A Yolo County judge denied bail on Thursday for a former sheriff’s lieutenant charged with seven counts of murder in last year's deadly Esparto fireworks explosion, as family members of the victims pleaded with the court to keep him and others behind bars.

Before the ruling, multiple family members gave an emotional series of comments expressing grief and calling on the court to deny the defendants’ bail.

Samuel Machado owned the property where prosecutors say more than a million pounds of illegal explosives were stored. He is one of eight people indicted in connection to the July 1, 2025 explosion in the small Yolo County town.

Machado pleaded not guilty Thursday to dozens of charges levied against him, including seven counts of second-degree murder — one for each victim killed in the blast. Four others also face the same murder charges.

All seven dead were employees of Devastating Pyrotechnics, one of the companies that operated from the Esparto property. The Yolo County Coroner’s Office previously said all died instantly from “multiple blast and thermal injuries.”

The victims were officially identified a week after the explosion amid frustrations from family members about the slow pace of information and demands for answers.

Uncles, brothers, sons

Maria Melendez said she was left alone to care for her children after her husband, Joel Melendez, died in the blast. She called the tragedy a “catastrophic incident” that left "irreversible consequences.”

“I lost my husband suddenly and violently; I’m now raising our two sons alone,” Melendez said.

“They will grow up without their father, and that is something we have to live with every single day.”

She said public safety and accountability must come first, and releasing any defendants ”would not reflect the seriousness of their actions or the lives that were lost.”

Maria Soriano said the death of her partner, Christopher Bocog, “permanently changed our lives, and our home has been left with a deep sense of loss and emotional instability.”

Soriano said their son turned six shortly after the explosion, “an age when children depend on a parent for guidance, reassurance and a sense of safety,” something Bocog can never provide again.

Carlos Rodriguez’s widow Tiffany Nolan choked up as she said her family will have to carry the weight of the tragedy forever — including their two children. “This was not a small or isolated event,” she said. “Multiple lives — uncles, brothers, sons — were taken, and the level of harm deserves to be taken seriously.”

“The defendants are asking to go home, but my husband and the others will never have the opportunity again,” Nolan said.

Matt Voller said his son Angel Voller had graduated in May and turned 18 in June, one month before the explosion claimed his life. Voller spoke about the love for his son, saying he faces “a daily hurt, [an] hourly hurt.”

“There was no regard for him or any other ones by any of these gentlemen here,” Voller said. “For years they got to do what they wanted; they took advantage of the system.”

He said the defendants could be a flight risk and he believed they would return to illegal activities. Voller specifically singled out Machado.

 “Mr. Machado stood there last week, the other day, and today is still hiding behind that wall like a coward; he will not look at us,” Voller said. “I cannot trust that he will not cowardly make a wrong decision if you granted bail.”

‘They have blood on their hands’

Jhanelly Ramos’s two brothers, 18-year-old Jesus and 22-year-old Jhony, were killed in the explosion. The former was working his first day at the facility.

“They have seven people on their hands; they have blood on their hands,” Ramos said, adding that she wanted those indicted to know the pain of victims’ families.

“You guys are going to be held accountable; I pray every single day and I ask Lord for you guys to see the bad, the horribleness, they did, and that they’re causing in our life,” Ramos said.

Jhony Ramos’ girlfriend Syanna Ruiz was the last family member to speak. She was pregnant at the time of the explosion, and said her daughter would never grow up and experience the man Ramos was working to become.

“You guys took away the father of my daughter; not only the man that I was starting a family with but the man who was supposed to be able to experience what it was to have a father-daughter bond,” Ruiz said.

She also called out Machado directly: “I request that you guys have Machado face the courts and have Machado face us directly instead of hiding behind a wall.”

The seventh victim killed in the blast was Neil Li, of San Francisco.

After the statements, Judge Daniel Maguire acknowledged the “tremendous pain” the families were feeling. “This of course, is the second hearing in this matter,” he said. “There will be many more and the families will have additional opportunities to address the court.”

