An arrest is an allegation, not a finding of guilt. Sanchez would be entitled to contest both the DWI charge and any claimed breach of his probation conditions through the New Mexico court process.
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Sanchez became one of MMA’s best-known names after winning the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2004. He fought 22 times in the UFC between 2005 and 2022, challenged for the UFC lightweight title against B.J. Penn in 2009, and was part of the UFC Hall of Fame fight with Clay Guida that same year.
After leaving the UFC, Sanchez made a one-off Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship appearance in February 2023. His latest legal case now puts his status under supervised probation in focus, with the next key development expected to be whether prosecutors or probation officials seek further action following the Socorro arrest.