Yolo County supervisors request DOJ probe into deadly Esparto fireworks explosion
The board wrote that while Cal Fire's Office of the State Fire Marshal has led the investigation, the involvement of two Yolo County Sheriff's Office employees who own the property where the explosion occurred has fueled public concern over the integrity of the process.
Cal Fire has received assistance in the investigation from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal-OSHA) and local agencies like the Yolo County District Attorney's office and sheriff's office.
"While we do not question the ability and integrity of the District Attorney to support the CAL FIRE and CAL OSHA investigations, ensuring the public's confidence in the investigation and outcomes is of critical importance to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors and our community," the letter said.
The Esparto property was owned by Sheriff's Lieutenant Sam Machado and his wife, who works in an administrative role in the sheriff's office. Both have since been placed on administrative leave.
The site was also tied to two pyrotechnics companies, Blackstar Fireworks and Devastating Pyrotechnics, whose business licenses listed the same address where the incident occurred.
The state fire marshal has since suspended the pyrotechnics licenses of Kenneth Chee, owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, and Craig Cutright, owner of Blackstar Fireworks and a volunteer firefighter with the Esparto Fire Department.
The letter states that Yolo County Sheriff Tom Lopez and District Attorney Jeff Reisig also support the request. The DOJ has not yet publicly responded.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
5 minutes ago
- Fox News
How Trump's 'no shrinking violets' DOJ is digging in on Schiff's mortgage dealings as legal peril looms
The Department of Justice is likely digging into Sen. Adam Schiff's mortgage paperwork trail stretching back to a Maryland home purchase from the early 2000s as it weighs whether it has an airtight case to potentially prosecute the longtime political foe of President Donald Trump, according to a Cornell Law School professor. "The one thing they don't want to do is to bring a case that fails," William Jacobson told Fox Digital in a Zoom interview, referring to the DOJ potentially investigating Schiff's alleged mortgage fraud. Jacobson is a clinical professor and the Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell. "Either it fails legally, or it fails in court. They don't want to lose that case if you're going against a major political opponent. And that's part of the calculation that will take place." Jacobson talked about the ins and outs of the Democratic California senator's potential legal woes following the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency sending a letter to the DOJ this year claiming that Schiff falsified banking and property documents by listing two homes – on two separate coasts – as his primary residence out of an effort to allegedly get more favorable loans. The DOJ has not yet said whether it would take up the case, but is likely digging into Schiff's paper trail as it weighs whether to move forward, Jacobson explained. "I would expect that the first thing the Department of Justice is going to do is to gather documents. There will be a paper trail here. There will be many things that are documentable, and not 'he said, she said,' as to where Adam Schiff was actually living," he said. As investigators go through the documents, they will ask questions such as: What was his actual primary residence? What did he sign? Who was present when he signed? Did he have conversations with people about it? The law professor, who founded the popular conservative legal blog Legal Insurrection, said that there will likely be a "significant paper trail" to go through due to the case stretching back more than 20 years and due to companies keeping tight records following the 2008 financial crash. "Mortgage companies preserve all of these things because of the financial crisis and other things. They have to maintain these records. . . . And I would expect that that would be the first thing the Department of Justice would look at is the paper trail and the circumstantial evidence as to where Adam Schiff was, in fact, living," he continued, remarking that there are "no shrinking violets" at the Trump DOJ. Schiff first fell under scrutiny this year in May, when the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a letter to the Department of Justice sounding the alarm that, in "multiple instances," Schiff allegedly "falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, impacting payments from 2003-2019 for a Potomac, Maryland-based property." At the heart of the issue are two properties purchased by Schiff: a home purchased in 2003 in Potomac, Maryland, for $870,000 under a Fannie Mae-backed mortgage agreement for $610,000 at a rate of 5.625% over a term of 30 years, and a 2009 Burbank, Calif., condo. Schiff reaffirmed the Potomac property as his principal residence in mortgage refinancing paperwork in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013, according to the FHFA letter to the DOJ. Over the same time frame, Schiff took a homeowner's tax exemption on the Burbank condo while also claiming that home as his primary residence for a $7,000 reduction off of the 1% property tax, FHFA Director William Pulte wrote in the letter to the DOJ, citing media reports. In 2023, the letter continued, a spokesperson for Schiff asserted that "Adam's primary residence is Burbank, California, and will remain so when he wins the Senate seat." FHFA is an independent federal agency that oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. In 2020, Schiff refinanced his mortgage, listing his Maryland home as his secondary residence. Trump publicly slammed Schiff over his mortgages in July on Truth Social, accusing him of fraud and putting