Maguire denied Machado's bail request. Four other defendants remain in Yolo County custody. All five are scheduled to return to court Wednesday for further arraignment or other hearings.

New details about the deadly Esparto fireworks explosion emerged Thursday as defendants appeared in a Yolo County courtroom, including allegations that a former sheriff’s lieutenant had explosives delivered to his front door and warned operators when inspections were coming.

Samuel Machado, who owned the property where prosecutors say more than a million pounds of illegal explosives were stored, pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges. He is among eight people indicted in connection with the July 1, 2025 blast that killed seven workers at a fireworks facility operating on his property.

Judge Daniel Maguire denied Machado’s request for bail. A second defendant, Craig Cutright, had his bail maintained at $500,000 and remains in custody. Three others remain in Yolo County jail without bail. All will return to court on Wednesday for further arraignment or hearings.

The hearing offered the most detailed account yet of how the operation allegedly functioned and how it evaded scrutiny for more than a decade.

The not guilty plea

Machado’s charges include seven counts of second-degree murder, which have also been filed against four other people. Dressed in a plain white t-shirt instead of striped jail garb, Machado only spoke to acknowledge his plea and confirm he was waiving his right to a speedy trial.

Maguire noted that points raised by Machado’s defense team argued their client was not in the same position as other defendants, and that the former lieutenant was more of a “landlord” instead of being actively involved in the operation.

Deputy District Attorney Deanna Hays said a criminal grand jury had identified Machado as an “aider and abettor in implied malice murder.” She said Machado was a “highly-trained law enforcement official” with knowledge of destructive devices, and had procured explosives himself.

Hays said Machado “did nothing” to stop the company Devastating Pyrotechnics from operating on his property, and actually enabled it to grow. She also said Machado allegedly made false and fraudulent statements to law enforcement agencies, fire departments and county staff that allowed the operation to go undetected.

“Using his credibility, using his position and reputation in the community, [Machado] allowed this deadly and dangerous operation, which he knew existed and knew was operating, to exist in its current format,” Hays said, “while all the time representing under the color of law as a legal and licensed operation, knowing it was not.”

Hays also argued Machado was a flight risk and could evade detection given his contacts with law enforcement.

‘Not a violent crime’

Machado’s lawyer David Fischer said while his client is charged with murder, there was no intent to kill and “this is not a violent crime in the traditional sense of the term.” 

Fischer argued Machado was never told that having fireworks on his property was illegal or wrong. He also said the ex-lieutenant’s home was on the property, and was destroyed in the explosion. His wife, Tammy, was home at the time and had to run for her life. The family dog died in the blast.

“If he would have thought that there was any danger whatsoever, he would have shut it down,” Fischer said. “He certainly wouldn't have lived on the property.”

Fisher also noted that Machado, through his attorneys, had been in contact with the District Attorney’s Office and had offered to voluntarily surrender if charges were filed.

"He's known that they're looking at him for murder for a long time," Fisher said. “He has done things that you would expect a person to do that would put up a defense to this. He's hired lawyers. He's remained in the area.” 

Maguire denied the bail request without prejudice, citing Penal Code 1275C, which says the court cannot reduce bail below schedule for serious felonies without an unusual circumstance finding. In Yolo County, the bail schedule for murder of any type is "no bail."

Bail reduction denied

Defense attorney Darryl Stallworth argued his client, Craig Cutright, should have his bail reduced from $500,000 to $100,000. Cutright is the owner of Blackstar Fireworks, the second company that operated out of the Esparto facility along with Devastating Pyrotechnics.

Stallworth said his 61-year-old client has no criminal history, is not a flight risk and cares for his elderly father, who has dementia and Alzheimer’s. He also noted Cutright was not charged with murder, and that most of his charges involve possession and transportation of explosives and conspiracy.

