She was a California comeback story, serving juvenile probation in a UC Davis dorm for killing a teen, when arrested again

She was 15 when she was placed on juvenile probation for killing 15-year-old Omari Lowery in Sacramento County. Nearly five years later, she was arrested again — accused of dealing drugs from the UC Davis dorm room where she was serving out the remainder of her sentence, arrest records show. 

Officers reported allegedly finding live ammunition hidden in a sock in her dresser, a digital scale, more than 100 plastic baggies, text messages appearing to show drug sales, and $4,121 in cash.

CBS California is not including her name in this article because she was a minor at the time of the original offense. She has not finished her sentence and was still under juvenile commitment when she was arrested as an adult in her UC Davis dorm room.

Records reviewed by CBS California Investigates show she had served roughly three years in secure juvenile custody when a Sacramento County judge found she’d made enough progress to step her down into California’s Less Restrictive Programming, or LRP.  

The state program lets courts move young offenders out of secure facilities into community-based settings, from halfway houses to, in this case, a university dorm, before their sentence is complete.

She was released into the Underground Scholars program at UC Davis, a state-funded UC program for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. She moved into campus housing in December 2025.

She was arrested in her dorm room seven months later.

This is the first story in what CBS California Investigates expects to be an ongoing series on the state’s LRP system, as public records requests are fulfilled.

Ammunition allegedly found in a sock drawer

Her probation officer searched her dorm room July 29 and reported allegedly finding marijuana, boxes of vape cartridges, a digital scale, text messages and a price list appearing to show drug sales, cash and ammunition — all items her release conditions barred her from having.

She was charged as an adult in Yolo County with felony possession of ammunition by a prohibited person, misdemeanor possession of ammunition on school grounds, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana for sale, court records show. She was arraigned July 31, pleaded not guilty, and posted a $25,000 bail bond in that case. 

That case is separate from the probation violation she now faces in Sacramento County Juvenile Court, tied to her original 2021 case — two proceedings in two counties running in parallel, and her custody status under the juvenile matter is not addressed in the Yolo court record.

Her court order requires weekly meetings with Underground Scholars Director Gunner Johnson as a condition of her placement.

CBS California Investigates has reached out to Johnson with a series of program-related questions.

Featured as a success story

Months before her recent UC Davis arrest, California featured the 20-year-old student as a success story – proof the program works. 

Records show she was serving as a youth advocate for the Office of Youth and Community Restoration (OYCR), the state agency that oversees the broader LRP system. A March 2026 OYCR presentation names her in that role.

She’s not alone

In 2021, a 17-year-old girl was convicted of murdering Fresno State student Sergio Bonboster. His body was dismembered, burned and dumped in a cblock. 

The teen, now in her 20s, was reportedly enrolled at Sacramento State last year – released under Project Rebound, the Cal State version of the UC system’s Underground Scholars program. 

The victim’s family publicly protested her early release after serving just two years of her four-year murder sentence.

Sacramento State did not confirm her enrollment, citing privacy.  

In Los Angeles, a private company has been running a similar program in student housing on UCLA’s sorority row, according to a California Post investigation. 

LA County paid the company $1.2 million in 2025 to house nine young adults.

A program with no headcount

Underground Scholars is one of three state-supported pathways moving incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people into California higher education, alongside Cal State’s Project Rebound and the Rising Scholars network, the community college system’s version of the same program.

Project Rebound enrolled 1,522 students statewide last year across 20 Cal State schools, according to publicly available information. CBS California was unable to find a similar count for the Underground Scholars program on UC campuses. We have requested that information from multiple sources.

CBS California Investigates has filed multiple public records requests for the underlying contracts, funding records, and enrollment data behind this program. This is the first story to publish from that reporting; more will follow as records are received.

What the state won’t or can’t tell us

California’s Office of Youth and Community Restoration, or OYCR, oversees the LRP educational pathway programs that its director describes as a prison-to-university pipeline. 

However, the agency could not tell us how many young people are enrolled in these programs, which schools they’re at, and where the state funding goes. 

Nor could the state provide recidivism or success rate data related to the total number of participants who violated probation, were arrested or who successfully completed the program. 

The agency said that’s a county-level responsibility, not the state’s, and that collecting it centrally falls outside its authority.

The agency’s own public list of Underground Scholars partner campuses does not include UC Davis — the same campus where the young woman at the center of this story was placed. The agency itself featured her as a “youth advocate” in a state presentation earlier this year.

OYCR confirmed she has served on its Youth Advisory Board since 2025, but said it does not fund UC Davis’s program and referred supervision questions to the county.

What we know

UC Davis said she joined Underground Scholars in January 2025, worked 10 hours a week as a paid peer mentor as part of her court requirements, and served on OYCR’s Youth Advisory Board, traveling to speak on juvenile justice issues. The university said she met all program requirements, was monitored by the courts, and was attending summer school near completion of her degree at the time of her arrest. UC Davis said 92 students were enrolled in the program in 2026, including 14 who graduated.

The university did not answer questions about her day-to-day supervision, including whether her required weekly meetings with Underground Scholars Director Gunner Johnson continued through July.

Oversight quietly killed

A bill meant to bring more transparency to the LRP system p***ed the state Senate 37-1 in May. It was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s suspense file Aug. 13 — killed without a floor vote or public explanation, a procedural mechanism lawmakers routinely use to quietly shelve legislation.

Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks, who controls what survives her committee, did not respond to questions about her decision to effectively kill the oversight bill there.

Similarly, Speaker Robert Rivas’s office did not provide an on-the-record response.

What’s next

This is the first story in an ongoing investigation. A full accounting will require contacting every campus running one of these three programs — roughly 20 CSU campuses, 8 or more UC campuses, and dozens of community colleges — individually, since no state agency compiles the numbers in one place. We’re continuing that work.