During a held-to-answer arraignment in Solano County Superior Court, former Vallejo daycare operator and her son pleaded not guilty Wednesday to multiple gun and drug charges and face a trial setting in the coming weeks in Vallejo.
During the brief morning proceeding, Erica Higuera, 39, and her attorney, Thomas Maas, submitted a motion to Bryan J. Kim for pretrial release, with Maas arguing his client had been “hardworking for years” and “was not a dangerous person.”
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Kim granted the motion, and Higuera was expected to be released later in the afternoon from the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield. He told her she would be subject, at a peace officer’s request, to drug testing, searches by law enforcement, monitoring by an electronic device, and not to possess any dangerous or deadly weapons.
However, her son Humberto “Junior” Higuera, 18, was denied pretrial release and reduction in his $1 million in bail, a request by his attorney, Cate Beekman.
Speaking to the judge, Deputy District Attorney Joseph Miller objected to the younger Higuera’s release, saying the charges “were presumed to be true.”
The judge cited the presence of drugs in the Higueras’ residence on Avian Drive and a cache of weapons he called “extremely dangerous” stored in the apartment and garage.
Kim then scheduled a trial setting for the Higueras, both clad in striped jail jumpsuits and shackled at the waist, at 9 a.m. April 14 in the Justice Building in Vallejo.
Humberto remains in the Claybank Detention Facility in Fairfield, while his mother, according to Maas, plans to live temporarily in Fairfield.
As previously reported, at one point during the preliminary hearing, law enforcement officials testified they found thousands of fentanyl and carfentanil pills, several semi-automatic assault-style rifles, and handguns and nearly $100,000 in cash in the Higuera’s apartment and garage.
The defendants listened as Solano County Sheriff’s deputies detailed what they found Feb. 27 when they served a search warrant at the Higuera residence. The Higueras were arrested the same day.
The bulk of the charges, nearly identical for both, are felony allegations of possessing high-capacity magazines, possessing a short-barreled rifle or shotgun, several counts of possessing assault-style semi-automatic rifles, six counts of possessing a controlled substance while armed with a loaded firearm, and one count of possession of narcotics or controlled substances with intent to distribute.
Detective Chris Cavazos told Miller that some firearms were found under a mattress in Humberto’s bedroom and $98,102, in various denominations, was found in a shoebox in a closet in Erica’s bedroom.
On cross-examination, Maas, got Cavazos to say he, with federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, had advised Erica of her Miranda rights. She told him that she had “no claim” to the money, he said.
Cavazos, who did not participate in the search, said Erica told him she did not know there were guns in the residence, apartment F32, even though there was at least one gun, a Glock semi-automatic handgun, he said, “in plain sight” in the garage.
And, he testified later, she expressed “surprise that her son had access to that kind of money” and did not monitor her son’s behavior. Humberto, she told Cavazos, had his own room and it was locked. As he testified, she appeared to wipe tears from her face.
Also, Maas criticized the “chain of custody” of the narcotics investigation, or the documented and unbroken record of who handled or had access to it, from its collection to its presentation in court, to ensure its authenticity and integrity.
Cross-examined by Beekman, Cavazos said only Erica and Humberto were at the residence on Feb. 27, the day federal agents and Solano County deputies entered the home.
Cavazos told DA Miller that he watched several drug samples placed in secure envelopes and was “just outside” the county crime laboratory when they were tested.
The detective also noted that Erica cared for “two to four” children, ages 2 to 5 years, as part of her daycare business.
As the hearing wore on for a second day, the handling of evidence dominated much of the questioning by Miller and Maas.
On the witness stand, Deputy Benjamin Salazar said ATF agents were the first to enter the residence, and he confirmed finding a loaded Glock semi-automatic handgun in the garage as well as other loaded firearms.
He also said there were several bags of “blue pills” found throughout the garage as well as some cash and weigh scales.
Deputy Jared McDonald also said he found an “AR-style” rifle, and four handguns under Humberto’s mattress, and another handgun in “the third drawer down” in a dresser.
Deputy Dalton Ryken, who serves as Miller’s chief investigator in the case, said some of the seized pills tested positive for carfentanil, a so-called “analog of fentanyl.” It is a powerful synthetic opioid used in veterinary medicine as a tranquilizing agent for elephants and rhinoceroses.
The attorneys each stipulated, that is, accepted as fact, that Erica and Humberto had no registered firearms.
The arrests of the Higueras appeared to be in conjunction with those of multiple other people connected with the Brown Brotherhood across Solano County who were arrested earlier in March following a yearlong investigation that involved both local and federal law enforcement. Carlos Higuera-Aldana, 23, is facing federal charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute in the Department of Justice’s Eastern District of California.
In September, Higuera-Aldana sold a controlled purchase of two pounds of methamphetamine to federal agents, according to warrants used for his arrest. That led to surveillance at 806 Sheridan St. in Vallejo and 1350 W. First St., Dixon, residences associated with him. Cellphone communications between Higuera-Aldana and BBH member “Clowny” Alonzo-Medina, were observed by federal law enforcement and used during the course of the investigation.
The city of Vallejo hosted the joint press conference in early March announcing the arrests with representatives of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, the FBI and ATF. Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce used the occasion to declare progress against violent crime in Vallejo.
“I want to send a message to the criminal element that the days of thinking you can come to Vallejo and do your business with impunity are over,” she said.
According to a post from the Solano County Sheriff’s Department, the yearlong investigations culminated with the seizure of about 100,000 fentanyl pills, 16 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.5 pounds of cocaine, 21 firearms and about $176,000 in cash.