Deputy DA Hays said Cutright had “extensive education and knowledge and training” in explosives and destructive devices, and ran a “bootleg brand” of fireworks that endangered the lives of residents and employees on the property. She also said these fireworks were stored improperly.

Hays explained Cutright was not charged with murder because evidence suggested the initial deadly blast happened where Devastating Pyrotechnics was storing its explosives. Blackstar’s explosives detonated approximately 45 minutes to an hour later, “causing further damage to property and to the surrounding area.”

‘Doordashing explosives’

New details around the explosion emerged in Thursday’s hearing, particularly during Machado’s arraignment.

Fischer, Machado’s defense attorney, said the incident was caused by an “industrial accident” that happened when workers were inserting electronic igniters or fuses into the fireworks. “Something during that process caused the explosion and fire,” he said. 

Other discussions focused on Machado’s level of knowledge about the pyrotechnics on his property, and whether he and others worked to keep authorities in the dark. 

Hays said Machado was “literally Doordashing explosives labeled 1.3G to his front yard,” referring to a category of professional-grade fireworks regulated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). She said there were text messages showing Machado asking to borrow explosives "so that he can shoot them off with his girls or with his wife."

Hays also described text messages where Machado allegedly told the fireworks operators to lower stacks of boxes in the yard “so that people can't see them,” and warned them when inspections were occurring.

Regarding a September 2022 incident, Hays said a truck driver had taken photos of explosives being loaded into an unmarked Sprinter van on the property. The truck driver, a military veteran, reported the activity to the FBI out of concern about a potential “September 11th attack.”

Hays said Machado and Cutright then “formed a conspiracy” to assure the FBI that the operation only involved “safe and sane” fireworks. “The FBI agent had no reason to question a lieutenant with the sheriff's department,” Hays said. “So of course, they didn’t come out.”

Fischer disputed the characterization of the event, calling it “retaliation,” by the truck driver who had been made to wait overnight in his vehicle before unloading the delivery.

Fischer also said Cutright provided a “portfolio of permits” to Machado which included documentation from agencies including ATF and Cal Fire’s Office of the State Fire Marshal. He said Machado offered these documents to the FBI, but “nobody ever came out.”

He also said Machado operated a firearms business out of the property and that officials from ATF or the Department of Justice regularly came for inspections, but never inquired about the fireworks operation.

Fischer also said the fireworks business had been on the property before Machado inherited it from his father-in-law, the late Jerry Matsumura, in 2015 and operated without incident for more than a decade.

A Yolo County civil grand jury report said Matsumura — a former fire commissioner with the Esparto Fire Protection District — was known to put on fireworks displays and described his interest in pyrotechnics as “somewhere between an actual business and a hobby.”

It also said one of Matsumura’s former business partners was Kenneth Chee, the owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics. Chee was arrested in Florida last Thursday and faces multiple charges, including murder.

Hays said prosecutors have evidence of multiple “leases, agreements AKA conspiracies” between Devastating Pyrotechnics and Machado. She said the former lieutenant was receiving “tens of thousands of dollars per month” in cash to lease 83,000 square feet of warehouse space.

Regarding Cutright, Hays said he was located and arrested on the property of the Esparto firehouse. Cutright was a volunteer member of the Esparto Fire Protection District at the time.

Arraignments delayed

Two other defendants — Douglas Tollefsen and Jack Lee — had their arraignments pushed to Wednesday, as their legal counsel remains uncertain. A sixth defendant, Gary Chan, appeared Thursday afternoon and also had his arraignment pushed until Wednesday. All three will remain in custody without bail.

Machado’s wife, Tammy Machado, previously pleaded not guilty. Her next court appearance was set for June 4.

Legislative Democrats on the Assembly Elections Committee advanced a bill on Wednesday aimed at keeping armed officers away from polling places and daycare facilities. AB 2230 would prevent any armed or uniformed individual from being stationed within 100 feet of a voting location or childcare center unless they are responding to a specific public safety incident.

