Illa, Gabriel

Tenure Summary

Gabriel Illa's GDC career is documented from 2015, when he held the title Correctional Officer (SP), through successive supervisory ranks: CSM Correctional Lieutenant (2016), CSM Correctional Captain (2017–2018), and CSM Correctional Unit Manager (2019–2023). The records assign no facility to those postings. His first facility-tied leadership entry is Deputy Warden at Hays State Prison, dated 2023-11-22, followed by Deputy Warden salary years in 2024 and 2025 and a second Hays State Prison Deputy Warden entry dated 2026-08-27. He holds the Warden role at Hays State Prison from 2026-09-01 with no end date listed, and his status is active.

No deaths are attributed to Illa's facility-leadership tenures in these records, and no news reports name him. The accountability record that does exist consists of two family allegations tied to his Warden role at Hays State Prison and three federal lawsuits in which he is listed as a defendant. None of the lawsuits record a settlement or an outcome amount.

What happened on their watch

Hays State Prison — Deputy Warden (entry dated 2023-11-22; salary years 2024 and 2025; second Hays entry dated 2026-08-27). No deaths are attributed to this posting. Filed during this period are two lawsuits listing Illa as a defendant: Daker v. Jones (filed 2024-07-15, pending) and Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order (filed 2025-06-06, terminated 2026-03-30). No intel reports recorded at Hays State Prison are tied to the Deputy Warden role; the two reports discussed below carry the Warden role designation.

Hays State Prison — Warden (from 2026-09-01, no end date). No deaths are attributed to this posting. Two family reports, both recorded 2026-09-01 and associated in the record with the Warden role at Hays, describe the facility's strip-cell practice in the infirmary during 2024. Both originate from a public comment in a Georgia prison family group on Facebook.

The first report alleges that people held in strip cells in the infirmary were barred by policy from phone calls and visitation, including during a 2024 mental health crisis involving food refusal. The second report describes a warden who, over a period of months, intervened to keep an incarcerated man on strip-cell status alive during a mental health crisis — bringing food, arranging family visits and phone calls, and bringing trusted peers to the infirmary despite facility policies that barred such contact. That report refers to "a warden" without naming the individual; the record associates it with the Warden role at Hays. These are unverified family allegations, not findings by any court or agency, and the two accounts describe the same policy environment from different directions — one emphasizing the contact restrictions, the other an official's informal workaround of them.

Litigation

• Mckenzie v. Oliver, No. 4:26-cv-00108 (GAND), filed 2026-04-28, pending. No disposition or outcome amount recorded.
• Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, No. 1:25-cv-03191 (GAND), filed 2025-06-06, terminated 2026-03-30. No outcome amount recorded.
• Daker v. Jones, No. 4:24-cv-00173 (GAND), filed 2024-07-15, pending. No disposition or outcome amount recorded.

Illa appears as a defendant in each of these dockets; the records do not state the claims pleaded against him, and no court has entered a liability finding in any of them.

Sources

• CourtListener docket records — Mckenzie v. Oliver (2026); Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order (2025); Daker v. Jones (2024)
• Facebook public comment, Georgia prison family group — family reports recorded 2026-09-01 concerning strip-cell conditions and phone/visitation restrictions at Hays State Prison in 2024

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Oct 11, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.