Who’s the Most Dangerous Man in Santa Barbara County Jail?
A Would-Be Kombucha Killer Held in Solitary Without Bail for Allegedly Soliciting Hits on Two Cops, a Judge and an Ex-Girlfriend
Perhaps only in Santa Barbara would the most dangerous inmate in county jail be a vegan restaurant owner, kombucha brewer, and self-described “wantrepreneur.” Despite these comically millennial trappings, Santa Barbara authorities consider Tyler Beerman, the 33-year-old, 190-pound owner of Vegan GreenGo, a serious threat to public safety.
For the last six months, he has been held in county jail in solitary confinement. But even that, it turns out, is not enough. Last week, the county’s counsel’s office sought to get an additional restraining order against Beerman and to increase the security precautions: When Beerman appears in Judge Thomas Anderle’s courtroom early next January to answer charges that he tried to hire various hitmen in county jail to kill an ex-girlfriend, two investigators with the county’s Sheriff’s Office, and a county judge, he will be in chains and handcuffs. Beerman, if found guilty, is looking at 44 years to life behind bars.
Beerman’s attorney, Sandy Horowitz, argues his client needs mental-health treatment, not incarceration. Beerman, he noted, sustained serious brain injury after he rolled his car in a DUI-related accident in 2012. To get off alcohol, Beerman got into kombucha, opening the Funk Zone–based kombucha company Conscious Kombucha in 2013. A few years later, he’d start a vegan Mexican restaurant that served no meat-based lard and non-dairy cheese. After the accident, however, he’s suffered excruciating headaches, serious mood alterations, and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his lawyer. But even before the accident, Horowitz said, Beerman suffered mental-health issues; since the accident, his client has been 5150’d — declared an imminent threat to himself or others — at least three times.
