UKIAH, Calif. — A Mendocino man facing felony drug charges in a case prosecutors have connected to his wife's fatal overdose will remain out of custody on $75,000 bail, a judge ruled Wednesday, after prosecutors asked that he be jailed without bail over a new arrest they say occurred while he was free on release.
Clayton Lowell, 39, appeared before Judge Victoria Shanahan in Mendocino County Superior Court in Ukiah. The prosecution asked the court to hold him without bail, telling the judge he was found with a "commercial quantity" of contraband that field-tested positive for both methamphetamine and fentanyl and was packaged to resemble Adderall. They said Lowell had also been under a court order to provide passwords for two electronic devices and had refused, and they described him as a public-safety danger and a flight risk.
The alleged offense occurred Oct. 30, while Lowell was out on bail in the drug-manufacturing case under conditions set Oct. 5 that included GPS monitoring and the surrender of his passport, Shanahan noted.
Lowell's attorney, Robert Boyd, urged the court to release his client on his own recognizance or set reasonable bail. Boyd said the amount recovered was roughly 80 tablets, disputed the significance of the password issue — he said officers used Lowell's face to unlock a phone — and told the court Lowell had been in the middle of an eviction and was moving out of his home at the time. Boyd said Lowell had complied with GPS monitoring and the other terms of his release apart from the new allegation.
Shanahan declined to hold Lowell without bail and kept bail at $75,000. Judge Patrick Pekin had already raised it from $50,000. She also left a hold in place requiring Lowell to show that any bail money comes from a lawful source. She continued the case to the court's Ten Mile branch in Fort Bragg, where Lowell is due back Nov. 9 for a plea hearing.
Lowell, the subject of a 13-count felony complaint, has been arrested but not convicted, and is presumed innocent. No homicide charge has been filed.
The case grew out of the Sept. 14 death of Lowell's wife, Sheana Rose Voltz, 40, which the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office has described as an apparent overdose. Lowell was booked into the county jail five days later, on Sept. 19, on felony drug-manufacturing and possession-for-sale charges.
In arguing Wednesday for no bail, the prosecution told the court that the manufacturing allegations "came to light after an overdose death of an individual that was connected to Mr. Lowell." That statement was made in court; Lowell has not been charged in connection with Voltz's death.