the issue back on the public's radar following 2023 news reports on Schiff's homes in Maryland and California. "I have always suspected Shifty Adam Schiff was a scam artist," Trump posted to Truth Social Tuesday. "And now I learn that Fannie Mae's Financial Crimes Division have concluded that Adam Schiff has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud." "Adam Schiff said that his primary residence was in MARYLAND to get a cheaper mortgage and rip off America, when he must LIVE in CALIFORNIA because he was a Congressman from CALIFORNIA. I always knew Adam Schiff was a Crook. The FRAUD began with the refinance of his Maryland property on February 6, 2009, and continued through multiple transactions until the Maryland property was correctly designated as a second home on October 13, 2020." Schiff has repeatedly denied and brushed off the accusations, including refusing to answer questions from Fox News Digital about his alleged mortgage fraud when confronted in the nation's capital on July 16. "Since I led his first impeachment, Trump has repeatedly called for me to be arrested for treason. So in a way, I guess this is a bit of a letdown. And this baseless attempt at political retribution won't stop me from holding him accountable. Not by a long shot," he posted to X in July following Trump's initial Truth Social attack on Schiff's mortgages. "This is just Donald Trump's latest attempt at political retaliation against his perceived enemies. So it is not a surprise, only how weak this false allegation turns out to be. And much as Trump may hope, this smear will not distract from his Epstein files problem," he added. Schiff's primary residence discrepancies first hit the public's radar in 2023, when Schiff launched an ultimately successful campaign to serve in the Senate after decades in the U.S. House. CNN published the first news article detailing that Schiff had claimed the Maryland home as a primary residence while also taking a homeowner's tax exemption on the Burbank condo. The campaign said at the time that Schiff's two properties were listed as primary residences "for loan purposes because they are both occupied throughout the year and to distinguish them from a vacation property." Trump and Schiff have long been political foes, which was underscored during Trump's first administration when Schiff served as the lead House manager during the first impeachment trial against Trump in 2020, and when Schiff repeatedly promoted claims that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Days after Trump first posted about Schiff's mortgages in Maryland and California, the president's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified documents that reportedly show "overwhelming evidence" that then-President Barack Obama and his national security team laid the groundwork for what would be the yearslong Trump–Russia collusion probe after Trump's election win against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. Schiff was an incredibly vocal lawmaker amid the Russian collusion claims, most notably when the House censured him in 2023 over his promotion that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Schiff served in the House representing California from 2001 to 2024, when he was sworn-in as a senator after his successful 2024 campaign to serve in the nation's upper chamber. Schiff served as the ranking member of the House intelligence committee from 2015 to 2019, before becoming the committee's chair from 2019 to 2023. In that role, he was kept up to date on classified materials surrounding the Russian collusion claims. Trump also recently invoked Gabbard's alleged revelations while attacking Schiff over his mortgages in another Truth Social post. Trump went on to ominously warn during a White House event last week that Schiff has "a lot of other things far worse than" his mortgage inquiry. "He defrauded banks and insurance companies and the federal government, but it's, very simple. It's mortgage loan fraud ... But he has a lot of other things far worse than that. So no Adam Schiff, they have him 100% on mortgage fraud," Trump said last Tuesday from the White House while hosting a meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Jacobson said that Democrats have boxed themselves out of attempting to claim that Trump is targeting a political foe over the mortgage criminal referral because the party had spent the last decade launching "lawfare" at Trump. "One of the ironies here that I think everybody understands, is that Democrats launched a lawfare campaign against Donald Trump. And it didn't just start once he took office this year. It's been going on for a decade," he said. "They have used every tool available to try to destroy him, including through criminal prosecutions, including through federal investigations. . . . They've really tried to get him. And for them now to say, 'oh, just because we did that to you for 10 years doesn't give you the right to do it to us.' Legally, that's sound. I mean, you have to prove your case in court. But politically, I don't think that's going to fly. Democrats screaming that Donald Trump is weaponizing prosecutors against them is not going to really impress a lot of people." Jacobson speculated that there will likely be more woes for Schiff in the coming days, but that potential legal cases hinge on prosecutors. "We don't know where this is going ahead, of course, but it does appear that Adam Schiff is in the sights of Donald Trump. No surprise about that, because Donald Trump has been in the sights of Adam Schiff for a decade. So, I fully expect that there will be more here. The question is going to be really though, once it moves into the realm of prosecution, what are the prosecutors going to do?" The Department of Justice declined comment when approached about potentially investigating and taking up the Schiff case. Schiff's office did not respond to Fox Digital's request for comment.
