HOUSTON – Harris County is putting $1.4 million toward around-the-clock ankle monitor oversight, a direct response to the high-profile case of a capital murder defendant who cut off his device and fled to Italy months before his scheduled trial.
Commissioners approved the funding as part of the new budget on Thursday. The money is expected to fill 15 vacant positions within Pretrial Services, ensuring staff are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond to alerts from the ankle monitor vendor when a device is tampered with.
Until now, Commissioner Adrian Garcia said, monitoring only happened during what he calls “bankers hours.”
“This will give us and the victims and our criminal justice system great confidence that there will be 24/7 coverage to understand when someone is trying to tamper with their devices,” Garcia said.
The case that exposed the gap
In May, capital murder defendant Lee Gilley cut off his ankle monitor just after 9 p.m. on Friday, May 1, according to records, weeks before he was scheduled to stand trial in the strangulation death of his pregnant wife, Christa Bauer.
Prosecutors say they had no idea Gilley had removed the device until the FBI called around 12:30 p.m. on May 4 — three days later — after Gilley was caught at the airport in Milan, Italy. Pretrial Services filed a bond violation report with the court hours after that call.
Judge Peyton Peebles criticized the delay. Pretrial Services told KPRC 2 News it “followed ... notification protocols.”
Garcia pushed for the additional funding after the incident highlighted what he described as a critical failure in response time.
“It just demonstrates a huge gap in the response,” he said.
In May, Garcia told KPRC 2 News he would bring a plan to commissioners court to strengthen the county’s electronic monitoring program, particularly as it relates to violent offenders.
Walter Pozos, another Harris County murder defendant, also cut off his ankle monitor in May just days before his trial was scheduled to begin. Records show he is still wanted.
‘A rare silver lining’
Cara Kelly, a longtime friend of Christa Bauer, said most people assumed 24/7 monitoring was already in place.
“A lot of people assumed that that was the case to begin with,” Kelly said. “We had so many comments and responses after Lee fled the country. People were flabbergasted. They had assumed that someone who was out on bond for such severe charges as capital murder would be monitored 24/7 on an ankle monitor.”
Kelly, who is still waiting for justice in Bauer’s case, called the change long overdue.
“There’s been so many frustrating developments ... since he fled the country that to have a rare silver lining to help prevent anyone else from having to go through this is really I think the best way that we can honor Christa,” she said.
It’s not clear when Gilley could be returned to the U.S. as the Italian court overseeing his extradition case has expressed concern about whether he could face the death penalty and whether there’s a lesser punishment option than life without parole, which are the only two options under Texas law for a capital offense.
“We hope that we’re not just throwing money at a problem, that this continues to be a focus and will be analyzed and that the best possible fixes or adjustments or policy changes can be made so that Pretrial Services can do better work,” Kelly said.
Coordination with the Sheriff’s Office
The funding also directs Pretrial Services to work more closely with the Sheriff’s Office to improve coordination when an ankle monitor is cut — an effort to close the gap that allowed Gilley to reach a foreign country before authorities were notified.
It’s not clear what that would look like yet.
“All of this has to be immensely coordinated because of the laws that we all have to be governed by,” Garcia said. “The director (of Pretrial Services) is confident that this will help us get up and running. And like I said, it’ll be a few months before everything for this particular piece is in place.”
Response from District Attorney’s Office
“This Court has become one of the strongest champions of public safety in years. Victims of violent crime should never have to worry about offenders slipping through the cracks to avoid accountability, and we are grateful that Commissioners Court is tackling long-needed fixes like this that make our community safer,” District Attorney Sean Teare said in a statement to KPRC 2 News.
