Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Ellis James Ezeb, Jr., 33, is facing 40 charges of violating pre-trial release conditions after allegedly calling his domestic battery victim 245 times from the jail.

Ezeb was arrested on November 30 and charged with domestic battery; at his First Appearance hearing, he was instructed to have no contact with the victim.

However, Ezeb allegedly asked another inmate on his pod to make a three-way call to the victim; once the victim was on the phone, Ezeb allegedly spoke to her and also asked the other inmate to tell the third person to text the victim and ask her to provide a second phone number because her number was blocked within the jail.

Once Ezeb had the new number, he allegedly called the victim on that number and also asked her for a third number in case he couldn’t reach her on the new number.

All calls from the jail have a pre-recorded message informing inmates and the people they call that calls are monitored and recorded; the Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputy investigating this case reported that Ezeb often used “controlling measures” such as repeatedly asking why she didn’t answer the phone when he called.

Ezeb allegedly contacted the victim directly or indirectly a total of 245 times. Phone calls from the jail are free and unlimited for inmates; Alachua County taxpayers pay $0.029 a minute plus regulatory fees for the calls.

Ezeb has been charged with 40 counts of violating pre-trial release conditions.

Ezeb has juvenile convictions between 2006 and 2009, one adult felony conviction, and two adult misdemeanor convictions. He has been in the Alachua County Jail since November 30 on $15,000 bail, and today Judge Adam Lee added $558,000 to that ($75,000 for each of the first seven counts and $1,000 for each of the remaining counts) with an added condition that Ezeb will be limited to calls to his attorney only.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.