Fox News
34 minutes ago
- Fox News
Dad blames sanctuary city policies after twice-deported illegal migrant kills daughter
California dad Anatoly Varfolomeev criticizes sanctuary city policies that contributed to his daughter's death at the hands of a twice-deported illegal immigrant.
WIRED
2 hours ago
- WIRED
From Cheating Exposés to Dating Background Checks, TikTok Detectives Are Thriving
Jul 28, 2025 7:00 AM Private investigator influencers are staking out suspected cheaters and vetting dates for their clients, posting the tea for their followers. But there's a dark side to morality-based surveillance. Illustration: Jacqui VanLiew; Getty Images It's a dark November night in Los Angeles. The car in front is lit by its rear lights only. After driving for 20 miles, it stops, suddenly, in the middle of the street. A man in a dark t-shirt gets out and runs towards an apartment. A woman appears and jumps up, wrapping her legs around him. They start making out before going to get tacos and, later, returning to her place. At 6 a.m. the next morning his car is still outside the woman's apartment. A few hours later, they emerge holding hands, heading to a local farmer's market where they kiss and hug publicly. The whole time a private investigator named Stephanie A., who goes by Your Fav Investigator online, has been sending videos of the interaction to the man's wife, who she says hired her to sleuth for suspected infidelity. Once presented with the video evidence, Stephanie says she never heard from the wife again, but the video remains on her social feeds. While the man's face is obscured and no personal information is revealed, the video of his misdoings has been 'liked' by over 85,000 people on Stephanie's Instagram. Infidelity stake-out videos on Instagram and TikTok titled 'Trust your gut… CASED CLOSED!' and 'Pickleball or cheating?' are her bread and butter. 'I love everything about [being a PI]' Stephanie, 39, explains over Zoom. 'The investigation prior to the case, the adrenaline rush during surveillance. I really enjoy helping people find peace of mind or clarity in their situations.' She did not want her last name used due to the nature of her work. 'It's like riding shotgun into someone else's drama.' With a family history in law enforcement, and a background in loss prevention, Stephanie is at the vanguard of a new wave of very online private investigators, often focused on outing cheaters, with each of them sharing the ins and outs of the PI life to massive TikTok followings in the US and beyond. And true crime-obsessed audiences are eating it up. 'People love the tea. It's like riding shotgun into someone else's drama,' says Stephanie. Once relegated to hidden-camera reality shows like Cheaters, dozens of prominent social media PIs have sprung up over the last few years, focusing on topics like insurance fraud, missing persons, and even high stakes heists. But by far the most viral videos center on infidelity, with the most popular internet PIs carrying out surveillance and even background checks on men their clients have deemed suspicious. 'It still shocks me how bold some people are, not just lying and cheating openly in public, but sleeping over and playing house while their spouse is out of town,' says Stephanie, who has been working as a private investigator for 12 years. The boom in these investigations comes at a time when online shaming around cheating seems to have reached a fever pitch, the most recent example being former Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, who was caught tightly-embracing his company's chief people officer, Kristin Cabot, on the jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts on July 16. The couple scattered from the jumbotron's gaze—Byron literally diving out of frame—prompting Coldplay frontman Chris Martin to quip 'either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.' Predictably, the footage went massively viral, resulting in both Bryon and Cabots' resignations and Byron's wife being inundated with Facebook messages from strangers offering their sympathies. The moment has also been endlessly memed, turned into a video game, and online betting companies are offering odds on whether the ensnared couples are going to get divorced. It's easy, in what to most is an entertaining internet lark, to forget that people's very real lives are impacted by exposés such as this. And while many people believe that justice is being served in public cheating scandals, others feel that intense surveillance tools should not be deployed on strangers, particularly ones who are not public figures. Still, there's no denying that there's a massive audience for the cottage industry of influencer investigators. Jamie Cohen, an assistant professor in media studies at Queens College, City University of New York, and a writer on internet literacy, says there's a rawness to these social media stings that appeals to the public. 'We like watching true crime content [on social media] because we can lean into a plot that isn't scripted or gate-kept by traditional media; there's no executive producer or editors, it's happening in fairly realtime.' Like all good crime novels, the best stakeouts have numerous twists and turns. Lisa Allen-Stell, who runs her own agency, Pink Lady Investigations in California, recalls being hired on a two-year contract by a married man who wanted to make sure that his mistress—who was also married—wasn't in a third relationship with his married best friend. Keeping up so far? It turns out that the best friend was spending most of his time with men, not the mistress. Allen-Stell got into online investigating after a 'horrible' divorce and custody battle made her empathetic to the plight of women in similar circumstances. So far she's racked up 1.4 million likes on various stakeout