The Professional Bondsmen of Texas- Blog

Deon Ledet had seven prior felony convictions. Last November, he was charged for possessing and delivering drugs. Despite the DA's office asking he be held in custody, Ledet was freed on a minimal bond by 208th District judge Greg Glass. Deon Ledet, 31, was accused of skipping out on that bond, and there's every indication from neighbors in the Northeast Harris County apartment complex where he was found, that he knew the police would come looking for him and he had no intention of going quietly. After a Houston police officer was killed, and another shot and injured, as they tried to serve an arrest warrant, attention has turned to the Harris County judge who set the suspected fugitive free on a low bond. Houston Police Officers' Union executive director Ray Hunt is among the critics who say Ledet should never have been free.  "I put all of this, and all the blood from our officers, on Judge Greg Glass," says a livid Hunt. Hunt argues that the death of senior off

Wisconsin- In just under two weeks, according to four newly filed criminal complaints, a Madison man who was free after posting bail for earlier alleged violent crimes committed two sexual assaults and multiple armed robberies, including two bank robberies, some while wearing a GPS anklet and others after he had cut it off. Rondino S. Fleming, 29, posted $8,500 bail through his mother the morning of Sept. 1, according to court records for six previously pending cases against him. The next day, according to a criminal complaint, he committed the first of several armed robberies, this one at 2:15 p.m. at the Stop-N-Go gas station, 6202 Schroeder Road. The GPS anklet Fleming was wearing placed him there at the time, according to the complaint. He cut off the anklet at 11:06 p.m. on Sept. 4, the complaint states, but he was still wearing it during some of the other robberies he was charged with committing and during one of the alleged sexual assaults. Fleming was awaiting trial in Dane Cou

A tip from a bail bonds service based in Vancouver led to the arrest of two fugitives in Florida in a case that surprised law enforcement with the brazen ways of the criminals and the large scale of their criminal operation. Anatoly Kutsar, who evaded law enforcement in Clark County this summer and again got away when agents from Regan Bail Bonds tried to apprehend him in July, was arrested along with a girlfriend, Rachel Kaz-Clark, at a hotel in Collier County, Florida, last week. And not without one more bizarre attempt to escape. Kutsar and Kaz-Clark barricaded themselves in their hotel room when they were confronted by law enforcement, then cut a hole in the wall to get into the next room, where they then tried to escape through a window. To see more CLICK HERE .

An alleged Minneapolis domestic abuser has been arrested and charged with murder he is said to have carried out weeks after being released thanks to a bail fund backed by Vice President Kamala Harris.  George Howard, 48, was bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) on August 6 after being held on a $11,500 on charges of domestic abuse. Weeks later, Howard was charged with murder when he shot another driver on I-94 during a road rage incident on August 29. To see more CLICK HERE . To see statement from Paul Novotny CLICK HERE .

  Attorney at Law Magazine- Texas has dramatically changed the narrative on the much-discussed and controversial subject of bail reform.  As the 2021 legislative session unfolded, Governor Greg Abbott proposed a different kind of reform to the state's criminal justice system that would not tie the hands of judges.  With the passage of Senate Bill 6 after a lengthy delay, new laws are finally set to be enacted and hold the promise that it really is possible to implement good bail reform measures that make sense and serve the public's best interests. In the past five years, criminal justice reform has been passed in a number of jurisdictions across the country.  Reformers argued that change was needed to protect the rights of the poor and to reduce the incarceration of individuals arrested and charged with certain low-level crimes, while claiming that doing so would not jeopardize public safety.  They also argued that the private bail system was unconstitutional, despite rulings

  In 2020, murder rose at an unprecedented 30 percent annual rate, as incarceration rates fell, police manpower shrank, and anti-police protests spread across the nation. As the New York Times noted, "There is no precedent for last year's increase in the number of murders." The previous largest one-year increase was 12.7 percent, in 1968. And the murder rate is still going up in 2021. The Times reports that "data from 87 cities with publicly available year-to-date data shows murder up by 9.9 percent relative to comparable points in 2020. Some cities like Portland, Ore., and Las Vegas are seeing big increases relative to last year." * * * * Some observers wonder whether this spike in killings was caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but global crime data shows it wasn't. A recent Washington Post editorial “Too much death” asked whether homicides rose in America because of “the COVID-19 pandemic” or “national protests” against the police. The "protests&quo

