Garvin woman pleads not guilty to charges of using weapon on school grounds | News, Sports, Work

Bazan

HARVIN. A local resident has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to an incident in September in which a loaded gun was allegedly found in her car parked on school grounds in Garvin.

Back on Sept. 27, Ashley Nicole Marie Bazan, 33, of Garvin, was arrested on a Tama County Sheriff’s Department warrant on a number of charges, including one count of furnishing a firearm to a minor, two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and one count of carrying a weapon on school property – all Class D felonies. She was also charged with two counts of child endangerment, a felony.

On October 28, Bazan filed a written plea of ​​not guilty to the charges in Tama District Court, requesting a speedy trial.

The charges in the case are related to several incidents that took place last September. Bazan allegedly left the two juvenile victims in the case — a 13-year-old and a three-year-old — unattended for about four hours at her residence on Garvin Center Street on Sept. 21, according to court documents. During this time, the older victim retrieved a loaded Sig Sauer P227 (pistol) from the top of the cabinet and took a picture of it. According to the criminal complaint, the photo was sent to another minor as “an act of self-defense.” The firearm in the photo, which Bazan later allegedly identified as his own, had no lock or safety mechanism.

Two days later, on Sept. 23, Bazan called Gabriel Allen Alvarez — a convicted felon who was the only adult at her Garvin residence at the time of the call — and asked him to move the same loaded gun from the same neighborhood. residence to dressing room upstairs. At the time, Alvarez was caring for the younger juvenile victim in the case.

That same day — sometime between 1:45 and 2:15 p.m., while classes were in session at GMG — a Tama County deputy recovered a loaded Taurus .357 revolver from Bazan’s white Chevrolet Silverado, which was parked along the east side of the school. territory on Fourth Street. According to the criminal complaint, the revolver was “left lying in plain sight on the instrument panel” of Bazan’s car.

When contacted by the newspaper on Oct. 8 for comment, GMG Superintendent Chris Petersen said Bazan was at the school on Sept. 23 as a parent.

According to the arrest warrant in the case, Bazan’s bond was set at $5,000 cash; after her arrest on September 27, she released herself the same day.

Bazan’s trial is set for December 9, 2024, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Tama County Courthouse. A pretrial conference was also scheduled for the day before the hearing and was set for November 21 at 10 a.m.