Bail Bonding
October 19, 2011 - by
Some ne’er-do-well over in Johnston County got himself arrested, thrown into jail, hired a bail bondsman, then skipped town leaving the bondsman holding the bag. Which left the bondsman with 20 days to file a motion to get his money back – if he could show the bail jumper had died unexpectedly or been locked up in jail somewhere else, say, like South Carolina. And that’s what the bondsman did. He filed the motion and got his money back. Only it turned he fibbed. The motion wasn’t true. Which didn’t sit too well with the Johnston County schools which were supposed to get the forfeited bail money.
So the schools sued.
Next it came out that a lot of bail bondsmen in more places than just Johnston County had been filing fictitious motions to get their money back – they’d fib then sit holding their breath for 20 days hoping no one noticed their slight of hand before the deadline passed.
A Johnston County Court put a hole in that scam by ruling that if a bail bondsman fibbed that 20 day deadline didn’t make a nickel’s worth of difference. The bondsman still had to pay the money which went straight to the schools.
Then politics got into the act. Someone in the legislature decided it wasn’t fair to hold a bail bondsman accountable for a little fib. Before they adjourned both the State House and Senate passed a law that said if the bondsman hoodwinked the court and didn’t get caught for 20 days he was home free.
Of course that attracted the newspaper’s attention. The reporters went to snooping, asking, Who wrote this law? and the answer was curious.
The ‘Bail Bondsman Protection Act’ was buried in a larger bill sponsored by Representative Justin Burr – who is a bail bondsman. But, Representative Burr told the newspapers adamantly, he didn’t have a clue how that new law got into his bill. It wasn’t there, he said, in his original bill and he didn’t know how it got in there except he was pretty sure whatever happened happened in a House-Senate Conference Committee he wasn’t even on.
The newspaper went to a member of the Conference Committee but he couldn’t recall how the new law got into the bill either. Then the newspapers went to Senate Bull-Moose Tom Apodaca who usually knows just about everything that goes on in the legislature. But Apodaca was in the dark too. In fact, he pointed out, he’d recused himself from the vote on the bill because he is a bail bondsman too. Of course, Apodaca added, even if he had recused himself he was always happy to answer a question or two from any puzzled legislator who needed help understanding the bail bonding business.
So how did the law get into the bill? No one knows. No one knows who wrote it. No one knows who put it in the bill. It just appeared out of thin air.
Posted in Issues, North Carolina - Republicans
Bail Bonding
October 19, 2011/
Some ne’er-do-well over in Johnston County got himself arrested, thrown into jail, hired a bail bondsman, then skipped town leaving the bondsman holding the bag. Which left the bondsman with 20 days to file a motion to get his money back – if he could show the bail jumper had died unexpectedly or been locked up in jail somewhere else, say, like South Carolina. And that’s what the bondsman did. He filed the motion and got his money back. Only it turned he fibbed. The motion wasn’t true. Which didn’t sit too well with the Johnston County schools which were supposed to get the forfeited bail money.
So the schools sued.
Next it came out that a lot of bail bondsmen in more places than just Johnston County had been filing fictitious motions to get their money back – they’d fib then sit holding their breath for 20 days hoping no one noticed their slight of hand before the deadline passed.
A Johnston County Court put a hole in that scam by ruling that if a bail bondsman fibbed that 20 day deadline didn’t make a nickel’s worth of difference. The bondsman still had to pay the money which went straight to the schools.
Then politics got into the act. Someone in the legislature decided it wasn’t fair to hold a bail bondsman accountable for a little fib. Before they adjourned both the State House and Senate passed a law that said if the bondsman hoodwinked the court and didn’t get caught for 20 days he was home free.
Of course that attracted the newspaper’s attention. The reporters went to snooping, asking, Who wrote this law? and the answer was curious.
The ‘Bail Bondsman Protection Act’ was buried in a larger bill sponsored by Representative Justin Burr – who is a bail bondsman. But, Representative Burr told the newspapers adamantly, he didn’t have a clue how that new law got into his bill. It wasn’t there, he said, in his original bill and he didn’t know how it got in there except he was pretty sure whatever happened happened in a House-Senate Conference Committee he wasn’t even on.
The newspaper went to a member of the Conference Committee but he couldn’t recall how the new law got into the bill either. Then the newspapers went to Senate Bull-Moose Tom Apodaca who usually knows just about everything that goes on in the legislature. But Apodaca was in the dark too. In fact, he pointed out, he’d recused himself from the vote on the bill because he is a bail bondsman too. Of course, Apodaca added, even if he had recused himself he was always happy to answer a question or two from any puzzled legislator who needed help understanding the bail bonding business.
So how did the law get into the bill? No one knows. No one knows who wrote it. No one knows who put it in the bill. It just appeared out of thin air.
Posted in Issues, North Carolina - Republicans