  ELIZABETHTOWN — State and Essex County officials are concerned that the controversial statewide bail reform measures have made it more difficult to curtail and prosecute crimes such as drug trafficking. At a news conference Friday morning at the Essex County Government Center, State Sen. Dan Stec (R-Queensbury) and Assemblyman Matt Simpson (R-Horicon) were joined by Essex County Board of Supervisors Chair Shaun Gillilland (R-Willsboro), Moriah Town Supervisor Tom Scozzafava (R-Moriah) and Essex County District Attorney Kristi Sprague to call for improvements to the system. Bail reform measures that went into effect Jan. 1, 2020 eliminated cash bail for most nonviolent crimes and largely took away judicial discretion. Subsequent updates to the law allowed judges to impose cash bail in more situations. 'TRAINWRECK' The group of Republican officials pointed to the Aug. 31 arrest of 12 people in Moriah, many of whom were previously apprehended on similar charges of possession and

  FOX NEWS- Houston's police union is demanding a judge’s resignation following a shooting that left one officer dead and another sergeant critically wounded – arguing that the alleged gunmen who was also killed should have never have been let out of jail on a reduced bond given his violent criminal history.  Houston Police Officers' Union President Douglas Griffith is blasting Harris County's 208th District Court Judge Greg Glass following a deadly shooting early Monday as officers assigned to the Major Offenders Division arrived at a home at 5350 Aeropark Drive to serve a narcotics-related warrant.  "We are calling for his resignation," Griffith told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. "The community is becoming more and more outraged. This is the 138th person, one of our officers, over the last two years that has been killed by someone out on multiple felony bonds." A woman first answered the door Monday, and officers asked to speak with 30-year-old Deon Led

The number of criminal cases pending before Harris County courts stands at more than 94,000. That includes 41,000 misdemeanors and 53,000 felonies, numbers so high that if prosecutors stopped filing criminal charges tomorrow, it would take misdemeanor judges a year to clear their dockets; felony judges would need 19 months, based on their average pace for closing cases since 2017. * * * * The backlog is so high that the Justice Management Institute, a Colorado nonprofit that has helped the county improve its criminal justice system since the early 2000s, offered a startling proposal last summer: Dismiss most nonviolent felony cases more than 9 months old, which would allow judges to focus on disposing the newest and most serious cases, including murders, rapes and assaults. Piecemeal solutions would be inadequate, the group said. To see more CLICK HERE.

  He is 36 and has a record that goes back 18 years.  He has 9 felony convictions and 8 misdemeanor convictions.  He has been sentenced to prison in the past.  He served his time and is now out and once again being accused of committing crimes.  At last count he was out pending trial on 10 bonds, including three felonies.    Then he was arrested on 4 additional charges.  Meet career criminal Darrick Gray. Harris County Judges lack the courage to deny bail to career criminals.  

  The FBI’s annual report Monday made official what most unfortunately presumed: The United States in 2020 experienced the biggest rise in murders since the start of national record-keeping 60 years ago. The Uniform Crime Report detailed a murder increase of nearly 30 percent. The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase back in 1968. The national rate of murders per 100,000, however, still remains about one-third below the rate in the early 1990s. The FBI data show around 21,500 total murders last year, which is 5,000 more murders than in 2019. More than three-fourths of reported murders in 2020 were committed with a firearm, the highest rate ever reported. Murder rose by 35 percent in cities with populations over 250,000, and also jumped more than 40 percent in cities with 100,000 to 250,000 residents. Even towns with under 25,000 people saw a roughly 25 percent increase in homicides. To see more CLICK HERE . To see FBI's Annual Report CLICK HERE .

After two back-to-back homicides early Sunday morning, Austin reached a 60-year high of 60 homicides this year. The number is the highest the Austin Police Department has recorded in its 60 years of record-keeping and surpasses the murders in 2020 by 25%, when the city saw 48 slayings. The numbers came quick early Sunday morning, when police officers responded to a call at the El Nocturno Night Club on 7601 N. Lamar Blvd after reports of gunfire. A man was found with several gunshot wounds at the scene and was later pronounced dead. Less than 10 minutes later, officers responded to a reported stabbing downtown. When they arrived at the scene, they found an injured man who later died. No more information has come from either report. * * * * Austin Interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon said the city's "boomtown" growth is now being met with "boomtown" problems. To see more CLICK HERE .

  NEW YORK- Good news: State lawmakers may be starting to worry that voters are linking their 2019 no-bail-required law to the spike in violent crime. Bad news: They’re making meaningless gestures that let them  pretend  they’re fixing the law without offending the pro-criminal left. Case in point: Assemblywoman Sandy Galef (D-Westchester) and state Sen. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick (D-Rockland/Westchester) are pushing legislation  to give judges discretion to set bail  in certain gun cases. Great. But it won’t make much difference because judges  already  have discretion in many such cases. Meanwhile, their hands are tied in cases involving numerous other violations. Nor can judges consider whether the defendant is a danger to the community. The current statute also forces them to impose the “least restrictive means” to ensure an accused person returns to court. And it contains discovery rules that enable defendants to get key info about witnesses, prompting many to clam up and destroy pro

SAN ANTONIO – The Bexar County court system is bracing for a new bail reform law that goes into effect Dec. 2. Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 6, or the Damon Allen Act, on Monday. Allen was a state trooper who was murdered in 2017 by a man who was out on bond. The law will ban the release of people accused of violent crimes on personal recognizance bonds, or PR bonds. It will now require defendants instead to post the amount of cash set by the court. In Bexar County, where 80% of those arrested are indigent or a minority, it leads to a disproportionate law that affects only the poor. That’s something the Bexar County Public Defender’s Office sees as a huge problem since all its clients are indigent. To see more CLICK HERE .

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A parolee’s arrest in a killing after he’d been released without bail helped torpedo the California Legislature’s latest attempt to reform the cash bail system for this year, the bill’s author said Thursday. Democratic Sen. Bob Hertzberg unsuccessfully tried several variations of a new measure after voters in November defeated a law what would have ended cash bail in favor of risk assessments. His initial bill cleared the Senate but ran into opposition in the more conservative Assembly ahead of Friday’s legislative deadline, although Democrats control the needed two-thirds majorities in both chambers. To see more CLICK HERE . See also- CA District Attorneys Outraged Over Zero Bail Release of Violent Parolee and Murder of Sacramento Woman and Her Dogs- CLICK HERE .

  Recent bail reform efforts in Houston that allow more suspects accused of low-level crimes to get out of jail without posting a cash bond have resulted in increased recidivism and more violent crime, a new Harris County District Attorney’s Office analysis found. In addition, the 64-page report released last Thursday, found that even though bail reform in Harris County has been formally limited to misdemeanors since 2017, felony defendants have also been given reduced bonds or released from jail on their personal recognizance. The report, released by District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, reaches starkly different conclusions than similar reports released over the last year by the Harris County Justice Administration Department and an independent group of social scientists assigned to monitor bail reform efforts in Houston. Those organizations found that reoffending rates for misdemeanors have not increased since bail reform was implemented, and that there is no evidence that increase

HOUSTON, Texas (KWTX) - Governor Abbott Monday signed Senate Bill 6, the Damon Allen Act, into law at the Texas Pastor Council’s Safer Houston Summit. Allen’s widow spoke at the summit and sat down with KWTX after returning back to Central Texas. She says one of her biggest things in this process was to make sure the bill stayed in Damon’s name. “That’s one way that you keep his memory alive and its one way you make sure that something that was terrible means something. And it’ll mean something forever,” Kasey Allen said after the bill was signed into law Monday. To see more CLICK HERE .

We dive into the impact of flawed criminal justice reform bills with attorney Ken W. Good who specializes in bail law. Mr. Good practices in Texas and is well versed in the situation there. We'll also unpack what this trend in ineffective, and even harmful, prison reform bills across the nation could mean for future crime rates. To see more CLICK HERE . Also Available on- Audible-  CLICK HERE . Apple Podcasts-  CLICK HERE . Tune-in-  CLICK HERE . Listen Notes-  CLICK HERE . Player FM-  CLICK HERE . PodBean-  CLICK HERE .

