Clergy Help Cut Bail for Student Held in Threat

Clergymen, friends and the family of an 18-year-old Pasadena high school student jailed on suspicion of threatening to blow up the campus said Friday he has fallen victim to overzealous authorities because of the Santee shootings.

After hearing the appeals of four ministers and a family friend, a Pasadena judge Friday cut Michael Workman’s bail from $75,000 to $20,000 and agreed to transfer him from county jail, where he has been held a week, to the Pasadena city jail. He awaits trial on a charge of misdemeanor terrorist threats.

City prosecutors opposing the bail reduction say the teenager told another student he planned to plant pipe bombs at Marshal Fundamental High School on graduation day, that his father’s garage was packed with deadly pyrotechnics and that the son wrote dark poetry.

But Curate Scott Kingsbury of St. Mary of the Angels Church in Los Feliz, where Workman helps him conduct Sunday services, argued that the case has been overblown because of the recent violence in Santee, Calif.

“We’re defending against a witch hunt,” he said. “It’s return to Salem.”

Workman is one of several teenagers arrested on suspicion of threatening violence since the March 5 shooting at Santana High School in which two died.

A 15-year-old Van Nuys boy who allegedly threatened on the Internet to kill at least 75 of his classmates was charged Friday with three felony counts of making terrorist threats. A Thousand Oaks middle-school student was arrested for allegedly compiling an online hit list, and an Orange County student was picked up for allegedly making a threat that prompted nearly 2,000 students to stay home.

Workman was arrested March 8 after another student told a teacher during a class discussion that sometime between December and February, he had overheard the senior say he hated school and wanted to blow it up. Police said Workman told investigators his comment was a joke.

With the Workmans’ permission, Pasadena police searched the home. Nina Scotti, the Pasadena Fire Department’s arson investigator, testified Friday that she found pyrotechnic supplies and rifles in the garage and gunpowder and fuses in a locked safe.

Workman’s attorney said all the items belong to his father, who was seeking a pyrotechnics license and taught rifle skills to Boy Scouts.

Earlier this week, the district attorney’s office rejected the case because Workman has no criminal record and referred it to the Pasadena city prosecutor, which filed a misdemeanor charge.

Constance Orozco, deputy city prosecutor, told the judge Friday that poetry found in Workman’s room “indicates a death wish, and he doesn’t mind taking anyone with him.”

By contrast, four ministers and a family friend portrayed Workman as a diligent Eagle Scout involved with his church, where he served as an acolyte. They described him as a creative student with ambition to study art in college. But they said he also tended to say things for shock value.

“Michael is a good kid,” Father Gregory Wilcox of St. Mary told the judge Friday. “He said things on occasion to shock.”

For instance, Wilcox said outside of court, Workman sometimes joked as he went into Sunday service: “You do know I don’t believe in God.”

Madeline Chang, Workman’s attorney, said that whatever he said to a friend at school was a joke overheard and blown out of proportion. “He desires to finish school and go to college,” she told the judge.

Because Workman’s family can’t afford even the reduced bail, Kingsbury and others asked that he be released without bail.

Superior Court Judge Phillip Argento said it was an “unusual case,” and after several meetings in chambers ordered a psychological evaluation of Workman before his next court date on Thursday.