Archive for the “Bail in the News” Category
International Fidelity Insurance Co., a Colorado-regulated casualty company based in New Jersey, has been fined $442,000 for numerous violations of insurance law related to its Colorado bail bond business, the state Division of Insurance reported Tuesday.
International Fidelity is licensed to provide a range of surety bonds in Colorado, but the recent market conduct examination focused only on its bail bond business, the agency said.
Issues addressed in the examination report include:
• Failure to handle funds in a fiduciary capacity,
• Failure to appropriately contract with all agents,
• Failure to require bail bond agents to complete required documentation,
• Failure to include all required information on documentation related to the issuance of bail bonds, and
• Failure to properly document deviations from filed rates.
Tags: bail, bail agent, bail bonds
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Cops: SC man made woman his slave for bail money
(AP) – 20 hours ago
LEXINGTON, S.C. — A South Carolina bail bondsman has been charged with forcing a woman to cook, clean and do sexual favors for him in exchange for getting her out of jail.
Lexington County Sheriff James Metts said Tuesday that 51-year-old Curtis Maroney told the 39-year-old woman he would revoke her bond if she didn’t obey his commands.
After five days, investigators say Maroney drove the woman to visit her children at her father’s home and she called deputies.
Maroney is charged with blackmail and trafficking in persons. He remains in the Lexington County jail. Bond has not been set and it’s not clear if he has an attorney.
Metts says the woman had been arrested for driving under the influence and spent 12 days in jail before Maroney posted her $16,000 bond.
Tags: bail, bail agent, bail bonds, crime, jail
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 It’s a non-lethal laser as you probably guessed, but nonetheless, the Assault Intervention Device (measuring 2.2m in height) causes some serious heat when shot at an escapee or fighty prisoner.
From this week, the Pitchess Detention Center will be using it to scare 65 of its 3,700 prisoners, mounting it high up a dormitory wall as an ominous warning against bad behaviour. It’s activated by a joystick, with the laser beam more the size of a CD than a pinpoint like normal lasers.
Any human rights readers up in arms at this news will be pleased to know that prison wardens actually tested the laser on themselves, with Commander Bob Osborne commenting that it’s like “opening an oven door and feeling that blast of hot air, except instead of being all over me, it’s more focused.”
Tags: bail, crime, criminal, jail, Los Angeles County Jail
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A bail bondsman from Whittier was arrested Thursday for allegedly misappropriating $30,000 from a client, officials said.
Arturo Miramontes, 40, was charged with two counts of grand theft by embezzlement.
He is a licensed bail bondsman at Rodeo Bail Bonds in Whittier. A phone number listed for the business was disconnected.
Miramontes has a July 6 arraignment at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles.
In late 2007, the victim contacted Miramontes to secure a bail bond, giving the defendant $30,000 as cash collateral. The victim’s court case was completed and his bail was exonerated.
Miramontes allegedly failed to return the cash collateral to the victim and allegedly embezzled funds from the insurance company for which he wrote the bond, said Shiara Davila-Morales, spokeswoman for the District’s Attorney’s Office.
He was booked at the Sheriff’s Century Station, according to the sheriff’s booking system. But it doesn’t show if Miramontes posted bail.
Read more: Whittier bail bondsman arrested for grand theft – Whittier Daily News http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_15423574#ixzz0sY2XXmUN
Tags: bail, bail agent, bail bonds, bail bonds los angeles, crime, criminal, jail
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Bondsman charged in “referral scheme”
SANTA ANA – A bail bond agent was arrested Thursday and accused of soliciting attorney referrals and inmate business in an illegal bail bond referral scheme.
Ronald Lee Brockway, 50, of Seal Beach, is charged with two felony counts of violating bail license regulations and faces a maximum sentence of three years and eight months in state prison.
He is being held on $50,000 bail pending his arraignment.
California law prohibits bail bond employees from soliciting bail business from any inmate or incarcerated person, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. The law also prohibits bail bond employees from recommending any attorney to any bail bond client, even if no money changes hands.
