Warrant team proving successful
by Sublette County Sheriff’s Office
April 10, 2016
In January, Sublette County Sheriff’s Office Support Captain Gabriel Torres, created a warrant team to begin overseeing and tracking down the large number of outstanding warrants issued from Sublette County Courts.
Previously, an audit of the warrant files had been completed, verifying the validity of each of the over 600 warrants that were currently on file. Many of the warrants were for traffic violations and were for Wyoming only, meaning that an arrest for the outstanding warrant could only take place if the subject was in the state of Wyoming.
The two-deputy team, consisting of detention deputies Todd Morgan and Marlene Bauman, began working on the backlog of warrants in mid-January. The pair uses county records, a background search engine, and social media to locate contact information for the offenders. Usually, a phone call reminder is all it takes for payment to be received by the court for the fine.
In the 10 weeks that the program has been running, the team has successfully served 39 warrants, conducted 41 transports, and been responsible for 192 quashed warrants. That is, warrants that have been cancelled by the court after the subject has contacted them. The result has led to over $31,000 being collected in court fees.
"It has been a fantastic addition," Captain Torres said. "The productivity of this team, not only for the warrants but also for transports, has helped out immensely. In the past, the warrants issued by our courts would just be entered and go into a file. Now, they are being actively worked."
In addition to the work on the outstanding warrants, the team takes on regular jail responsibilities as staffing necessitates, as well as conducting the majority of the transportation of inmates.
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