Court dates reshuffled again for woman in 2018 SCC bomb scare case
A Solano Country Superior Court judge again has rescheduled court dates for a 52-year-old Vallejo woman charged with making bomb threats against Solano Community College in March 2018.
Judge Carlos R. Gutierrez ordered Lavirrise Monique Bynes, who appeared Jan. 13 for a trial readiness conference in Department 9, to return at 8:30 a.m. March 3 for the same proceeding and also re-set her trial management conference for 8:30 a.m. March 27. A jury trial was scheduled for 9 a.m. April 1 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
Bynes was previously scheduled for a jury trial in December, then again on Feb. 5, before Gutierrez, in consultation with the attorneys in the case, settled on the April date. She is represented by criminal defense attorney Darryl A. Stallworth of Oakland.
Taken into custody March 14, Bynes was booked into Solano County Jail on suspicion of reporting a false bomb threat and criminal threats to cause great bodily injury. Her bail was set at $50,000, and court records showed she posted the bond.
If convicted at trial, Bynes, a former SCC student, may face up to one year in Solano County Jail or state prison.
During a mid-August 2018 preliminary hearing, Bynes listened quietly as five people connected to the case recounted their involvement in the scare that began about noon March 12. It prompted the evacuation not only of the main Fairfield campus but also the evacuation of the Vacaville and Vallejo campuses, an undertaking that involved thousands of people.
Witness testimony during the hearing for Bynes revealed a phone caller whose voice sounded deep, out of the ordinary, uncommon and threatening.
Students, faculty and staff were told, as a precaution, to evacuate the school’s three campuses. Some 8,000-plus students, 170 staff members, 350 instructors, and children at the nearby Early College High School and Early Childhood Center were affected by the threats.