“No parent should fear losing their child to enforcement actions and no voter should be intimidated from participating in our democracy,” said Democratic Assemblymember Anamarie Avila Farias, who introduced the bill.

Deploying ICE agents or armed officers to polling places and vote centers during an election is already illegal, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Yet, Democrats argue the bill is still needed to protect eligible voters from possible intimidation, especially following the widespread immigration crackdown that played out in Southern California last summer.

“The idea that this president would not send ICE agents to intimidate legitimate voters at polling places is laughable,” said Democratic Assemblymember Marc Berman of Palo Alto, who voted in favor of the bill. “This president will do whatever he possibly can to hold onto power.”

Republicans have long argued, without evidence, that voter fraud by non-citizens is a threat to election integrity in California. The committee’s two Republican members opposed the measure. 

“I would hope we would agree that someone who is here illegally shouldn’t be going to a voting center and voting anyway,” said Republican Assemblymember James Gallagher of Yuba City, who serves as the Assembly Elections Committee’s Vice Chair.

Gallagher also questioned whether the state has the authority to regulate federal agents and the feasibility of enforcement.

“We shouldn’t be creating these sort of red zones a hundred feet from places they might not even know is a childcare center or a vote center where they can’t go and they can potentially be prosecuted,” Gallagher added.

The bill passed on a 6-2 party line vote and heads next to the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

As the race for governor ramps up, the nine remaining Democratic and Republican candidates are looking for ways to stand out.

Earlier this week Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa pledged to only serve one term if elected. Saying, “I would rather be transformative and successfully lead our state in the next four years, than be mediocre for the next eight.”

He joined Insight to talk about his one-term pledge and his campaign, as we continue our series of interviews with all nine gubernatorial candidates. 

Villaraigosa was State Assembly Speaker from 1998 to 2000 and was mayor of Los Angeles for 8 years before terming out in 2013.

He has also run for governor before in 2018. He failed to move on from the primary, losing to Gavin Newsom and John Cox. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

You have had a long career in politics at pretty much all levels of government including mayor of Los Angeles and Speaker of the Assembly. How did working in politics shape your understanding of California's issues? 

I first got involved in politics through community organizing. I was 15 years old and got involved in the Black Student Union, the United Mexican American students. I led the walkouts at a time when, on the east side of Los Angeles, we had inferior schools,  second-hand books and desks. Teachers that had been pushed out of other areas and transferred to our schools. I got involved in the farmworker boycott. I was involved in immigrant rights groups even though I didn't speak a lick of Spanish. I had been a community activist, a labor leader for 25 years before I got elected. I was in the civil rights movement, president of the ACLU.

I got elected to the State Assembly as a majority whip and balanced two budgets with a surplus with the Republican governor and a Democratic one. 

In my years as mayor, we went from the most dangerous big city in America, the most violent big city, to one of the safest. A 48 % drop in violent crime by growing our police department, by expanding after-school programs, by dramatically expanding summer youth jobs. 

One out of three schools were failing when I became mayor. By the time I left, it was one out of 10. 

So what I've said to people, right now more than ever, we need a proven problem solver. I think we need somebody to calm the waters. Somebody that can help us address the fact that the state's not affordable. That we have the fourth largest economy in the world with the highest poverty rate.

California is currently facing a saga of budget shortfalls. This is following years of record surpluses during the height of the pandemic. We also have sizable federal funding cuts from the Trump administration as well. How should the state work within its means, while also serving vulnerable populations?

As I said, we've done a lot of good things in the last six years.

But we also have been in deficits continually even during great economic times. Jerry Brown left us with a $300 million surplus. We were living within our means. 

We're looking at, according to the legislative analyst, somewhere between $18 and $35 billion deficits in the next few years. So I've said we have a spending problem very clearly and what we're going to have to do is to tighten our belt, make the tough calls, the way I did when I was speaker.

When I was speaker, we balanced two budgets with a surplus with the middle-class tax cut. I did it with the Republican governor, working across the aisle and the next year I did it with a democratic governor. When I was mayor, they said that LA was going bankrupt during the recession. The worst recession since the 1930s. I said, ‘not under my watch.’ I left LA on a sound financial footing.

That's why I've said I'm pledging to only run one term. I don't want to be one of those people looking so far ahead. You know how it works here. You get elected governor. You refuse or fail to take on the tough problems because you don't want to take on powerful interests and you want to leave popular so that you could run for the next job. I want to focus every day on those tough decisions and not worry about running for the next job. 

We need a leader that'll calm the waters, a leader with a record of delivering real results, a leader who understands that the next administration is going to have to make the tough calls to put us on a sound financial footing. Now, we can't just cut our way out of these problems because the problems are gargantuan. So, why aren't we growing our businesses? Why aren't we pushing out so many businesses in the state?

The fact is we've got businesses hemorrhaging and going to Texas and Florida. We've got high net worth individuals doing the same thing. I want to keep those people here. I want to create the good jobs here. 

There remains a large field of candidates. Nine in total, seven are Democrats and there have been growing concerns that the Democratic vote could be diluted in the primary. Possibly leading to the two Republican candidates advancing to the general.

Your own state party chair Rusty Hicks had called for lower polling candidates to essentially drop out of the race. That would include you. How do you respond to that? 

Noise. It's just noise. They were talking about a candidate who is leading in this race. And is now dropped out of the race. Thirty-five percent of the electorate is undecided.

A big portion of them are Latino. A lot of them are people that are looking for common sense, competence, and a course correction. People haven't really been covering this race, frankly. Donald Trump sucks the air out of the new cycle. And I think now people are starting to focus. 

What happens too much here in Sacramento, is we go with the first shiny object. We’ve had three different scandals. Eric Swalwell is the latest. The first one was Katie Porter. And the way she treated her staff. It went viral. ‘get the F out of my picture.’ The way she stood up and almost walked out of an interview when a reporter asked her a simple question.

And then it was Xavier Becerra, whose chief of staff was indicted for compensating his salary with Becerra's campaign funds. At the end of the day, I think we need proven leadership.

I think we need someone to calm the waters and someone who understands we got to make the state stronger, take on the challenges and then pass the baton to the next generation of leaders. 

Finally, if elected governor, how would you respond to the Trump administration? Would it be in line with Gov. Newsom who has a strong adversarial approach? Or would you take a different tone?

Well, first of all, Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy. He's targeted California. The Palisades and Altadena still haven't gotten all their FEMA money because Donald Trump is holding it up. These tariffs hurt us disproportionately. Tariffs are taxes. Why does it hurt us disproportionately? Because our three biggest trading partners are Mexico, China, and Canada. We export more goods than anyone else. 

The ice raids are an abomination. They're violently arresting people in military style deportations covered from head to toe, unidentified, grabbing children from the arms of their parents in schools, parks, hospitals, and places of business.

And what I've said is, that's unacceptable. I have an ICE plan that says in our state we will supervise the health and safety of people in detention centers, children in detention centers. Warrantless arrest will not be allowed in our state. But at the same time, I'm not going to spend all my time memeing him and making fun of him. He is what he is. We will challenge him.

Who better to do that than someone who came out of the civil rights movement, former president of the ACLU, a labor leader. I've been fighting “the right” my whole life. But we've got to accept that a lot of the problems we have, homelessness, housing, affordability, happened under our watch. And I intend to take on that challenge, even if it means taking on my friends.

Sacramento is looking to rename it’s downtown Cesar Chavez Plaza after sexual assault allegations surfaced against the farm workers rights advocate last month. One such proposal is to rename the plaza after Nathaniel Colley, Sacramento’s first Black attorney.

Colley advocated for public housing and civil rights, earning him the nickname “Mr. Civil Rights of California”.

