The Detention Center
Matagorda County Jail
- Operated byMatagorda County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — the Sheriff page tells depositors to "use the Kiosk in the lobby of the Matagorda County Jail"
- Jail phone979-241-3275 (listed as "Sheriff's Office – Jail" in the county telephone directory)
- Rosterhttps://portal-txmatagorda.tylertech.cloud/Matagorda/JailingSearch.aspx?ID=400 — published as "Jail Records" on the county's Public Records page
- Inmate fundsAccessCorrections.com, 866-345-1884, or the jail lobby kiosk; inmate name, SO number and date of birth required. No rates published
- What was triedhttps://www.matagordatx.gov/page/Sheriff ; https://www.matagordatx.gov/page/Telephone.Directory ; https://www.matagordatx.gov/upload/page/0119/mctelephone.pdf ; https://www.matagordatx.gov/page/PublicRecordSearch ; https://www.matagordatx.gov/page/Budgets
- Beds and population, 2026-08114 people held in 192 rated beds
Source: Matagorda County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds192 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 Aug 2026); 114 held, 59.4% of capacity — not published by the county itself
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Richard “Rick” DeLeon III
- Published as"Sheriff Richard “Rick” DeLeon III, Matagorda County Sheriff"
- Address2308 Avenue F, Bay City, TX 77414
- Phone979-245-5526 (non-emergency); jail 979-241-3275
- Emailrdeleon@co.matagorda.tx.us
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Matagorda County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
This is a real gap: Matagorda County's Justice of the Peace page carries self-help links and a warning against ex parte contact but names no judge. The county telephone directory PDF lists five JP courts by precinct number and phone only — Pct. 1 (979-244-7666), Pct. 2 (979-863-2035), Pct. 3 (361-972-5313), Pct. 4 (979-843-5601) and Pct. 6 (979-245-0358). The JPs are the magistrates who set bond at first appearance, and the county does not tell the public who they are. The 23rd District Court page is at https://www.matagordatx.gov/page/23rd.
County Judge
- Bobby Seiferman
District Courts
- Denise M. Fortenberry (130th Judicial District)
- John Maher, Jr. (23rd Judicial District)
Justices of the Peace
- Not found — the county publishes no JP names
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-22
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Matagorda names its jail and links a working jail-records search, and posts minutes for every Commissioners Court meeting of 2026 — but publishes not one Justice of the Peace name.
- The jail appears on the county site only as an address for commissary deposits and a phone number in a directory PDF. There is no jail page, no visiting rules, no bond guidance.
- Budgets run back to 2008; the FY2026 adopted budget is a scanned PDF with no extractable text.
- TCJS does not publish a per-county inspection page or routine inspection report online; the only county-level TCJS documents found are the statewide Inmate Population Report (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/PopReportCurrent.xlsx) and the Non-Compliant Jails list (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/non-compliant-jails/), which did not list this county as of 22 Aug 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Edward "Bubba" Cook, Precinct 2 Mike Estlinbaum, Precinct 3 Troy Shimek, Precinct 4 Charles "Bubba" Frick; County Judge Bobby Seiferman.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
2 people have died in the Matagorda County jail since 2022.
Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Matagorda County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered