Harris County expands ankle monitor oversight after cases of defendants allegedly cutting monitors, fleeing

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Harris County officials are spending $1.5 million to expand around-the-clock monitoring of defendants on ankle monitors, following cases involving defendants accused of cutting off their monitors, fleeing, or committing other crimes.

Commissioners Court approved the funding in September for 15 new positions in the Pre-Trial Services monitoring and supervision program.

“It doesn’t matter and should not matter what day of the calendar it is, and it should not matter what time it is,” Commissioner Adrian Garcia said.

Under the current system, Garcia said a defendant who cuts off a monitor or tries to flee could go undetected until the next business day.

“It will allow pretrial services to hire new staff so that alerts are answered on a 24, seven-day operation basis,” Garcia said.

Here is how officials say the new system will work: Ankle monitor company Sentinel will send an alert to judges and also reach out to the defendant for a video check.

“If the person doesn’t answer, Sentinel now will call law enforcement. They now have a direct line to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office,” Garcia said.

County officials said there are 1,800 active ankle monitors countywide, but they did not have data readily available for how often monitors are being cut off.

District Attorney Sean Teare said tampering is rare.

“It is a very, very small number of people that tamper or disable or cut off their ankle monitor,” Teare said.

Still, ABC13 has reported on several cases in recent weeks and months. Among the most notable was Lee Gilley, who is accused of killing his pregnant wife.

Gilley allegedly cut off his ankle monitor and fled to Italy to avoid standing trial.

Garcia said the expansion wasn’t possible until now because the right partners weren’t in place.

“I’ve been on court since 2019. We didn’t have the partners. No matter what amount of money I had to make this happen, you got to have the decision makers come to the table. So we didn’t have that,” Garcia said.

County officials said they have filled three of the 15 positions so far. They do not have an exact timeline for filling the remaining positions, but said training takes about six to seven months.

Officials said they are starting with domestic violence cases.

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