{"id":49057,"date":"2026-04-13T01:14:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=49057"},"modified":"2026-04-13T01:14:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:14:04","slug":"sheriffs-lieutenant-facing-murder-charges-for-deadly-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=49057","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff&#8217;s Lieutenant Facing Murder Charges for Deadly Explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">A former northern California sheriff\u2019s department lieutenant is one of five people who have been charged with murder after a powerful explosion at an illegal fireworks factory on his land killed seven warehouse workers in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">\u201cSamuel Machado, a former lieutenant with the Yolo County Sheriff\u2019s Office, had one million pounds of fireworks on his property at the time of the blast and used his status as a law enforcement officer to shield the illegal operation from investigators, according to prosecutors,\u201d the <em>Daily Mail<\/em> reported Saturday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"\/>\n<p>Machado was placed on administrative leave and has since resigned after last summer\u2019s explosion in Esparto, about 40 miles northwest of Sacramento.<\/p>\n<p>The blast reportedly could be felt up to 20 miles away. It also destroyed a family\u2019s farm and caused a 78-acre grassfire.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, the companies behind the scheme\u00a0\u201callegedly manufactured fireworks so powerful that they didn\u2019t even qualify as fireworks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">The companies,\u00a0Blackstar Fireworks, Inc. and\u00a0Devastating Pyrotechnics LLC, stored the explosives at Machado\u2019s property, according to a 30-count grand jury indictment announced by the Yolo County district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a9d\"\/>\n<iframe title=\"Yolo County DA Files Murder Charges in Deadly Esparto Fireworks Explosion\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HfLh7CcSt7g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>According to the <em>Daily Mail\u2019s<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-15725115\/Sheriffs-lieutenant-charged-murder-one-MILLION-pounds-fireworks-exploded-deadly-fireball.html\">reporting<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Among the dead workers were Christopher Goltiao Bocog, 45, and Neil Justin Li, 41, both from San Francisco; Joel Jeremias Melendez, 28, of Sacramento; and Carlos Javier Rodriguez-Mora, 43, from San Andreas. Two brothers\u00a0\u2014 Jesus Manaces Ramos, just 18, and Jhony Ernesto Ramos, 22, of San Pablo\u00a0\u2014 were also killed in the explosion, along with Angel Mathew Voller, 18, from Stockton.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>An official within the county Building Services Department received a tip in 2022 that Machado\u2019s property was being used for an illegal fireworks operation, but no action was taken, according to the <em>Mail.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmails show that officials said they would \u2018tread lightly\u2019 in their search of the area because it was owned by \u2018deputies that we work with\u2019,\u201d the <em>Mail<\/em> added.<\/p>\n<p>The indictment alleged that this was a decade-long conspiracy that \u2018turned the property of a former Sheriff\u2019s Lieutenant Sam Machado into the Northern California hub for an illegal enterprise that imports illegal explosives on the black market,\u2019\u201d according to Deputy District Attorney Clara Nabity.<\/p>\n<p>Devastating Pyrotechnics CEO and owner Kenneth Chee, operations manager Jack Lee, and business partner Gary Chan Jr. were charged with murder, as was Douglas Tollefsen of Blackstar Fireworks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"a9d-pre\">A total of seven people were charged for their alleged role in the July 2025 explosion and were arrested late last week, District Attorney Jeff Reisig said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a9d adSo\"\/>\n<p>The enterprise allegedly imported more than 11 million pounds of explosives, with one million stored in a 5,000-square-foot warehouse and more than 50 containers near the Machado home when the explosion occurred, prosecutors\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/crime\/article315363201.html\">said.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Machado\u2019s wife, Tammy, was employed in an administrative role at the Sheriff\u2019s Office when the explosion occurred and has since resigned from the department.<\/p>\n<p>She was separately charged with child and animal endangerment for allegedly storing illegal fireworks on their property, including \u201ca substantial volume of explosives \u2026 stored adjacent to a family pool,\u201d Nabity said.<\/p>\n<p>The sweeping indictments also pile on a string of additional charges, including maintaining an unsafe workplace, unlawfully starting a fire, insurance fraud, child endangerment, animal cruelty, tax fraud, and possession of illegal assault weapons.<\/p>\n<p>Families of the victims have filed a $35 million lawsuit against the county and state fireworks regulators, accusing them of negligence for allowing the illegal operation to continue unchecked.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Below-Line-Hollywood-Crime-Novel\/dp\/1956763481\/ref=sr_1_7?crid=KQ1QYVPX21QM&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.r_NVW3uv7PgjANhquB5aMnnQgiThgebLb0CRzDfYT44fKy0b05JBB4VC_i9Gn5wLkYfbUov8wILZGdttzIFUIG-fEWOUlaO2GoLT-s2L5uAKUSvtkk33hPdsM0w3Gq7Ntwy9rZi_aFmGvXTTcxRMkYXp_YxwyyYaoQ6sUElRgywcmEZXAjgg27VLy52prx1W7ejqSpUnZ6lZhHddZ87IR7qrJiWRb6Td_mzJCwazhcQ.5Vd2xzVJKDyQdeutrrvsihk3b6tua570r1NFGfnDTs0&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=below+the+line&amp;qid=1744394320&amp;sprefix=below+the+lin%2Caps%2C132&amp;sr=8-7\"><em>Below the Line<\/em><\/a><em> and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lowellcauffiel.com\/\">lowellcauffiel.com<\/a> <em>for more.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/crime\/2026\/04\/12\/sheriffs-lieutenant-facing-murder-charges-for-deadly-explosion-in-illegal-fireworks-factory-kept-on-his-farm\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former northern California sheriff\u2019s department lieutenant is one of five people who have been charged with murder after a powerful explosion at an illegal fireworks&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}