The alleged high-end escort accused of leaving a Google executive to die on his yacht after injecting him with heroin pleaded not guilty today on charges of manslaughter, prostitution, destroying evidence, and other drug-related counts.

At the Santa Cruz County courthouse Wednesday morning, Alix Tichelman reportedly looked down as County Superior Court Judge Timothy Volkmann denied to reduce her $1.5-million bail or release her on her own recognizance, according to NBC Bay Area.

After the hearing, one of her defense attorneys, Larry Biggam, said that 26-year-old Tichelman had no motive to kill 51-year-old Forrest Hayes, a married millionaire tech executive who had worked for Google, Sun Microsystems, and Apple.

KSBW quotes Biggam as saying: "There was no intent to harm or injury, much less kill, Mr. Hayes. Why would she? He was a lucrative source of income for her." According to police, Hayes had paid Tichelman thousands of dollars for sex previous to the incident.

Biggam also said that the overdose was a case of “two adults who were engaged in mutual consensual drug usage in the context of a sexual encounter initiated and encouraged by Mr. Hayes.”

Calling her a "wounded bird,” Biggam said Tichelman is an addict who has been using heroin since she was a teenager.

As SFist previously reported, Tichelman was arrested on July 4 and faces eight charges, after police discovered she was with Hayes on November 26, 2013, the night he overdosed from heroin on his yacht in the Santa Cruz harbor.

Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said they have a video of Tichleman bringing the heroin and injecting it into Hayes, though the tape has not been released. When Hayes became unconscious, police say Tichleman did not step in to help or call 911, but rather finished a glass of wine and lowered the yacht's blinds before she gathered her stuff and left. The yacht, named Escape, is currently for sale.

Since her arrest, Tichelman is now under investigation in the death of her former boyfriend, Dean Riopelle, who died of a heroin overdose last September at his home in Milton, Georgia. Tichelman relocated from Atlanta to California shortly thereafter.

As CNN reports, Tichelman’s Facebook and Twitter accounts revealed that she wrote poetry, loved the show Dexter, and studied journalism at Georgia State University. At one time, she may have worked as an exotic dancer in San Francisco.

[NBC Bay Area]
[KSBW]
[CNN]