Barashima Shingo

Tonate was a corrupt officer who would secretly steal the bombs he disarmed and then sell them on the black market. He would replace the stolen bombs with models he created himself to avoid suspicion.

He was accompanied by Detective Candice Arme when he transported the disarmed and deactivated HH-3000 bomb to Courtroom No. 4, as it was to be used as evidence in Solomon Starbuck's trial for the murder of Clay Terran. Before Starbuck's trial, Tonate attempted to steal the bomb, but Arme caught him in the act and confronted him. A panicked Tonate struck her with the bomb, but Arme managed to write Tonate's ID number on the floor in her own blood before dying. Tonate noticed someone take the remote switch for the bomb while this was happening, but he was too distracted by Arme's death to deal with the thief. With insufficient time to wipe away the message, Tonate used the bomb transport case to cover it and took a photograph of the bomb displayed with the Phony Phanty doll it had been placed inside of. Knowing that people would be fearful of going near a bomb, he placed Arme's body inside the transport case.

The bomb was reactivated during Starbuck's trial, but Tonate heard the sound of the bomb's activation and warned the court. The bomb destroyed the courtroom with no loss of life. Tonate was the first assigned to the scene, and used the explosion to cover up Arme's murder by taking her body from the bomb transport case to the other side of the courtroom, thus making it appear that she had died from the explosion.

Juniper Woods was arrested and put on trial for the bombing and Arme's murder. In her trial, prosecutor Gaspen Payne called Tonate to testify about the HH-3000 and its reactivation. After giving his testimony, he challenged defense attorney Phoenix Wright to find the truth of the case.

During Woods's trial, Apollo Justice, who was injured in the bombing, went to the destroyed courtroom to look for evidence while Woods was resting in the lobby. Fearing that Justice would look into the bomb transport case, Tonate sneaked up on him while he was examining the case and used some rubble to knock him unconscious. He then modified the message Arme had made by adding to it with Justice's blood to implicate Woods as Justice's assailant.

During the second half of the trial, in which the assault was added to Woods's charges, Wright deduced Tonate's actions and accused him of both the murder of Arme and assault of Justice. Tonate attempted to counter Wright's argument with lies, but when that fell apart, he claimed the model bomb he carried was the genuine article and that he switched it with a fake before the trial. Everyone except Wright, Payne, the judge, and Athena Cykes fled the courtroom, though Payne soon panicked and fled as well. Tonate tried to leave, warning that he would activate the bomb if he sensed he was being followed, but Wright pointed out that the bomb in the photo Tonate had taken was slightly damaged, while the bomb Tonate had was in perfect condition. Wright then opened the bomb transport case, revealing Arme's blood inside. Tonate broke down, failing to disarm his model bomb, and confessed to his crimes before being arrested.

Tonate later decided to reveal the whole truth regarding what he saw when he killed Arme and told who he thought was Detective Bobby Fulbright. Wright and "Fulbright" questioned Tonate about the bombing, and Tonate revealed that he was not responsible; it was the remote switch thief. "Fulbright" showed a picture of the remaining components of the bomb, to Tonate's delight. Tonate was then taken in for further questioning by Simon Blackquill.

The remote switch thief was later revealed to be a spy who was known only as the "phantom" and had been masquerading as Fulbright, with the real Fulbright having been dead for a year.