WOODLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Seven people have been arrested in connection with a fireworks warehouse explosion in Northern California that killed seven people and injured two others last July, authorities said Friday.<\/p>\n
The deadly fireworks explosion near the small farming community of Esparto in Yolo County sparked a massive fire and led to nearby Fourth of July celebrations being called off.<\/p>\n
The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office is expected to announce the indictments for those arrested at a news conference Friday. Several of those arrested have been booked on murder charges, according to jail records.<\/p>\n
Those arrested include Samuel Machado and Tammy Machado, who owned the warehouse about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Sacramento. At the time, Samuel Machado was a lieutenant with the Yolo County Sheriff\u2019s Office and his wife, Tammy Machado, was a non-sworn administrative employee. They were put on leave after the incident.<\/p>\n
Kenneth Chee, owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, whose illegal fireworks were being stored at the warehouse, 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.<\/p>\n
Authorities also arrested Jack Lee, the operations manager for Devastating Pyrotechnic, and Gary Chan Jr., whose name is on the company\u2019s federal license, the television station reported.<\/p>\n
Craig Cutright, the owner of Blackstar Fireworks, which operated at the Esparto property owned by the Machados, was also among those arrested. Cutright, was a volunteer firefighter for the Esparto Fire District and was also listed as an employee of Devastating Pyrotechnics, KCRA-TV reported.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WOODLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Seven people have been arrested in connection with a fireworks warehouse explosion in Northern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27902,5167,7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-261330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-ap-u-s-news","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-headlines","12":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}