  It was just days after Caitlynne Guajardo was murdered. The man she called her husband was accused of stabbing her and their unborn child to death. The world was spinning for Caitlynne’s mom, Melanie Infinger. It was all a blur. The funeral. The grief. The sadness. She finally had the chance to have some sleep, away from the tears. Infinger drifted off in her dream, though it became the first time she saw her 21-year-old daughter since her death. Infinger dreamt the two were in the car. Though, even in the dream state, she quickly realized her daughter wasn’t there. To see more CLICK HERE . Other Coverage- Ok Magazine-  CLICK HERE . Twitter- CLICK HERE . Celeb Nation- CLICK HERE .

The Houston police union is calling for the resignation of a judge who released an alleged gunman who shot and killed a police officer despite his history of violence.  Houston Police Officers' Union President Douglas Griffith is calling on Harris County's 208th District Court Judge Greg Glass to resign after he let 31-year-old Deon Ledet out on bond despite his extensive criminal history.  Ledet was shot and killed after exchanging gunfire with Houston police officers and allegedly fatally shot veteran officer William 'Bill' Jeffrey. To see more CLICK HERE .

  "I am beyond pleased that the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 6,” Melanie Infinger said in a statement. “Since my daughter Caitlynne’s murder in 2019, I vowed to do whatever possible to save other families from the excruciating preventable pain of losing a loved one in the manner in which I lost my girl and her unborn child."  Melanie Infinger on the Governor signing SB6 into law-  To see more CLICK HERE . 

  The Sheriffs of Randall and Hutchinson County see Texas’ new bail reform bill that was signed into law Monday as a step closer to keeping the public and officers safe. The Damon Allen Act prohibits a person charged with a violent offense to be released on personal bond. It also requires the defendant be granted or denied bail within 48 hours of their arrest. To see more CLICK HERE .

  Senior Police Officer Douglas Griffith is a Native Houstonian and a graduate of North Shore High School. He graduated Academy Class 142 and was assigned to the Southeast Command Station in 1991. During his twenty-nine years of service with the department, he dedicated twenty years to the Gang Task Force and Divisional Gang Unit. The served four years as a member of the Southeast Tactical Operations D.G.U.  He earned a Masters in Law Enforcement Executive Leadership from California Southern in 2016. Doug was elected to position 11 in 2008, and in 2012 Doug was appointed to the position of Vice President to succeed retired Senior Police Officer J. J. Berry.  Doug is the current president of the Houston Police Office Union. Douglas appears on the Public Affairs Podcast to discuss increasing crime.  He discusses the effects of bad bail reform and the lack of accountability. Key take away-  Griffith estimates that there are over 90,000 gang members in Houston currently. To listen to the p

 PBT Annual Meeting- October 6-8 Come Learn About All The Changes To Texas Law Because of Bail Reform The PBT Annual Meeting is quickly approaching. It is October 6-8, 2021 at the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. Please come and join us. We have so much to talk about regarding this session. The Texas Legislature finally has passed Criminal Justice/Bail Reform. Some of the changes go into effect January 1, 2022 and others go into effect April 1, 2022. Come and learn how SB6 will affect your business as counties put into affect the changes enacted by the Texas Legislature. Also, come and learn all the things that the PBT legislative committee did to prepare for this session and to fight for our industry. Were you aware that the PBT legislative committee started meeting with various stakeholder as much as a year before the session? Were you aware that the PBT legislative committee drafted a notebook of all the bail reform issues addressed across the country with supporting doucmentatio

  The Harris County Democrat District Attorney has issued a report that blows the lid off of bail reform that has been an ongoing experiment in her county; documenting with facts and figures that bail reform has caused crime to increase.  In her conclusion, the district attorney's report states:   [O]ur analysis of the data and metrics they provided show that there is evidence that misdemeanor bail reform in Harris County is associated with lower community safety via higher recidivism and higher crime levels.  It has also undermined the integrity of the bail system through high bond failures.  Ogg, Bail Crime & Public Safety , p. 55 (September 2, 2021). Recidivism means the tendency of a defendant on bond and charged with committing a crime to be arrested and accused of a new crime while on bond. Several years ago, Harris County entered into a settlement of a federal lawsuit which implemented many bail reform initiatives.  One of the terms of the agreement was that there would