Throughout the span of his career Colley famously won the case Ming v. Hong , which stated any entity receiving federal funds could not discriminate against certain groups. He also fought for desegregating Sacramento's New Helvetia public housing development, which is now known as Alder Grove on Broadway. 

The Sacramento Historical Society has made recent attempts to fundraise for a statue in his honor in December of 2025, though a location has not been determined.

Larry Lee, president and publisher of Sacramento’s historic Black newspaper The Sacramento Observer, wrote an op-ed detailing why he believes Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown Sacramento should be renamed to honor the historic figure.

CapRadio’s Riley Palmer sat down with Lee to get a better sense of his argument.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You recently wrote an op-ed detailing why Sacramento should rename Cesar Chavez Plaza after Nat Colley, Sacramento’s First Black Attorney. Who is he?

Nathaniel Colley came to Sacramento after graduating from Yale Law School at the top of his class. He was an attorney that fought very passionately about housing rights and equity at a time when Sacramento was very segregated.

There were racial covenants on the books that prevented African Americans from living in certain parts throughout the city. He not only worked on housing justice for local residents and those that were looking for places to live, but also worked really hard to break down barriers related to public housing.

He’s considered “Mr. Civil Rights of California”. He's the one that, at the time that it needed, was a voice that was unapologetically focused on breaking down those barriers and could do it at a level that every person could understand.

Can you explain why you think the plaza should be named after Nat Colley, as opposed to sticking with honoring farmworkers rights in Sacramento’s downtown?

I understand tremendously how important it is to give energy to the farm workers movement, particularly here in Northern California. I'm all in on supporting that.

I know historically we have talked for a long time about honoring Nat Colley and it hasn’t gone anywhere. 

There's been conversations about museums and buildings, statues and parks, for decades. Nothing has happened. The reason why I wrote that piece was because I know our city is facing a time where we're looking at naming something, and for me naming that plaza, having a statue there that is right next to and facing the historic city hall symbolizes something extremely great and very important for our community.

Nat Colley wasn't just an attorney who just practiced in Sacramento. He really helped give Sacramento the culture that it has of being a diverse city. We've been lauded as one of the nation's most diverse cities in the country and he's the one that is responsible for that. 

In your piece, you make that argument that we shouldn’t shy away from idolizing influential people, we just need to pick the right ones. Can you elaborate on that?

?I understand the hesitancy of naming it after a person. I understand the hesitancy of naming it after a man or any of those things. There have been some gross errors in judgment when naming certain monuments, parks and others, after people that we don't really know or know much about their history.

The difference as to why I say we need to name them after the right people, and why Nat Colley is that right person, is because his career has been above reproach. It has been well documented. It has been illustrated. He has been counsel to presidents and Supreme Court Justices. He is the type of person that if you are going to name anything after, he's the type of person that you need to name something after.

Q4: In your mind, how do you envision Nat Colley Plaza? Realistically, how do you think the city could finance redoing the plaza given its budgetary constraints?

?I recognize the financial challenges that the city is under, so nobody's looking to spend more money than we have. 

I could see a place that pays honor and tribute to someone who fought his entire life for the equity and equality of people throughout this region and throughout this country. The work that he did reverberates throughout the country, so a physical statue is one of the first things that I would like to see. Obviously some sort of naming of the plaza is something else. ?

I went to San Jose State and there is a statue in honor of Tommy Smith and John Carlos, but there's another part of the platform that is designed for the students to stand up on and to speak and to address what are some of their concerns of the day. I could see something like that, which would pay tribute to this great legal mind who really did change the trajectory of Sacramento's history and this nation's history. 

?There's been an effort to try to start a fund with the Sacramento History Foundation related to a statue honoring that. There hasn't been a place designed to put it, but there are credible people that have been fundraising for that.

I would encourage people to look for that and, and find out a little bit more about this great legal mind that really did change the course of Sacramento, California, and this nation's history.

