A judge will decide if Ogg should be held in contempt for comments made about the Jocelyn Nungaray capital murder case. She faces possible jail time and/or fines.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has been ordered to appear in court to explain to a judge why she shouldn’t face contempt of court charges related to the Jocelyn Nungaray case.
Earlier this month, KHOU 11 News reported that a judge was considering a criminal contempt hearing against Ogg after she publicly commented on a suspect in the Nungaray murder case.
Ogg was issued a “show cause order for contempt,” meaning that she’ll have to appear in court to convince a judge that she shouldn’t be held in contempt for violating a prior court order.
She’s due in court on July 28 at 9:30 a.m.
Why is contempt of court being considered?
At a court hearing on June 2, attorneys pointed to a TV interview Ogg had done just days before in which she revealed confidential information about suspect Franklin Peña. It was a move they characterized as improper and in violation of a 2024 gag order.
A couple of weeks later, attorneys for Peña presented new evidence against Ogg and argued that she had further violated the original gag order.
The first piece of evidence was a flyer promoting a June 16 event hosted by the Kingwood Tea Party. The flyer lists Ogg as a featured guest and includes the phrase: “No gag order at Kingwood TEA Party. Should be an interesting night.”
The second piece of evidence was a local news article citing a speech Ogg gave at a Log Cabin Republicans gathering. In the speech, Ogg reportedly claimed she was not subject to a gag order at the time of her previous interviews.
At that same meeting, she allegedly said in part: “Now, I’ve been silenced by the court on that case. So, we’ll leave it at the fact that I’m against the rape and murder of little girls. Are you?”
The capital murder case
Both Peña and his co-defendant, Johan Martinez-Rangel, are charged with capital murder. They’re accused of killing Jocelyn Nungaray and dumping her body in a north Houston creek last June. Jocelyn was 12.
On June 16, 2024, Jocelyn put her little brother to bed and then snuck out of her apartment.
Early in the morning the following day, Houston police said Jocelyn was walking on Kuhkendahl Road when two men, later identified as Peña and Martinez-Rangel, asked her for directions. The three of them then walked to a 7-Eleven store before the men allegedly lured Jocelyn to a bridge on West Rankin Road. Police said they were there for a couple of hours and they tied the victim up, took her pants off, strangled her and dumped her in the creek.
Jocelyn’s body was found hours later by a woman who had just dropped her husband off for work.
Alexis Nungaray, Jocelyn’s mother, said she woke up that morning and found out her daughter wasn’t in her room. She said she traced the location of Jocelyn’s phone and it brought her to the scene where her body was found.
The next day, police released surveillance video that showed Jocelyn with the men.
Three days after Jocelyn’s body was found, on June 20, Peña and Martinez-Rangel were taken into custody.
ICE later confirmed that Peña and Martinez-Rangel were being held on immigration detainers at the Harris County Jail, and both “illegally entered the U.S. without inspection, parole or admission by a U.S. immigration officer on an unknown date and at an unknown location.”