Breaking Bond: Harris County Sheriff the latest top law enforcement official to condemn multiple felony bonds

HOUSTON - "We need to fix a broken bond system because it simply isn’t working," said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

The sheriff has no say when it comes to who can bond out of jail. That decision is solely made by Harris County Criminal District Court Judges.

"People who should be out sometimes stay in jail and people who aren’t supposed to be out are out there continuing to re-offend," Gonzalez said.

"They’re out on multiple bonds, that’s inexcusable in my opinion."

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Take 24-year-old Marlon Thomas, for example.

Since 2019, 185th Criminal District Court Judge Jason Luong has allowed Thomas to post bond several times.

The first bond was after Thomas allegedly tried to strangle someone.

"Then he gets assault to impede breathing on another person," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. "So this is two felonies which he’s tried to strangle somebody to death, yet he gets another bond."

While Judge Jason Luong keeps releasing Thomas on one felony bond after another, the DA’s office repeatedly asks him to revoke Thomas’ bonds and get him back behind bars.

"I looked at not one, not two, not three, but four times they filed a motion to revoke his bond for obvious reasons."

According to court documents, since August of 2020, Thomas is supposed to be wearing an ankle monitor. We’ve yet to get a straight answer on that one.

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Just two weeks ago, police say Thomas shot a man in a Walmart parking lot.

The man survived and Thomas is now a wanted fugitive.

We reached out to Judge Jason Luong for an explanation, but like all the other judges we’ve been telling you about, he has chosen to ignore us.

"Crime is out of control and there’s a revolving door with bail. I get it," the sheriff said. "We have a broken system."