Looks like the beginings of a victory for the Bail Industry in Indiana concering Government Payment Services.
Punt on the plastic
LAKE COUNTY: Credit cards no longer accepted for jail bailout
BY BILL DOLAN
bdolan@nwitimes.com
219.662.5328
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 1:46 AM CDT
CROWN POINT | Criminal defendants may no longer use fantastic plastic as get-out-of-jail cards in Lake County.
The sheriff's office said it stopped the two-year-old practice of accepting credit cards by jail inmates or their families to bail out of the lockup last week after a judge in Indianapolis banned it as illegal.
It was a victory for bail bondsmen who sued to save their endangered businesses
"Finally, they will have to follow the law," Herbert Smith Jr., owner of AA-1 Express Bail Bonds of Gary, said Tuesday.
Lake County Commissioners introduced credit card payments in the jail in 2003, saying it would help reduce crowding in jail and save public dollars because it costs taxpayers more than $55 to house and feed an inmate each additional day.
Indianapolis-based Government Payment Services signed a contract with the county in 2003 to process the credit card transactions.
Bondsmen complained GPS wasn't licensed by the state to post bonds. Bondsmen also said the county's contract with the company was an unfair competitive advantage with exclusive access to train correctional officers how to work with the credit card system and the company posted signs within the jail where inmates were held advertising GPS services.
They sued in Lake Superior Court. The case was transferred to Indianapolis where Marion Superior Court Judge Patrick L. McCarty held a bench trial last December and ruled earlier this month in the bondsmen's favor.
Michael Higgins, county police spokesman, said he didn't know how many used credit cards, but it was probably few because of the hefty fees inmates had to pay to use it. Bonds of $2,000 or more cost 8 percent of the total.
Smith said the practice was deceptive because criminal defendants rarely realized the amount they were posting was only 10 percent of the bail that would be due if the defendant failed to appear in court for trial, as required.
Mark Waterfill, an attorney for GPS, said Tuesday he will be appealing the decision and asking the judge to lift an injunction on the credit card transactions in the meantime.
