In The News ...

http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab9 ... 9538&rfi=6

Bondsmen Key component of criminal justice system
By: Wally Bunker
08/30/2006
Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendly

Buy Photo
In the darkness of one May night, Ronnie Lee stood at the front door of a mobile home off Route 15. His wife Nora stood near the back door. This was the bail bond team hoped to capture a fugitive who failed to appear in court after the Lees bonded him from jail.

The man came outside and gave up peacefully. Mr. Lee, 46, allowed him to go back inside to get his shoes. Instead, the man ran out the back door.


Mrs. Lee, 41, shined a flashlight in the man's eyes and ordered him to stop. She reached for him as he ran past her.

"I broke a nail," she said, laughing. "I was so mad."

The bondsman

Who: Ronnie Lee

Age: 46

What: Provides collateral to the court to secure the release of accused and guarantee the appearance subjects charged with offenses from jail prior to trial.

Job: 10 years as a bail bondsman recently joined by his wife Nora; also works for Larry Levy.

Fee: Charges 10 percent of bond set by the court or magistrate; $25 fee added for late night service.

Education: Culpeper County High School, 1977; attended Germanna Community Colleg for two years.

Certifications: Licensed by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services as a bondsman with a firearms endorsement.

Family: Wife, Nora; daughters, Kimberly, 25 and Cassandra, 13; son, Chad 24.

Hobbies: Target shooting; drag racing

Phone: 825-4000

She also shot pepper spray at the man as he fled into the darkness and into a nearby thicket. An hour later, the Lees had their man - scratched and bleeding from the briers that concealed him.

Mr. Lee and his wife operate in a gray area that helps accused criminals awaiting trial remain free but infuriates victims who see a "criminal" loose on the streets.

Mr. Lee views his job as having a positive impact on families of those accused of a crime. Release from jail prior to trial, allows the breadwinner to work and support his family. Families sometimes suffer because someone made bad choices.

"The kids aren't going school shopping, if daddy's in jail," said Mr. Lee.

State law defines circumstances under which bail is appropriate. Only people charged with crimes punishable by life in prison or the death penalty are not eligible for bond. The judge or magistrate must look into several factors when setting bond:

The nature and circumstances of the crime.

Whether a gun was used.

The weight of the evidence.

The financial resources of the accused and ability to pay bond.

The character of the accused, family ties, education and employment.

Appearance in court and possibility of fleeing.

Length of residency in the community.

Whether they pose a threat to the community or obstruct the legal process.

And any other relevant information.

Once a bond has been set, people like the Lees step in. They charge about 10 percent of the bond as a fee for guaranteeing the accused persons appearance in court.

"Everybody has a role," said Culpeper General District Court Judge Roger Morton. "If we didn't have a bonding system that worked in a reasonable capacity, everybody would be in jail."

The judge also said that appearance in court isn't the only part of the bond. Those on bond are expected to be on good behavior.

Judge Morton has a simple philosophy when setting some bonds.

"If your mother won't bond you out," he said. "I can't let you out."

The judge looks at the financial impact to county taxpayers keeping someone behind bars awaiting trial and the economic impact on the family of the accused. But he also sympathizes with the victim of the crime and their family when the accused is released on bond.

"The general public looks at bondsmen in the worst terms, until it is your turn," said Judge Morton.

Commonwealth's Attorney Gary Close prosecutes criminal cases. But he realizes that bondsmen have a place in the judicial system.

He calls bondsmen, 'the pressure relief valve that keeps our system together."

Mr. Close said the cost to incarcerate everyone awaiting trial would be prohibitive.

The veteran prosecutor said without a bond system someone accused of stealing a $5 candy bar could remain locked up until trial. Mr. Close noted that our judicial system is based on the premise that everyone is "presumed" innocent until proven guilty.

"When we don't think bond is appropriate, we say so," said Mr. Close, about taking into account public safety.

Bondsmen take on a liability when they sign for someone to be released from jail, said Mr. Close. But bondsmen are also so given wide latitude to pursue people.

Last Wednesday, Mr. Lee stood in general district court dressed in a black T-shirt with his name and logo embroidered on the pocket. Judge Morton revoked the bond of an Orange County man Mr. Lee had bonded but failed to appear in court on a drunken driving charge. The judge gave Mr. Lee until Jan. 27, 2007 to find the man or risk losing the $2,000 bond.

"I hope you find him by then," the judge said with a smile.

Mr. Lee gathered his notebook and walked from the courtroom. The 10-year veteran of the bondsman business was going to find the man.

Mr. Lee climbed into the 2004 Ford F-350 blue pickup truck, which idled at the curb. Inside the air conditioning cooled his constant companion, 4-year-old Molly, a German Shepherd, sitting calmly in the back seat.

"It makes it personal," said Mr. Lee, about people who skip court and don't keep their part of the bargain.

As he drove towards Orange, Mr. Lee talked about a television show named Dog the Bounty Hunter, featuring Duane "Dog" Chapman, his wife Beth, and a host of family members.

In the late 80s and 90s, Mr. Lee said, "Dog" Chapman was the man to call if someone skipped bond and headed west. But he said the television show doesn't show the real life of bondsmen.

"I think it is an embarrassment to the profession, anybody that acts like that," said Mr. Lee.

He said some of the born-again Christian dialogue between "Dog" Chapman and the bail jumper is all Hollywood.

"When it comes time for me to come get you, I am not going to try to save you," he said. "You are going to jail. You will have to fall off the face of the earth for me not to find you."

It may take a while. Mr. Lee said he may spend more than the amount of the bail to catch someone but his word is his bond.

"We had an agreement," Mr. Lee said about someone he bonds and flees. "It would be an injustice if I didn't do what I said I was going to do."

Mr. Lee wheeled the truck he has put 20,000 miles on in four months into a rundown apartment complex on Lindsay Avenue looking for the man Judge Morton hoped he would find. He knocked on a grimy door. An elderly man answered. He told Mr. Lee the man he wanted was locked up in the Central Virginia Regional Jail south of the town of Orange. Mr. Lee called the jail and verified the information.

"I love it," he said, smiling.


Bail bond requirements

Licensing: Department of Criminal Justice Services began on July1, 2005.

Fees: $900, with bi-annual renewal for $900; firearms endorsement $10 annually.

Age: At least 18

Resident: Must be a U.S. Citizen or legal resident alien.

Education: High school diploma or GED.

Training: Completed the bail bondsman exam and all initial state-mandated training requirements.

Disqualifications: Convicted felon; employee, spouse of an employee or residing in the same household of a local or regional jail, sheriff's office, local police department, conservators of the peace, commonwealth attorney's office, Department of Corrections, department of Criminal Justice Services, or local corrections agency.

Collateral: Proof of $200,000 in collateral for each property bondsman and each agent for property bondsman; surety bondsmen must provide proof as a property or casualty insurance agent.

On the Web: www.dcjs.virginia.gov


The bondsman then called Judge Morton's office to let the clerk know the man was in jail. Mr. Lee won't lose his $2,000 bond.

During the day his cell phone rang constantly. A woman in Northridge wanted Mr. Lee to come by and pick up money for getting her son out of jail. Another mother on Mimosa Court also called to pay Mr. Lee.

While the television bounty show appears glamorous and exciting, real life bond work is dangerous.

Two years ago, Mr. Lee went looking for a man charged with robbery who didn't appear in court. At the time, Mr. Lee weighed 340 pounds. He spotted the man near the old Schewels store. He grabbed the man in a bear hug, holding on with all his might. The man kept punching him in the face.

"He was tearing up my nose," Mr. Lee said.

Help finally arrived and the man was taken to jail.

