85 days after being fitted with GPS monitoring, Earlville gun-drug suspect detained on new charges

For the second time in less than a week, a Class X felony suspect is back in the La Salle County Jail after authorities said he violated conditions of his pretrial release.

Travis A. Billups, 36, of Earlville was picked up Wednesday on a La Salle County warrant charging him with two counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance (cocaine), both Class 1 felonies carrying up to 15 years in prison. He was charged after a pair of controlled buys Sept. 13 and Sept. 19 in La Salle-Peru.

Billups had been fitted with an ankle bracelet in June even though he was charged then (and remains charged) with a nonprobationable offense. He was charged with one count of being an armed habitual criminal, a Class X felony carrying up to 30 years, for allegedly possessing a 0.9-mm pistol with a repeat felony history.

La Salle County prosecutors wanted him detained in June, but Judge Cynthia M. Raccuglia agreed to house arrest with GPS monitoring.

Eighty-five days after being fitted with the ankle bracelet, Billups sold 3.1 grams of cocaine to a confidential informant Sept. 13 at his Peru residence, police said. He also is charged with selling another 2 grams in La Salle on Sept. 19, police said.

La Salle County prosecutors filed a motion to revoke his pretrial release. At the Thursday hearing in La Salle County Circuit Court, prosecutor Laura Hall said Billups was specifically admonished not to break anymore laws while on electronic monitoring.

“He had an ankle bracelet on him and was confined to his house,” Hall said, “and he’s selling narcotics.”

Public Defender Ryan Hamer said Billups enjoys the presumption of innocence, as well as a presumption of pretrial release, and that prosecutors also had to prove he posed an active threat to others. In this case, Hamer said, there were no threats to any specific individual and no allegation that a weapon was brandished.

Hamer proposed sanctions – that is, a punitive sentence up to 30 days in jail – but Judge Michael C. Jansz didn’t accept it.

Jansz said Billups was instructed not to commit new crimes but also not to possess any drugs without a valid prescription, making the new charges an inherent violation of pretrial release.

The judge agreed with Hall: There are no more available restrictions, besides jail, to protect society and keep Billups from committing other acts, Jansz said.

Billups now is the second Class X suspect accused of reoffending this week after getting an ankle bracelet. On Monday, Phillip Weeks of La Salle was ordered held in the La Salle County Jail on a charge of escape; days earlier he’d been placed on home confinement for a charge of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old.

Billups will next appear Dec. 5 for a final pretrial conference on the charge of being an armed habitual criminal. He was charged after an investigation into a May 15 traffic stop in La Salle (Billups was a passenger) in which police seized a pistol. Analysis later showed Billups’ fingerprint on the trigger, prosecutors said.