California officials are urging residents about an upcoming deadline for pandemic-era inflation relief debit cards which are set to expire on April 30th.

The Middle Class Tax Refund (MCTR) was a one-time state payment to Californians between October 2022 and January 2023. Payments ranging from $200 to $1,050 were issued to help ease financial burdens caused by an inflation surge and rising gas prices.

"We know it's expensive right now, and California is putting money back into your pockets to help,” said Governor Gavin Newsom in an Oct. 2022 press release.  "We're sending out refunds worth over a thousand dollars to help families pay for everything from groceries to gas."

With the MCTR program coming to a close, $400 million in unclaimed funds will be returned to the state’s general fund. 

In total, $9.2 billion was issued to 32 million California taxpayers and their dependents, according to the State of California Franchise Tax Board (FTB). 

Many payments were issued through direct deposits with 7.2 million Californians receiving $4 billion. However, some people were issued debit cards. Around 9.6 million debit cards were sent out with a value of $5.2 billion, 90% of which have been activated. 

The FTB estimates less than half of activated cards show a zero balance, though the combined value of the remaining balance is around $240 million, or less than 5% of total funds.

Cardholders are urged to spend the funds or transfer it to their banks by the deadline. 

Anyone looking to replace a lost or stolen card is out of luck. April 8 was the last day to make a request in order to allow time to print and mail the cards before the deadline. FTB said it sent two reminder letters in the spring of 2023 and 2024 to those who hadn’t activated their cards.

For more information or questions regarding inflation relief debit cards, people are directed to contact the card vendor, Money Network. 

Six people indicted in connection with the deadly July 1, 2025 explosion at a fireworks storage facility in Esparto have made their first appearances in Yolo County court.

The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office filed dozens of charges against eight people in total. Prosecutors accuse them of running a “decade-long conspiracy” that turned the Esparto property into the “Northern California hub for an illegal enterprise that imports and sells illegal explosives on the black market.”

The most serious charges are seven counts of second-degree murder, one for each victim in the explosion, filed against five defendants — Samuel Machado, Kenneth Chee, Jack Lee, Gary Chan and Douglas Tollefsen. Three others — Tammy Machado, Craig Cutright and Ronald Botelho III — face a variety of other charges.

The Machados, who were both employees of the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office at the time of the explosion, owned the property where the storage facility was located. Chee is the owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, one of the companies that operated out of the site.

He was identified by prosecutors as the leader, alongside Lee and Tollefson with Chan’s support. Cutright and Botelho were identified as associates, with the former also owning Blackstar Fireworks — another company that operated out of the Esparto property.

The Machados, Lee, Cutright and Tollefsen made their first court appearance on Monday. 

Tammy Machado pleaded not guilty to charges levied against her, while the others did not enter a plea. Chan appeared in court on Tuesday after being arrested in Santa Clara County last week. All six are set to return to court on Thursday for arraignment or other hearings.

Chee was arrested at Disney World in Florida last Thursday on a fugitive from justice charge. He briefly appeared in Orange County court Friday, where a judge told Chee he would likely be meeting with an extradition team this week. 

Botelho is in custody in Del Norte County where he was arrested in December in connection to the Esparto investigation.

District Attorney Jeff Reisig also told the Sacramento Bee he had requested both the California Attorney General’s Office and federal Department of Justice to get involved in the investigation, but these requests were declined.

Michael Vitello is a Distinguished Professor of Law at McGeorge School of Law. He spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about the legal maneuvering behind this case. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

Five people were charged with second-degree murder. Was that a surprise for you? 

It actually was. When you hear about a death that occurs from an accident usually you think about tort damages, private right of action or involuntary manslaughter. But murder is not always intentional killing. There is another form of murder… where “malice aforethought” is not really [that], but instead it is acting with such extreme indifference to human life. It's a subtle distinction between the lack of care that might be involuntary manslaughter, and such extreme indifference that it becomes murder.