Four years ago, a Bradford Road woman on bond for welfare fraud fought Mr. Lee when he tried to take her to jail for skipping court. Mr. Lee sported a pony tail at the time. The woman fought him and other women in the house grabbed his pony tail. Exhausted from the struggle Mr. Lee finally dragged the woman to the front door. As he opened the door, Mr. Lee saw Sheriff's Sgt. Doug Corbin who had come to the house to serve civil papers.

"He saved my life," said Mr. Lee.

Some time circumstances weigh on the veteran bondsman.

A man he bonded for an April stabbing in Culpeper recently was charged with murdering a man in Rappahannock County while out on bond. Even though the Culpeper stabbing was accidental, Mr. Lee said the circumstances in Rappahannock "weighs on you a lot."

Mr. Lee drove to a rundown house, the yard strewn with old lawnmowers and junk. Raw sewage floated in the backyard. He called the Orange County Sheriff's Office to let them know where he was. He was looking for another bail jumper.

He went to the front door and knocked. The curtains parted but no one answered. He walked around back to see if anyone came out the back door.

He knocked again at the front door and then walked in. The house was filled with cats. Two women were there, including one he had fought four years ago lay in bed. The man's mother said she hadn't seen or heard from her son in some time. Mr. Lee didn't believe her but left after not finding the man.

More phone calls and Mr. Lee headed to the Central Virginia Regional Jail to bond out several people. A father handed Mr. Lee $1,000 in an envelope to bond his son out for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon charge.

Donald Crawford, 64, of Greene County wanted Mr. Lee to bond his cousin. The man faced a $2,500 bond for disorderly conduct.

"It's not the first time I got him outta jail," Mr. Crawford said. "He's all right. He'll go to work and get a job."

Mr. Crawford cosigned an agreement with Mr. Lee guaranteeing the $2,500 bond.

"He's not going nowhere," Mr. Crawford said about his cousin. "He doesn't have enough sense to go anywhere."

In a few hours, Mr. Lee had made several thousand dollars.

Is there money to be made in the business?

"If you play it right," he said.

But the phone rings day or night. The self-described insomniac spends little time at home.

"If you added up the hours I put in, I probably made a little over minimum wage, but I like what I do."

Now that his wife is involved, Mr. Lee is going to open another office in Orange not far from the regional jail. He plans to get his daughter Kimberly into the bonding business, manning that office.

Mr. Lee's wife of 21 years, Nora, works as an accountant in Warrenton during the day, but now spends time with her husband working with him at night.

"I think I missed my calling," she said. "I really like this. I can't wait for 5 o'clock to get into something"

The couple put up everything they owned as collateral to establish a bonding business. She too has completed the state-mandated bonding course.

Wednesday night, she stood in the Culpeper magistrate's office bonding Tim Bennett, who faced child support charges. Instead of talking with a magistrate, the bond hearing occurred over the a television monitor with the magistrate on duty in Orange at the regional jail.

Mr. Bennett needed Mrs. Lee to post his $5,000 bond.

"They are good to deal with," said Mr. Bennett.

Outside the magistrate's office on the bench, the Lees talked about a man who wanted to be bonded but didn't have the fee. He was willing to do some work around their house.

Mrs. Lee argued that the man must start work "in a timely manner, not six months."

Mr. Lee went back inside the jail and emerged in a few minutes.

"He'll start tomorrow," he told his wife.

"Us bonding for ourselves, we can do some negotiation." said Mrs. Lee.

Mr. Lee can't imagine doing anything else, except maybe police work.

"In jail need bail?" reads the logo on the back window of the truck.

"We have the key to set you free," says the pen in his truck's console.


