Leonard was granted protection from Mark Anthony Francisco ... a 55-year-old man who, according to docs, started sending some haunting letters to the boxing legend in 2008. One read, "I will kill you, your mother and your daughters."
He also said, "You need to make a deposit to my checking account before I shoot the s**t out of your ass." And another handwritten letter said, "I mean what the f**k I did and said. I hate a punk ass n***er."
Leonard says Francisco stopped contacting him for several years, but resurfaced in October last year .