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Put on an ankle bracelet, he's disappeared after 2 separate court appearances and no one knows where he is

For years the president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission has pushed for guidelines for the use of electronic monitoring.

Mike Perlstein / WWL Louisiana Investigator

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Published: 5:26 PM CDT August 9, 2023
Updated: 9:23 AM CDT August 10, 2023

Craig Howard's legal troubles are well-documented in New Orleans court records. Two prior convictions for domestic abuse battery, mental health and drug problems, and a gun arrest in February for allegedly firing a bullet through into a neighbor's apartment at the Blue Plate Artist Lofts apartments.

Following Howard’s Feb. 6 arrest, a magistrate commissioner attached conditions to Howard’s release on a $10,000 bail bond: professional treatment as well as monitoring with an electronic ankle bracelet. Howard, 26, is still awaiting trial on charges of aggravated criminal damage to property and negligent discharge of a firearm.

Howard’s case was routine until his court appearance on July 19. Late that morning, the electronic monitoring company – Assured Supervision Accountability Program, or ASAP – received an alert that Howard was tampering with his bracelet.

The computerized track of Howard’s ankle bracelet shows that he fled the courthouse after failing a drug test.

“We received a strap tamper,” said Jill Dennis of ASAP. “And it appeared he had just come from court.”

ASAP features real-time tracking alerts. As soon as the company realized Howard was fleeing and trying to remove his bracelet, the company sent agents to follow his trail. They tracked him to a nearby Home Depot. And that’s where the trail ended.

“He had used a tool at the Home Depot to cut the ankle monitor off and throw it in the bathroom,” Jill Dennis said.

While her agents were following Howard, Dennis was calling the authorities, starting with the New Orleans police. She then called Criminal Court Judge Ben Willard, the presiding judge, to get him to issue a warrant so officers could pick him up.

Dennis did not get the answer she expected.

“I was told that Judge Willard didn't order the ankle monitor, that I would have to call the magistrate judge that ordered the ankle monitor because he wasn't going to do anything,’’ she said.

Court records show the ankle monitor had been ordered previously by a magistrate commissioner before Howard's case was allotted to Willard.

Willard eventually issued an arrest warrant for Howard later on July 19 for failing to return to his courtroom. But by then, he was gone.

“This is frustrating in that this is not a failure of the electronic monitor. It's a failure of the judge,” said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a non-profit criminal justice watchdog group.

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