videos and stories about her work as a PI. All of the PIs interviewed for this piece have completed the relevant training in their local jurisdiction, but certification requirements differ across states and countries— some, like Idaho, don't require any. And while PIs like Stephanie and Allen-Stell don't market themselves as influencers, they do utilize popular TikTok formats in their posts. Stephanie often posts rundowns of her meals when she's tailing suspects in restaurants or does her skincare routine in her car, noting, 'everyone seems to love it.' In her recent videos, Allen-Stell demonstrates how to sweep a hotel room for hidden cameras, and talks about the HydroJug cup she's "obsessed" with, taking it on stakeouts and flights. Taken as a whole, their channels offer a mix of authority and accessibility—a marked shift from the PIs of old, or at least our collective perception of a PI. Philip Marlowe and Jake Gittes never broadcast from the front seat of their car, wearing a Yankee's hat and under-eye masks, but for Stephanie, it's her preferred stake-out attire. This unvarnished relatability has helped Stephanie and Allen-Stell blow up, with both able to make a living from their work. Stephanie charges a minimum retainer of $650 for surveillance cases, and says she's built a 'comfortable and growing' career, with most of her cases coming via the internet and her Instagram and TikTok pages fueling 'major growth.' TikTok's Creator Rewards Program, which is open to accounts with at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in a 30-day span, even pays for views, with partnerships across both platforms adding another income stream to her work. Allen-Stell offers background checks from as little as $20, with surveillance costing clients $125 per hour in most cities, and slightly more in Los Angeles and San Francisco due to higher overheads. For Stephanie, a financially successful business has brought her closer to her dream of building an all-women surveillance team. She says her clients—particularly the ones who found her via Instagram and TikTok—are almost exclusively women are women, . 'Investigative work includes critical thinking, discretion, patience, and being quick on your feet,' she says. 'I've found that women tend to blend in more easily during surveillance and often have a sharper eye for detail.' PI work calls for empathy and emotional intelligence, she adds, 'especially since the majority of my clients are women navigating deeply personal situations. Plus, it would be cool to have an all-woman team, especially in a male dominated industry.' Based in Queensland, Australia, Cassie Crofts, AKA Venus Investigations, is also focused on safety, with a team of investigators offering women background checks on potential dates or flatmates. Marketing herself as 'Part detective, part BFF, 100% confidential,' her confessional-style TikToks have racked up over 39,000 likes to date. Crofts got into the industry when, over a glass of wine, a friend confided that she thought her partner was cheating. The group wanted to find out more, but the obligatory socials search aside, they didn't know where to begin. Hiring a traditional'old man in a trench coat' didn't really feel like an option, so Crofts, a 37-year-old radio journalist, earned her private investigator certificate after months of formal training and classroom time. While she does offer in-car surveillance like Stephanie, she more often focuses on background data for definitive proof, accessing databases available to PIs. In one case, she traced a man's supermarket rewards card to a town miles from where he told his wife would be—a town where his ex-girlfriend happened to live. She also might ask for information around shared bank accounts. Sometimes, it's even simpler than that. 'There was one case where they had access to each other's phones, and I said to check his most frequently used emojis. There was an eggplant there, and he wasn't sending her eggplants,' Crofts says. Like Stephanie, Crofts says the majority—'80 to 90 percent'—of her client base is made up of women and non-binary people, and with good reason. '[Suspecting your partner of infidelity] could be the most heartbreaking, devastating moment of your life,' she says. 'The idea of going up to a middle-aged man in a suit and spilling the deepest worries about your relationship and the love of your life is a really hard thing to do, let alone to someone who doesn't feel like they're an empathetic presence. We try to provide that sort of support to people when they're going through this scenario.' Nicola Fox Hamilton teaches cyberpsychology at Dublin's Institute of Art, Design and Technology, and co-hosts the In bits cyberpsychology podcast. She says safety is one of the reasons these investigations resonate with women. 'You have men taking ideas from the manosphere, be it extreme people like Andrew Tate, or people who are more benignly misogynistic. Women are aware that there are quite a few men who think this way, and it's probably increased their fear so they want to know more about men before they meet them, to filter out that stuff and to actually meet a partner who is a decent human being and who values them as an equal.' But not every case is focused on infidelity. Allen-Stell says that one of her most harrowing cases involved a 17-year-old girl hooked on heroin and being trafficked. Allen-Stell claims she and the girl's parents cornered the traffickers at a roadside motel. She says the parents went in and got the girl and they waited for police. 'She was super skinny and vomiting, but I protected her with my life, like she was my kid,' Allen-Stell says. According to Allen-Stell, the girls' father then began slashing one of the perp's tires, causing Allen-Stell to tap out, not wanting to be caught in anything illegal. Naturally, online audiences want to know how the stories they get so invested in turn out. Stephanie says her followers often ask ''Can we know what your client did after? Did they leave? Did they stay?'' But, beyond vague details, no good PI will reveal personal information about their clients; protection is paramount. Licensed PIs are protected by law, but amateurs could be putting themselves at risk of harassment, or stalking lawsuits by doing so. When Allen-Stell and Stephanie do share videos online, they say it's always with the client's approval. Just one client of the PIs WIRED interviewed wanted to share her experience for this piece, and only briefly. Chloe (not her real name) worked with Allen-Stell when she had concerns over her daughter dating a 'significantly' older man. 'I specifically chose a woman for the job as I felt her insight and intuition would be invaluable in a sensitive situation,' she says, adding that she would recommend Allen-Stell to anyone seeking a PI. While sleuthing comes with potential pitfalls, the subjects of these investigations can also be at risk. The true crime audience has a voracious appetite for seeing the guilty party punished, particularly when cheating is involved. 'Some private investigators are sharing way too much,' says Allen-Stell. 'I hope they're not on surveillance showing the person's actual house. What if a neighbor happened to see 'Oh, she's doing surveillance, so that means this person is cheating?' I don't think it's fair to out people publicly.' But, if the internet wants to know something, it finds a way, as a viral June 2024 video tracking down a man accused of cheating on a domestic US flight, proved. The video, posted by a TikTokker who had no connection or background info about the man, detailed the flight number in question and details about the alleged cheater's family. In the case of Byron, of Coldplay concert infamy, there are multiple articles asking 'who is his wife?'and speculating about his family. As 404 Media writes, the incident is 'emblematic of our current private surveillance and social media hellscape,' where TikTok commenters are using facial recognition tools to identify random people online. 'I think shaming is the extension of the algorithmic flow toward extremism,' says Cohen. 'The internet normalizes content as it progresses, meaning anything extreme must continue to become more extreme … We're also living through a period of perceived lawlessness and true crime investigations and shaming seem like justice, albeit amateur, vigilante justice.' Writing on Reddit in 2023, user Electronic_Gur_843 appealed for advice after being 'blasted publicly on the internet' for a 'mistake.' 'It was a traumatic experience that resulted in me being torn down by hundreds of thousands of people. It was on me for making the mistake, but it was also blown out of proportion. I don't want to reveal too much but I can assure you it was nothing illegal or bad enough to deem me a 'bad person.'I was just young/naive about the power of the internet and stirred up some drama.' They say their google results turn up 'pages of articles' about them, adding the whole experience left them 'severely depressed.' According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 percent of adolescents have been cyberbullied and 9.5 percent of adolescents have made a serious suicide attempt, as of 2023, meaning that putting a stranger's business on main can have real, and sometimes devastating consequences. 'The aim of public shaming is to hold people accountable for their behavior that operates outside of the social norms, or is considered to be offensive,' says Fox Hamilton, adding that this is usually done with the aim of creating a society where everyone toes the line. But this mentality also means if something bad happens to someone—like being caught cheating online and having your family messaged by strangers as a result—we're more likely to victim blame, because we see them as deserving it. Ironically, Fox Hamilton says that 'people who have that belief in a just world are often more likely to publicly shame or jump on the bandwagon with stuff like this, because they think 'you did a bad thing, it's your fault, and I'm not responsible for anything bad that happens here.'' There's also a slippery slope when we start policing people according to our own morals and assumptions. In response to the Coldplay concert scandal, right-wing influencer Matt Walsh wrote on X, 'One of my least popular (but still correct) opinions is that adultery should be a criminal offense punishable by serious prison time for both parties involved.' It's not hard to imagine how that logic could be used to apply to a woman trapped in an abusive marriage, or people who don't subscribe to monogamy. When the target is a public figure, like a CEO, audiences can feel even more justified in attacking. 'There are so many issues going on in the world at the moment with big tech companies, and I think to some people Andy Byron represents that in a symbolic way,' says Fox Hamilton. Whether they're posting a video recounting a case, or posting active surveillance, the PIs interviewed by WIRED all say they are careful to obscure faces, and any identifiable landmarks to protect the identities and locations both of the accused, and the accusers. In Stephanie's case, she sometimes goes a step further, reenacting cases for video—a step taken to make sure of her client's confidentiality. None of their clients or clients partners have been doxed online. Allen-Stell agrees the public can take things too far—describing the Coldplay show fallout as a 'witch hunt.' 'What started out as holding people accountable has turned into the sport of public humiliation,' she says. 'It's reckless. The internet is not a courtroom, and random users are not investigators.'
