A Lake County man, who was given a second chance after firing five shots at an occupied Mercedes as it sped through the Orv’s Gas Station parking lot in December 2019 in a “drug deal gone wrong,” was sentenced to two years in Colusa County jail on Monday after violating the terms of his probation by allegedly cultivating and trafficking large quantities of illegal marijuana.
“The defendant is a drug dealer and continued to be a drug dealer throughout probation,” said Colusa County Superior Court Judge Jeffery A. Thompson, following a lengthy testimony-based sentencing hearing in which Bowyer and his attorney, Robert C. Schell, pleaded for Bowyer to be given another chance.
Colusa County District Attorney Brendan Farrell held to his recommendation that Bowyer, 26, deserves jail time, despite claims by Bowyer’s attorney that him going to jail would pose an economic hardship on his family, which includes one child and another on the way, an unemployed wife, and a mother, sister, and grandmother who are all ill in some manner or another.
“If he goes to county jail for one year, everything terrible is going to happen to his family,” Schell pleaded.
Bowyer was originally arrested for the Orv’s incident a few months after the shooting by the Colusa County Narcotics Task Force and Lake County Sheriff’s Office after Bowyer placed himself at the gas station by reportedly brandishing a gun at the home of a Nice woman, while looking for the man in the Mercedes sedan that had been fired upon, according to previous court testimony.
Another Lake County man had reported a similar story to authorities, claiming that Bowyer told him on Jan. 3, just days after the shooting, that “a deal went bad” and that Bowyer was “robbed” in Williams, resulting in gunfire being exchanged.
At the time, Colusa County investigators had only identified Bowyer’s pickup from surveillance footage but they could not identify the shooter.
Bowyer eventually pled no contest to misdemeanor assault and exhibiting a firearm charges in Lake County Superior Court in April 2020 and was sentenced to community service after his lawyer successfully brokered a plea deal that set aside a violation of probation.
While Bowyer served little jail time after his 2021 conviction for gross negligence in connection with the Orv’s incident, he did, while on probation, continue to grow and sell marijuana, Farrell said.
Bowyer was arrested for multiple felonies in June 2022, following a Lake County Sheriff’s Office raid on his home and property that turned up nine pounds of processed marijuana and more than 300 marijuana plants.
Bowyer pleaded no contest on March 10 in Lake County Superior Court to misdemeanor possession of marijuana for sale and felony depositing hazardous substances, in a plea deal that dismissed felony charges related to cultivating and manufacturing controlled substances.
Bowyer, who has been out of custody on bail throughout his criminal proceedings, took no responsibility on Monday for his most recent brush with Lake County authorities and blamed another for the marijuana growing on his property.
He also reportedly told law enforcement officials that the nine pounds of marajuana found under the floorboards in his home was from when he was a previous drug dealer and that he had forgotten it was there since being placed on probation.
Bowyer’s attorney, in his pleadings, also questioned the integrity of Bowyer’s probation officer, claiming he didn’t like her “tone” when she negatively reported that Bowyer did not properly release his registered guns, including the Ruger pistol used in the Orv’s incident, after selling them out of state to a friend.
While Farrell said he understood Bowyer’s family obligations, he said the time between Bowyer’s original drug-related crime in 2019 and his arrest on drug trafficking charges in 2022 should have been long enough for him to “figure out and adjust his life accordingly.”
While Thompson said Bowyer shows no remorse for his criminal behavior, he did give him until Wednesday to take care of his personal matters before reporting to the Colusa County Jail to serve out his time.
Thompson said not reporting to jail as instructed would constitute another felony charge against him. ■