JUDGE CUTS BACK BAIL FOR OFFICERS ARRESTED IN OCTOBER POLICE STING

A judge reduced the bail Friday on additional robbery and assault
charges against current and former lawmen already accused of stealing
drugs and money during a sting operation in October.

After hearing complaints from defense attorneys about the amount of
bail already posted by Pasadena Marshal Keith E. Wagner, 39, and his
brother, former Galena Park police Officer Michael Joe Wagner, 38,
state District Judge Mike Wilkinson reduced bail on the new charges.

The brothers are charged with an Oct. 1 aggravated robbery and an Oct.
5 aggravated assault.

Wilkinson set bail for the robbery charges at $20,000 and at $15,000
for the assault charges. Originally, those bails were set at $30,000
and $20,000, respectively.

The brothers were already free on $160,000 bail for drug, theft and
burglary charges stemming from the Oct. 21 sting operation.

Now, with the new charges and new bail, they're each free on $195,000.
The Wagners posted the additional $35,000 immediately.

An alleged accomplice also arrested in the sting, Eric Jon Gibson, 38,
of Spring, also is charged with the Oct. 1 robbery.

His bail is currently $30,000 on the robbery charge, and he also has
other bails set for the sting-related charges. He remains jailed.

The Wagner brothers and a third brother, Daniel Charles Wagner, 33,
were charged following the Oct. 21 sting operation in Houston. They,
Gibson, and two others are accused of stealing 5 kilograms of cocaine
and about $50,000 in cash during a sting by the Houston Police
Department internal affairs division, the Texas Department of Public
Safety and the FBI.

Also charged in the sting were Pasadena Marshal Troy Douglas South,
37, and Frank Sidney Ferguson, 52, a 17-year Houston police veteran.

Daniel Wagner, who also works for the Pasadena marshal's office, South
and Ferguson are all free on bail for the sting-related charges. They
were not charged in the aggravated robbery or assault cases.

The three were indicted on the additional charges Thursday.

Prosecutor Mia Magness told Wilkinson in court Friday that Michael and
Keith Wagner, along with Gibson and a fourth man, went into in an auto
repair shop on Ronda Lane in southwest Houston Oct. 1.

Keith Wagner is accused of threatening the owner of the shop with a
flashlight, and all of the participants involved acted as if they were
there to serve a narcotics search warrant, according to court documents.

The robbers allegedly took $6,000 in cash, a mobile phone and a small
amount of marijuana off one of the people in the store.

The fourth person with the Wagners and Gibson that day was working as
a confidential informant for the police, Magness said.

Court records note that the Wagners were in what appeared to be a
Pasadena police patrol car at the scene of the robbery.

In the Oct. 5 assault case, court records say that Keith and Michael
Wagner stormed into a house on McDermott Street in southwest Houston
with other accomplices, who have not been identified.

While carrying weapons, the robbers told the woman living in the house
that they were there to execute an arrest warrant. The woman and two
of her relatives were held at gunpoint while the house was searched.

Magness said at this point there is no evidence to show that anything
was taken. No one was hurt.