©Times Community Newspapers 2006

Former bounty hunter looks to rule crime media
Magazine helps attorneys reach clients, inmates pass time
By Roman Gokhman, STAFF WRITER


LIVERMORE
HE WORKED as a bounty hunter and for 14 years he ran the largest bail bond business in the country. But after the business went bankrupt in 2000, Ray Hrdlicka decided to become something entirely different — the ringmaster of crime and justice media.
He says believes he's on the verge of something big.
Hrdlicka, 47, said retirement was not an option after he went bankrupt, because his second son had just been born and he and his wife did not have the money to take care of the family.
He said he did not want to go back into the business as someone else's employee because he has known since he was young he worked best for himself.
"I am an entrepreneur," he said. "I have to build and create."
Good times, bad times
Hrdlicka grew up in Chicago but it was while in Kansas, going to school, that he began the climb up the latter of non-government justice at 22 as a repo man working for a private investigator.
In 1980, he started his own private investigation business and was hired by attorneys to find witnesses for trials. Hrdlicka said he was also often hired by companies to penetrate their business as an employee in order to weed out drug dealers.
Three years later Hrdlicka moved to California because he wanted to train for national triathlons, but he quickly learned it was impossible to work a part-time job and pay the bills.
He went full time in 1985 by calling bail bondsmen and offering to find people who had skipped out on their repayments. He became a bounty hunter — not by choice — when the bondsmen wanted him to not only find the runners, but to catch them and bring them back.
"When I was arresting people, it was all the fun of being a cop without the boredom."
The work was easy for him, he said, and he decided in 1986 that he could make much more if he went into business for himself.
Success came easily because he was able to try "innovative" methods other bondsmen were afraid to try.
His H&H Bail Bonds, known by other names in different states, bought smaller businesses and started a single call center, placed two-page ads in phone books and revolutionized "signature" bail bonds.
Where traditional bonds require 10 percent down and guaranty the rest with a house or other expensive property, signature bonds require an installment plan on the down payment and a signature promising to not disappear and pay back the money.
"I wasn't afraid to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars as we were growing," he said. "That had never been done before."
The clear majority of bail bonds are now signature bonds.
Hrdlicka was making $30 million annually and had 300 employees nationwide in 2000, when a disagreement with the insurance company that paid his bonds led the company to pull out.
He suddenly didn't have a back-up plan, because finding an insurer, a process controlled by the government, took six months. Within 30 days he and his company were bankrupt.
"I had to tell my wife everything was gone," he said.
To this day, the bankruptcy is in litigation, he said.
Simple idea
Rather than grovel in misery or try to get back in the same business, Hrdlicka thought about his skills and what he knew best, and decided to try something different.
"What I do know very well is the criminal justice system, the players and what they spend on advertising," he said. "I should know — I was one of them."
His idea was simple enough: Bail bond lenders and lawyers pay a lot to reach potential clients. Jail inmates want advice on how to get a handle on the system and how it can help them.
The end product was Crime, Justice and America, a quarterly 40-page, glossy magazine. For a few lucky attorneys and bail bondsmen it was a way to reach thousands of clients and for the inmates it was a way to pass the time.
The magazines have the same content but the advertising is local to the area.
Stories have included interviews with Joseph Pistone — more commonly known as Donnie Brasco, an FBI agent who went undercover to expose the mob. There are also articles about being a good witness, what not to say in court, and regular humor and "crazy laws" columns.
The magazine was launched in 2001 and is sent directly to 75 jails in 33 counties statewide and beyond.
Some jails distribute them to common areas, but for some Hrdlicka has to mail one copy to each inmate.
A lawsuit is pending in Sonoma County, where the jail has refused to distribute the magazine based on a policy that attorneys are not allowed to advertise to inmates. Hrdlicka's argument is that attorneys are allowed to advertise in phone books, which are allowed in jails.
The publisher works in a virtual office. The managing editor is in New Jersey, the artistic director is in San Bernardino, the chief financial officer is in Omaha, Neb., the printing is done in Denver and the magazines are distributed from Livermore.
All revenue right now is advertising-based.
"There was no other service like it available — it's a good marketing vehicle," Hrdlicka said.
The magazine is also popular