Brockway is accused of sending numerous e-mails to attorneys soliciting them to participate in an illegal bail bond scheme with his company, Respect Bail Bond, according to the news release.
In his messages, Brockway is accused of suggesting that the attorneys refer bail bond business to him, while offering to refer clients to the attorneys in order to “increase both of our earnings substantially,” prosecutors said.
Brockway is also accused of unlawfully soliciting business from inmates by mass mailing flyers to the Orange County jail containing the name and contact information for Respect Bail Bond. The flyers read, “Get out of jail today by calling now!”
In October 2005, Brockway testified in an Orange County Grand Jury hearing that he had received cash payments from attorney Joseph Cavallo in exchange for referring arrestees to Cavallo’s law practice.
Brockway was not prosecuted in that case because his testimony was needed in the prosecution of other defendants, prosecutors said.
Cavallo was indicted based partly on Brockway’s testimony. Cavallo pleaded guilty on Oct. 12, 2007, to conspiracy to engage in attorney capping, or paying for clients, and an illegal attorney referral scheme. He was sentenced to six months in jail on Dec. 14, 2007.
The District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation began investigating the current case after a private attorney contacted the OCDA to report receiving the e-mail from Brockway regarding the illegal referral scheme.
Contact the writer: lwelborn@ocregister.com or 714-834-3784
Tags: Arudrina Patridge, bail, bail bonds, bail bonds los angeles, crime, criminal, fugitive, jail
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Criminal drama and outlandish bail bonds stories have been synonymous with Las Vegas. Even with a name like Sin City, some of the recent headlines are hard to believe. In 2010, an online gambling tycoon’s arrest, a bondsman arrested in connection with an attempted murder plot and a doctor accused of masturbating in a casino all became new stories.
A well known former bail bondsman, who was released from jail after serving time for conspiracy to commit a crime and battery with substantial bodily harm, is now running for sheriff of Clark County. Clark County jail is the same place the former Las Vegas bail bondsman was held after pleading guilty in an incident relating to the plot to harm his former bail bond company co owner.
While in Sin City, a former payment processing tycoon, was arrested for charges of money laundering in connection with his previous online gambling business. He appeared at a bail hearing in Las Vegas and was granted bail. However, he still sits in a Las Vegas jail because a New York court upset with the previous bail hearing ruled that he must now stay incarcerated during the trial. His possible financial means and foreign citizenship have the New York court fearing a potential flight risk.
A medical doctor was recently arrested for allegedly masturbating in front of three female university students while in a strip casino elevator. While this is obviously weird, the following drama that ensued makes the event even more outrageous. The doctor, while free on a $1000 bond, was then arrested in Arizona in what authorities are saying is a plan to intimidate witnesses of the elevator incident. After learning the doctor was possibly in Arizona to commit arson, the court rescinded the doctor’s bail and he now sits in jail.
Crime and stories of wild bail bonds in Las Vegas have filled the recent news. Zany and crazy tales seem to be the norm in this part of Southern Nevada. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t call it Sin City.
Tags: bail, bail bonds, crime, criminal, jail
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From AIA Surety:
If a group of competent statisticians wanted to create an ideal testing ground to determine how commercial bail compares to a large pretrial service agency in getting defendants to court, they could not find anything better than the Houston, Texas Pretrial Service Agency.
The reason this agency is such a perfect test site is due to a functional anomaly there: the agency supervises both defendants released on personal recognizance and defendants released on commercial surety bail. In fact, the two types of release under the agency are about 50-50. About half of each year’s 9,000 releases fall into each category.
So, each defendant, whether on a bail bond or on an unsecured personal bond, receives the same supervisory oversight from agency staff in attempts to have all defendants make their scheduled court appearances.
A recent research project carefully analyzed the agency’s own records for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008 to determine how each method of release (secured and unsecured) performed in terms of court appearances.
The verdict is in! Is anyone actually surprised that commercial bail wins, hands down? Would you be surprised to know that twice as many defendants on unsecured release failed to make their court date? That is correct: commercial bail outperforms pretrial services two to one in getting persons to court.
