Robert Bowers

The Butler County Sheriff's Department did not transport accused killer Robert Bowers to his hearing in Pittsburgh Thursday morning, where he pleaded not guilty to all 44 charges against him.

Two of the three county commissioners expressed anger Tuesday that Bowers, who stands accused of killing 11 Saturday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, was moved from the Allegheny County Jail to the Butler County Prison without their knowledge.

Commissioners Kim Geyer and Leslie Osche, chairman, said while Sheriff Mike Slupe, chairman of the prison board of directors, found out at 10:20 a.m. Tuesday that federal agents wanted to house Bowers in the county jail, they did not receive an email regarding the move until around 3:30 p.m.

Geyer and Osche were concerned that county sheriff's deputies would have to transport Bowers to and from his many court hearings in Pittsburgh.

Bowers has had two hearings since being moved to the county jail, the latest of which saw him plead not guilty to the crimes at an arraignment.

“We had some relief this morning when the U.S. Marshals transferred him,” Osche said of Bowers' Thursday morning hearing.

No special meeting of the prison board has been scheduled in light of the Bowers incarceration, Osche added.

The three commissioners, Slupe, District Attorney Rich Goldinger, county controller Ben Holland and Judge Timothy McCune form the prison board.

Osche said McCune is out of town, and the potential for a special meeting will be discussed once he returns in a few days.

“Monday, we'll see where we stand,” Osche said from Harrisburg, where the commissioners were meeting with the state secretary of transportation. “We need to wait for him to get caught up (on the Bowers situation).”

Osche stated her trust in Joe DeMore, prison warden, in a letter to the Butler Eagle Wednesday. However, she did not change her stance on Bowers' move to Butler County without the prison board being notified first.

“We support our warden and his team in his decisions and his professionalism in security matters and in carrying out his job as defined by the justice system of the United States and Commonwealth,” Osche's statement said.

She acknowledged, as she did Tuesday, that the prison has a contract with the U.S. Marshals to house federal prisoners.

“But I would suggest this was above and beyond the norm,” Osche said in the statement.

“We are disturbed that such a security matter could have reached the media before the prison board knew what was happening and why the chairman of the prison board did not have enough respect for the remaining board members who fully carry the risk, liability, fiduciary responsibility, and in the case of the (district attorney), the responsibility for local law enforcement, to notify us earlier so that we may have been briefed on the steps being taken to address the risk, liability, cost and notification of law enforcement, whose jurisdictions may be impacted,” she said in the statement.

She ended the statement by saying county officials answer to their constituents, and that the prison board members would have appreciated the opportunity to have “the most basic answers earlier (rather) than later.”

Slupe said Wednesday that DeMore notified the prison board as soon as he was able after personally processing Bowers into the jail Tuesday.