Judge denies lower bail
for fatal Ecstasy host
Sac Bee Excloo
YUBA CITY 9/3/02 YSN) - A Sutter County judge refused Tuesday to lower bail for 18-year-old Tomio A. Izumi, who faces nearly 30 years in prison for giving out Ecstasy at a fatal teen party at his home April 26.
Nicole Ann Crowder, 17, of Yuba City attended the party held at Izumi's home in an upscale Yuba City neighborhood and while she was there she consumed a quantity of the popular "dance drug," Sutter County prosecutors allege.
Izumi was arrested in Chico Friday based on a Sutter County grand jury indictment charging him with one count of maintaining a place where drugs are distributed and 11 counts of furnishing drugs to minors.
If convicted of all counts, Izumi, a former Yuba City High School student now studying engineering at California State University Chico, could be sentenced to 29 years eight months, Superior Court Judge Chris Chandler warned him during a video arraignment.
On advice of attorney, Izumi postponed entering a plea. Chandler continued the hearing until Sept. 18 for further proceedings.
A friend found Crowder in a semi-conscious the morning after the party. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her death touched off a community uproar about teens and drug use.
A grand jury inquest was subsequently conducted during which more than 30 witnesses testified.
Upon his arrest, Izumi was booked into Sutter County jail with bail set at $350,000 -- $100,000 higher than what the district attorney had asked for.
There was no evidence that Izumi gave Crowder Ecstasy and he has not been charged with being responsibility for her death, defense attorney Dennis R. Hoptowit noted.
In that light, the amount of bail seemed "excessive" and that the prosecution was using the tragedy of Crowder's death to "bootstrap" the bail higher than it should be, Hoptowit argued.
The defense suggested Chandler lower the bail to the $50,000 amount common for a single count of furnishing drugs to minors. Chandler refused, saying he thought the $350,000 was "not unreasonable."
"This is a high profile, highly politicized case," Hoptowit said after the hearing. He cited the publicity surrounding the way Yuba City police officers arrested Izumi.
His firm "wrote to the district attorney in advance saying if they intended to indict and arrest him let us now, we'd make arrangements for him to turn himself. Instead they arrested him in class," Hoptowit said,
Assistant District Attorney Fred Schroeder disputed the claim. It was a policy of area law enforcement agencies to go out and make arrests, not wait for people to surrender.
"In fact the court has a rule about it," Schroeder said.
On advice of attorney, Izumi postponed entering a plea. Chandler continued the hearing until Sept. 18 for further proceedings.
for fatal Ecstasy host
Sac Bee Excloo
YUBA CITY 9/3/02 YSN) - A Sutter County judge refused Tuesday to lower bail for 18-year-old Tomio A. Izumi, who faces nearly 30 years in prison for giving out Ecstasy at a fatal teen party at his home April 26.
Nicole Ann Crowder, 17, of Yuba City attended the party held at Izumi's home in an upscale Yuba City neighborhood and while she was there she consumed a quantity of the popular "dance drug," Sutter County prosecutors allege.
Izumi was arrested in Chico Friday based on a Sutter County grand jury indictment charging him with one count of maintaining a place where drugs are distributed and 11 counts of furnishing drugs to minors.
If convicted of all counts, Izumi, a former Yuba City High School student now studying engineering at California State University Chico, could be sentenced to 29 years eight months, Superior Court Judge Chris Chandler warned him during a video arraignment.
On advice of attorney, Izumi postponed entering a plea. Chandler continued the hearing until Sept. 18 for further proceedings.
A friend found Crowder in a semi-conscious the morning after the party. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her death touched off a community uproar about teens and drug use.
A grand jury inquest was subsequently conducted during which more than 30 witnesses testified.
Upon his arrest, Izumi was booked into Sutter County jail with bail set at $350,000 -- $100,000 higher than what the district attorney had asked for.
There was no evidence that Izumi gave Crowder Ecstasy and he has not been charged with being responsibility for her death, defense attorney Dennis R. Hoptowit noted.
In that light, the amount of bail seemed "excessive" and that the prosecution was using the tragedy of Crowder's death to "bootstrap" the bail higher than it should be, Hoptowit argued.
The defense suggested Chandler lower the bail to the $50,000 amount common for a single count of furnishing drugs to minors. Chandler refused, saying he thought the $350,000 was "not unreasonable."
"This is a high profile, highly politicized case," Hoptowit said after the hearing. He cited the publicity surrounding the way Yuba City police officers arrested Izumi.
His firm "wrote to the district attorney in advance saying if they intended to indict and arrest him let us now, we'd make arrangements for him to turn himself. Instead they arrested him in class," Hoptowit said,
Assistant District Attorney Fred Schroeder disputed the claim. It was a policy of area law enforcement agencies to go out and make arrests, not wait for people to surrender.
"In fact the court has a rule about it," Schroeder said.
On advice of attorney, Izumi postponed entering a plea. Chandler continued the hearing until Sept. 18 for further proceedings.
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