HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Fredy Arriaga was free on a $100,000 bond following his arrest in April 2025 for sexual assault. His bond conditions include wearing a GPS ankle monitor.
Read more Houston-area students taste-test future school lunch menus
What they’re saying:
According to prosecutors, Arriaga grabbed a young woman by the hair and dragged her into the woods. The victim’s mother and brother heard her scream and held Arriaga until police arrived.
On October 6, Arriaga showed up in court. But he failed to appear on October 16 ,the day his trial was supposed to begin.
Earlier this year, capital murder defendant Lee Gilley took his ankle monitor off and fled to Italy.
Read more Texas resident sentenced for distributing sexually explicit material involving toddlers
“There’s over 4,000 defendants currently being monitored by Harris County Pretrial services that have an ankle monitor/GPS device,” said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. “How many of those are for violent offenses, who knows?They won’t say how many of them are wanted again, nobody knows.”
Nobody is monitoring defendants with ankle monitors 24/7. Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia is working to change that with more than a million dollars approved by commissioners court.
“I wanted to make sure we do not have another case like the one where the individual was able to tamper with the device and end up in Italy,” said Garcia. “So I want to make sure that we are tracking violent offenders, in particular, but all people who’ve been given these devices, we have several of them out there, and I want to make sure we use the technology to the fullest extent by monitoring them effectively 24/7. Now, we will be able to coordinate that with the Harris County Sheriffs Office and the District Attorney’s Office.”
Read more Paxton, Talarico tied in Texas Senate race: FOX News poll