Complaint Against WilCo Judge Assigned To Prosecutor

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX — A formal complaint against Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell — accused of violating his own stay-at-home order amid the coronavirus to attend his grandson's birthday party in April — has been assigned to a prosecutor, Patch has learned.

Milam County District Attorney Bill Torrey is slated to hear the complaint, according to a copy of the order obtained by Patch that was signed on Tuesday. A date for the hearing has not been set.

Selection of the prosecutor comes two months after Georgetown attorney Robert McCabe filed a formal complaint against Gravell on April 13. The protracted time it took to find someone to hear the case was due to area prosecutors' familiarity with both Gravell and McCabe that could have yielded a conflict of interest, the latter explained when reached by Patch.

Related story: WilCo Judge Under Fire For Violating Own Stay-At-Home Order

"Locally, it's because they all are politically connected, and don't want to appear to show favoritism or prejudice to Gravell or even me for that matter," McCabe explained in a text, adding he had received a copy of the order on Thursday. "We all know each other, and need someone from outside WilCo."

Gravell was photographed outside his daughter's home in Jarrell, Texas, on the same day he signed a stay-at-home order compelling residents to limit their outings to help blunt the spread of illness. In the photos, the judge is dressed like a firefighter with gear borrowed from the fire department in Jarrell to surprise his grandson.

"Challenging times call for us to make hard decisions, but these have been made with the priority to keep our community as safe as possible, especially those who are part of the vulnerable population," Gravell said in extending his stay-at-home order on the same day of his outing.

The judge reportedly sought to have images of him in firefighter apparel taken down from social media platform after a county watchdog using the moniker Buddy Falcon shared them. He reached out to Buddy Falcon via a direct message on Twitter in his quest to have the photos scrubbed from the social media platform.

"This is a picture of my daughter's home and my grandson," Gravell wrote Buddy Falcon in a message shared with Patch. "You can come after me, but this picture is out of line!" Reached by Patch, Buddy Falcon noted the child did not appear in any of the photos.

McCabe previously told Patch the judge also reached out to him demanding the photos be taken down, thinking the attorney might have been responsible for distributing the images.

"'I need you to take those pictures down,' " McCabe recalled Gravell telling him, as he told Patch in a previous interview. "That was the first thing out of his mouth. I told him I'm not Buddy Falcon, I didn't take the pictures, and I'm not going to be doing that."

Instead, McCabe filed a formal complaint with the Williamson County District Attorney's Office against Gravell over his order-violating outing and use of official resources. The DA in turn forwarded the complaint to the county attorney's office.

The Georgetown attorney filed three grievances: Abuse of official capacity for using a position of power as a public servant to use taxpayer-funded resources for a non-official purpose; official oppression for having compelled a sheriff's deputy to drive him and his wife to their grandson's birthday party, exposing the officer to potential health risk given the coronavirus spread; and for violating the stay-at-home order for a non-essential trip.

All three of the charges are Class C misdemeanors, McCabe explained. But the attorney said he's yet to ascertain the value involved in the use of firefighter equipment, which could upgrade the charge to a Class B misdemeanor if it goes over $100, the attorney explained.

A copy of the order appears below:

Milam County where DA Torrey works as a prosecutor is 59.3 miles east of Williamson County. Gravell had no comment about the case when previously reached by Patch.