with its readers, many of whom send Hrdlicka letters of support, telling him to keep up the good work.
Alameda County Sheriff's Lt. James Ayala, the inmate services manager at Santa Rita county jail in Dublin, said he had his staff ask inmates what they like best about CJ&A.
"'We like the jokes' was the most popular answer," Ayala said.
However, Ayala said, most inmates his staff talked to said they did not use the advertising in the magazines, and were getting tired of being mailed old editions.
"If there were newer issues ... there would be more interest," he said.
Hrdlicka said he is working on that.
"I want these guys to have as many rights as possible," he said. "They are reading about what's going to happen to them."
Last year, however, Hrdlicka was able to publish only one issue after his wife was diagnosed with advanced melanoma and died just three months later, leaving Hrdlicka and their two young sons.
Hrdlicka said he knew she would have wanted him to go on, so he got back to work as quickly as possible.
The next issue, which will see a printing of 150,000 copies, will, for the first time, be distributed at jails in Miami-Dade County and in Seattle. Overall, Hrdlicka envisions 300 local editions.
"Right now we're at one-tenth of our potential," he said.
But the publisher is not satisfied and wants CJ&A to reach an bigger audience. Next year, he plans to take the publication national as an entertainment magazine — a different animal than the edition targeted toward inmates.
The magazine will be 132 pages, published each month, and Warner International Publisher Services Inc. already has signed on to distribute the magazine.
Warner President Russ Warner said CJ&A will be successful on the national level because crime fascinates everyone.
"I believe people have a great interest in (crime)," Warner said. "Just look at all the content on TV."
Only one of its kind
While most people just make a magazine and toss it out to the public, Hrdlicka planned everything knows the material passionately, Warner said.
"Just watch his eyes change color as he described what he wants to do," he said. "He's the energy behind this."
Hrdlicka said the national magazine will be the only one of its kind in publication. True Detective, the first magazine to center around true crime stories in the 1920s, was also the last when it ceased publication in 1995.
But the genre is just as popular as ever, Hrdlicka said. Magazines like Time, Maxim and People all feature crime stories, and television shows like CSI are ratings hits.
"All these magazines cover (crime and justice stories) but there is no one place you can go for it," he said.
With the quarterly magazine established and the national edition in the planning stages, Hrdlicka said he is now in the brand-building phase. That's why he started a Crime, Justice and America radio program in March.
Recorded in Livermore each Sunday and aired weekly on San Diego's KCQB, CJ&A Radio is a talk show where Hrdlicka, who describes himself as conservative, waxes poetic about current national issues like DNA testing, infamous court defendants and trials.
On the show, he has hosted anger-management professionals, criminal defense attorneys and judges
Just don't compare him to Nancy Grace, the legal talking head on CNN, who he admires for making a career for herself, but feels she turns news into a circus.
"We're going to stay away from the sensationalism," he said of plans for his company.
Hrdlicka is negotiating with five Southern California stations to air the show as well.
"My goal is to end up syndicated, Monday through Friday," he said.
In the same vein as the radio show, Hrdlicka pictures TV as the next logical marketing tool to synergize with the magazines and radio show.
This will be more difficult, he admits, because the genre is already popular with shows and entire networks — Court TV — on the topic.
Instead, he plans to attack several markets on the public broadcasting level, because at least its free.
If all of his vision goes according to plan, Hrdlicka will sell his creation in the next four years.
"It will be attractive to some of the gargantuan players."
Maybe then he would have enough to retire, but he probably won't want to, choosing instead to take up a different challenge.
Roman Gokhman can be reached at (925) 416-4849 or at rgokhman@angnewspapers.com.

Regarding the Hrdlicka story, here is a link to the CA Dept. of Insurance decision that revoked his license.

http://www20.insurance.ca.gov/epubacc/ORDER/2445.htm

Theres more to the story than stated in this news article.