A Yolo County judge heard arguments Monday on a request to limit public statements in the Esparto fireworks explosion case, as five defendants are scheduled to return to court this summer.
Defense attorneys for six of the eight people charged in connection with the July 2025 blast appeared before Judge Daniel Maguire on Monday afternoon.
The hearing addressed several matters beyond a bail ruling for former sheriff’s lieutenant Samuel Machado, including a proposed gag order and a dispute over evidence pulled from the defendants’ phones.
Gag order
A gag order, formally called a pretrial publicity protective order, restricts what certain people can say publicly about a case before trial.
Courts can use them to limit statements by attorneys, witnesses, law enforcement and others involved in the case. The goal is to prevent public comments from reaching and influencing potential jurors.
Motions for the orders were filed by the Yolo County District Attorney’s office last month and apply to all defendants charged in the Esparto case.
They seek to prohibit “certain Yolo County employees and employees of other local and state agencies, Court staff, law enforcement officers, all other potential witnesses, attorneys for both sides, and/or agents of the attorneys from making certain extrajudicial statements related to this case.”
An additional document filed by the DA’s office pointed to a May 15 article in The San Francisco Standard as evidence supporting the need for the order.
In the article, defense attorneys Rob Gorman and Douglas Horngrad spoke about a May 2026 California Supreme Court decision in the case of People v. Richard Curtis Morris Jr. This ruling says defendants must be directly involved in committing the act of murder itself, not just the “underlying felony.”
The Morris case involves first-degree murder. Five defendants in the Esparto case face seven counts each of second-degree murder.
Horngrad, representing Kenneth Chee, told the publication the ruling “supports the defense’s position, in Mr. Chee’s case, that there is insufficient showing to support a felony murder charge.” Chee is the owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, one of the two companies operating out of the Esparto site.
Gorman, representing defendant Jack Lee, told the Standard the Morris ruling meant his client could only be convicted of murder if “[he] is in that yard helping put together fireworks when the explosion occurred, and my guy survived.”
Gorman said Lee was thousands of miles away from Esparto when the explosion happened. Lee is the operations manager of Devastating Pyrotechnics.
The DA’s office said these comments were examples of "extrajudicial public statements” that “risk prejudicing the adjudicative proceeding by sowing misunderstanding and publicizing mischaracterizations of the prosecution and relevant law.”
The orders do not restrict news coverage itself, and the prosecution's proposed order in this case does not seek to restrain the media or the victims' families.
Arguments in court
In court, Deputy District Attorney Deanna Hays pointed to two articles published last month in The Sacramento Bee as additional evidence for a gag order.
One looked into whether Cal Fire investigators obstructed a Cal/OSHA investigation of the Esparto explosion, and included statements from employees in both agencies.
The second story was about the DA’s office request for gag orders. It referenced the Standard article and included additional comments from Gorman.
Hays said the order would not aim to restrict “any type of media coverage or media activity in this case,” or to prevent “any agency or person from making statements about publicly available information.”
“Ultimately we all want the same thing, which is to preserve the defendants’ right to a fair trial,” she said. “We just really believe that this case needs to be tried and advocated for here in this courtroom, and not in the press.”
David Fischer, who represents Machado, pushed back. He argued the District Attorney’s Office created the problem by holding an April news conference that he said put out inaccurate information. He said no one on the defense had held a news conference in response.
“The whole case gets kicked off by this press conference, putting out misinformation, and then they file this motion after nobody's done anything,” Fischer said.
Fischer and other defense attorneys argued the order would restrict their right to publicly respond and correct the public record. They also said the request was premature, as no trial date has been set.
Representatives from Cal Fire and Cal/OSHA also opposed the order, telling Maguire it would interfere with their regulatory and public safety duties.
Maguire did not rule on the gag order Monday. He said he first needs to determine which legal standard applies, noting there may be a split in California case law over how high a bar must be met to issue such an order.
Maguire said he expects to issue a written decision in about two weeks.
Future court dates
Maguire also heard arguments over how prosecutors may review data taken from roughly 20 electronic devices seized from the defendants. Defense attorneys want a third-party expert to screen the devices for attorney-client privileged material before prosecutors review them. Prosecutors say they need a process that lets them screen out privileged material and begin reviewing the rest.
The judge ordered that each defendant be given a copy of the data from their own devices by June 15. He set a hearing on the screening process for July 1.
Several of the defendants are due back in court in the coming days. Douglas Tollefsen, identified as a “longtime associate” of Chee, is scheduled for a bail motion Friday morning, and a hearing on legal representation for Gary Chan Jr. is set for the same day. Chan, Lee’s half brother who held federal explosives licenses, is expected to be represented by new counsel.
Samuel Machado will return Wednesday for a hearing on the source of his bail funds. His wife Tammy Machado, who is also a former sheriff’s office employee and was charged in a separate indictment, is scheduled for a hearing Thursday, June 4.
Lee, Chee and Craig Cutright, the owner of Blackstar Fireworks, are next due in court for a status conference July 30. Attorneys for the three men said they expect to enter not guilty pleas at that hearing, which would start the clock for motions to challenge the grand jury indictment.
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