The Woodward County Jail is so full, it can’t house two Mooreland men charged with first degree murder.
“The two guys being held on murder charges are still at the Custer County Jail,” Sheriff Gary Stanley said Friday. “Custer County has maximum security cells, so we took them there. They were considered to be a flight risk, so there were security issues regarding the charges they’re being held on. There is overcrowding in the Woodward County Jail.”
Capacity for holding inmates at the Woodward County Jail is 41, Stanley said.
At the time the inmates being held in Custer County were arrested, the jail was housing 48 inmates, he said.
Custer County offered Woodward County a discount fee of $10 a day for housing the inmates, Stanley said. However, that fee is for a short term. If the inmates are held in Custer County for a long period of time, the fee will go up to $20 to $25 a day, Stanley said.
The Mooreland inmates are originally from Guatemala and are in the United States illegally, Stanley said.
They are being held without bond following their recent arraignment in Woodward County District Court.
Isidro Juarez Ramos, 29, and Julio Juarez Ramos, 22, are charged in the death of a third man from Guatemala, Antonio Lopez Velasquez.
The men were charged with murder after allegedly confessing to strangling Velasquez May 16 with a rope in Mooreland and allegedly leading law officers to his body, which was located near an oil field southeast of Mooreland near some trees.
Stanley has said overcrowding is not the only issue the Woodward County Jail faces.
It is fraught with plumbing problems and security issues and is constantly in need of repair.
A jail inspector has told the sheriff a new facility is needed, Stanley said.
Last Monday, the Woodward County Commission set Aug. 11 as a date for a referendum to ask voters to raise the county sales tax for a period of 10 years to pay for a new detention center.
The proposed detention center would house either 118 beds or 124 beds and would cost $10 million.
Currently, the county has a sales tax in effect in the amount of two tenths of a cent. A sales tax increase to pay off a new detention center over a 10-year period would raise that amount by five eighths of a cent to .825 of a cent until the detention center was paid off.
After the detention center was paid for, the sales tax would revert to four tenths of a cent, of which two tenths would be used to pay for maintenance, operation and salaries for the center.
The remaining two tenths of a cent would continue to pay for other county programs.