That would seemingly be the theory here. A million pounds of explosives… [in] the indictment there will be allegations that it was improperly maintained.

The DA could have gone before a judge, but instead impaneled a criminal grand jury. What is behind this approach?

Very often the use of a grand jury in California is [because] an extensive investigation might tip off people’s hands… grand jury secrecy is a way to avoid publicizing what's going on. In the federal system to bring a criminal charge, you need a grand jury, that's in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, but states are not obligated to do that. So it's done fairly rarely. This would be the kind of case, such a big case where you would bring so many witnesses forward, the information doesn't come out until much later. 

Prosecutors are alleging that behind this deadly blast is a decade-long criminal conspiracy and an illegal black-market enterprise. How do they go about proving that in court? And how might the defense argue otherwise? 

There are so many ways in which you can prove it. One of the more interesting things will be who they're going to get to testify. I don't know whether they're going to do it in this case… but very often what you do is you get people who may have had a marginal role in the case and they start to provide information because you have some leverage. 

You might suggest, “maybe we won't bring criminal charges against you,” or maybe there's some simple fact witnesses who are perfectly willing to come forward. It’s very hard to know in the abstract how they'll prove it, but it's a massive conspiracy, a lot of people involved and there's so many interesting strategic choices. 

For example, are you going to bring this all as one huge case in a single courtroom, which then adds lots of problems for managing the case? Are you going to separate the charges, maybe start with low-level offenders, and then build [and] climb the ladder? 

Given that this is such a high-profile case, in a relatively small and rural county, do you think there's a possibility the trial might get moved elsewhere because of this attention?

It could. There's a fairly heavy burden on the part of the defendants if they want to move the case. They have to really show that the publicity is so extensive that they can't really impanel a fair jury. 

Look, there's some crimes where everybody's heard of it. So what they have to do when they're trying to seat the jury [is] talk to individual jurors about whether they would be biased because of the publicity. If merely having heard about the case was enough to disqualify the jury or to move the case, you'd never have a trial. Is this a winning argument? I don't know whether they'll show enough information to move the case. 

Do you think they may charge other people in the future?

You suspect that there are other people involved. How broad you want to make your charges, how many marginal players you want to bring in is always a strategic, hard choice. One reason to bring in additional people who may have had a role is to give them some quid pro quo in making sure they become cooperating witnesses. But those are things that are just not going to be out in the public for a long time. 

Do you think a plea deal will be on the table for some of the people charged in this case?

Clearly for some. Way over 90% of all criminal cases are resolved by guilty pleas, and it really depends on so many factors. Very often if you are one of the most at-risk defendants who is not likely to be given a decent plea deal, and you have the resources to hire really high-powered attorneys, your incentive to go to trial goes way up. It's so hard to tell at this point. 

I would think that there might even be some interest on the part of the DA's office to bring this case at least against some of the defendants, because it reassures the public to some degree that police and prosecutors and other investigators are really doing their job if something as horrible as this has taken place. Public trials have a certain virtue.

The DA told the Sacramento Bee he contacted the state Department of Justice and federal officials to conduct an investigation in Esparto, but they declined. Does that strike you as odd, given the level of this disaster and how many agencies were involved?

It’s an unusual case, it’s so hard to generalize. I think probably the federal government for a number of reasons would not be all that interested in getting involved because state resources are there. And the federal government, as you may have noticed, has some other law enforcement priorities these days. Something that can be contained to one area of California just doesn't raise the same national interest. Very often both federal and state prosecutors can move forward on a case, but there is a good bit of incentive not for both of them to be involved. 

Having heard some of the news reporting, I think Jeff Reisig was concerned maybe about the overwhelming amount of work that had to be done by a relatively small office. Yolo County is not the largest district attorney's office in the world by any means. Watching the various participants [and investigators] from the DA's office, they're working hard. It’s no wonder he wanted to look for some additional help.