For 22 years, the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics has been saying commercial bail wins, but recently the liberal pretrial services advocates complained to the current defendant-friendly administration who now says we should not pay any attention to all those Bureau of Justice Statistics findings.
Fine, because now we have another source to prove our point. In a way, it is an even better source because it comes from this pretrial service’s own records. This particular agency in Houston, Texas is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the country and still, bail works twice as well in preventing failures to appear.
Pass the word, and if you would like to receive copies of the studies, please email communications@aiasurety.com.
If a group of competent statisticians wanted to create an ideal testing ground to determine how commercial bail compares to a large pretrial service agency in getting defendants to court, they could not find anything better than the Houston, Texas Pretrial Service Agency.
The reason this agency is such a perfect test site is due to a functional anomaly there: the agency supervises both defendants released on personal recognizance and defendants released on commercial surety bail. In fact, the two types of release under the agency are about 50-50. About half of each year’s 9,000 releases fall into each category.
So, each defendant, whether on a bail bond or on an unsecured personal bond, receives the same supervisory oversight from agency staff in attempts to have all defendants make their scheduled court appearances.
A recent research project carefully analyzed the agency’s own records for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008 to determine how each method of release (secured and unsecured) performed in terms of court appearances.
The verdict is in! Is anyone actually surprised that commercial bail wins, hands down? Would you be surprised to know that twice as many defendants on unsecured release failed to make their court date? That is correct: commercial bail outperforms pretrial services two to one in getting persons to court.
For 22 years, the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics has been saying commercial bail wins, but recently the liberal pretrial services advocates complained to the current defendant-friendly administration who now says we should not pay any attention to all those Bureau of Justice Statistics findings.
Fine, because now we have another source to prove our point. In a way, it is an even better source because it comes from this pretrial service’s own records. This particular agency in Houston, Texas is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the country and still, bail works twice as well in preventing failures to appear.
Pass the word, and if you would like to receive copies of the studies, please email communications@aiasurety.com.
Tags: bail agent, bail bonds, court, crime, criminal, gov't agencies, jail, pre-trial
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From Witchita KS:
Thursday, April 29, 2010
A bail bondsman attempting to take a man into custody for warrants, was shot in the thigh with his own gun when it accidentally discharged during the pursuit.
The incident happened outside of a Quik Trip at 4730 East Central Thursday, according to a 911 dispatch supervisor.
The incident happened at around 9:15 p.m. The suspect escaped.
Tags: bail, bail agent, bail bondsman, crime, criminal, fugitive
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2 inmates escape from Los Angeles County jail
The Associated Press
Posted: 04/28/2010 06:15:47 AM PDT
Updated: 04/28/2010 12:16:35 PM PDT
CASTAIC, Calif.—Dozens of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies are hunting for two accused armed robbers who escaped from a Castaic jail.
Authorities say Jose Aldana and Winder Barrios were discovered missing from the North County Correctional Facility during a head count at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday.
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore says the 24-year-olds apparently escaped about two hours earlier while working at a kitchen loading dock.
District attorney’s spokeswoman Jane Robison says the men are accused of using a shotgun in a home invasion robbery in Encino last year and of robbing motorists in the Hollywood area. She says three victims identified them during testimony on Tuesday and the trial continued Wednesday after a judge said the men were voluntarily absent from court.
Tags: crime, criminal, fugitive, jail
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Updated: Wednesday, 21 Apr 2010, 12:26 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 21 Apr 2010, 12:25 PM EDT
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (WPRI) – A 36-year-old Lincoln, R.I., man is being held on $25,000 bail on charges he raped an acquaintance’s 9-year-old daughter.
Christopher Brunet was arrested Sunday in Oxford, Mass., where he works, and was arraigned Tuesday in Framingham.
The judge said that if Brunet posts bail, he’ll be required to wear a GPS monitor.
Tags: bail, bail bonds, crime
5 Comments »
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