Five people charged with murder in deadly Northern California fireworks warehouse explosion
Five people have been charged with murder in a deadly Northern California explosion at an illegal fireworks warehouse that killed seven people and shook a tiny farming community, authorities said Friday.
The charges stem from a grand jury indictment related to the July 1 explosion that injured two others, Yolo County Deputy District Attorney Clara Nabity said. One of the people charged with murder is Samuel Machado, who was a Yolo County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant at the time of the explosion. He illegally stored more than 1 million pounds (453,000 kilograms) of fireworks at his property and used his position at the sheriff’s office to evade scrutiny as the operation grew, she said.
The explosion near the community of Esparto, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Sacramento, sparked a massive fire and led to nearby Fourth of July celebrations being called off.
“Samuel Machado’s participation included using his role as a trusted lieutenant to help shield the conspiracy as it expanded, and the expansion was significant,” Nabity said, adding that the warehouse went from having 13 fireworks storage containers in 2015 to 50 last year.
It was not immediately clear if Machado has an attorney who can speak on his behalf. A telephone number listed for him went answered Friday.
Machado’s sprawling 5,000-square-foot (465-square-meters) warehouse property was used to store and sell fireworks by other men indicted in the case.
Nabity said a total of eight people face 30 charges in the case, including murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, possession of illegal assault weapons, illegal explosives possession, insurance fraud, child endangerment and animal cruelty.
All those charged are scheduled to be arraigned in Yolo County on Monday.
Machado’s wife, Tammy Machado, was also arrested Thursday but was released after posting bail. She was a non-sworn administrative employee at the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office at the time of the explosion. Both Samuel and Tammy Machado were put on leave after the incident. She faces charges of mortgage fraud, filing a willfully wrong tax return and endangering a child by storing illegal explosives next to a family pool, according to the indictment.
Others indicted include Kenneth Chee, owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, whose illegal fireworks were being stored at Machado’s warehouse, has also been charged with murder and was arrested in Florida. He appeared in a Florida courtroom Friday and was told he will be extradited to California within the week, KCRA-TV reported.
Authorities also arrested Jack Lee, the operations manager for Devastating Pyrotechnic, and Gary Chan Jr., whose name is on the company’s federal license. Both also face murder charges. The fifth person charged with murder is Douglas Tollefsen, who was arrested in Northern California but has yet to be taken to a Yolo County jail, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said. Tollefsen stored and sold fireworks at Machado’s warehouse, according to the indictment.
“This is not a case just about fireworks,” Nabity said. “They are devices that have so much more explosive fireworks than the law allows that they can’t be considered fireworks.”
Machado, Chee, Lee, Chan and Tollefsen were arrested Thursday along with Craig Cutright, the owner of Blackstar Fireworks, which operated at the Esparto property. Cutright, was a volunteer firefighter for the Esparto Fire District and was also listed as an employee of Devastating Pyrotechnics.
One of Cutright’s employees, Ronald Botelho III, has been in custody since December. More than a dozen new charges were filed against him Thursday, jail records show.
The grand jury concluded that the initial blast caused the death of seven people, Nabity said. Those killed included four workers: 18-year-old Jesus Ramos and his 22-year-old Jhony Ramos, of San Pablo, California; 28-year-old Joel Melendez, of Sacramento, and 43-year-old Carlos Javier Rodriguez-Mora, of San Andreas, California. Christopher Goltiao Bocog and Neil Li of San Francisco and Angel Mathew Voller, of Stockton, California, were also killed.
People living nearby described the blast being so strong that it blew open the doors of homes.
Nisa Gutierrez told the Sacramento CBS affiliate KOVR-TV that she and her daughter were in their yard and were nearly knocked over as their pony and goats scattered.
“We hear like a big boom, and feel the wave,” Gutierrez said. “I thought it was a bomb.”
After the explosion, officials in nearby Sutter and Yuba counties announced they would find alternatives for Fourth of July celebrations after their fireworks were destroyed in the blast.