Plea deal withdrawn in bail bondsmen case

Plea deal withdrawn in bail bondsmen case; second arraignment delayed until May


01:23 PM PST on Saturday, February 23, 2008

By JOHN F. BERRY
The Press-Enterprise

SAN BERNARDINO - A plea agreement for the son of former San Bernardino County Sheriff Floyd Tidwell was withdrawn Friday during a court hearing for eight people indicted last year on charges involving the bail-bond industry.

Danial Blayne "Boone" Tidwell, and his attorney, Grover Porter, declined to comment after emerging from a San Bernardino County courtroom, where they had been scheduled to be arraigned. The arraignment was delayed until May 2 by Superior Court Judge Colin Bilash.

Tidwell, 53, and his wife, Shirley Lorraine Tidwell, 47, were among 15 people indicted Dec. 6 by a special criminal grand jury investigating a kickback scheme among bail companies in San Bernardino County.

San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Colin Bilash on Friday delayed the arraignment of Danial Blayne "Boone" Tidwell during a hearing for eight people indicted last year on charges involving the bail-bond industry.
It was the second time arraignment for the eight defendants in the Tidwell case had been delayed. It originally had been set for Dec. 15.

Outside the courtroom, Deputy District Attorney Bill Lee declined to discuss the plea agreement.

"An offer had been conveyed to Danial Tidwell," Lee said. "It would have been open until today...but it has been withdrawn."

San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Bill Lee declined to discuss the plea agreement for Danial Tidwell, which was withdrawn Friday. "An offer had been conveyed to Danial Tidwell," Lee said. "It would have been open until today...but it has been withdrawn."
Fifteen people were indicted in three cases by a special criminal grand jury in December.

Most of the indicted had been criminally charged in January 2004 after a two-year district attorney's investigation into the kickback scheme.

The indictments allege that the 15 defendants were based in San Bernardino County and worked for Boone's Bail Bonds, Arzate Bail Bonds and the Bail Hotline.

Most of the charges involve unlawful solicitation, conspiracy for unlawful solicitation and filing false or forged documents.

In June 2003, authorities served 13 search warrants as part of the investigation. Fourteen weapons were found at Danial Tidwell's home in Phelan.

They included two rifles reported stolen from the Fontana Police Department in 1999, two machine-gun pistols banned under the California assault-weapons ban and a rifle and a shotgun belonging to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators connected the weapons to former Sheriff Floyd Tidwell, who served from 1983 to 1991.

He was sentenced in November 2004 to three years unsupervised probation on four misdemeanor charges related to concealing the 14 weapons. He paid $10,000 in restitution.

Tidwell's other son, Steven Wayne Tidwell, 60, accepted a plea bargain in February 2004, agreeing to surrender his bail-bond license and testify for

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Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face .... Marcus Antonius

I AM Some Folks "KARMA" and A MODERATOR @ FRN

Pre-script: A person by law is always presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law… although many are convicted in the “court of public opinion”.

I may be mistaken; however, as I understand it, before the recent takeover of the bail bonds industry by DCJS in Virginia, you could operate a bonding company as a convicted felon. This industry on a national level has always had a shady side which is quite evident in the number of posts on this website relating to fraud and corruption within the business.

I work extremely hard, as do my children, who are all bondsmen… including two daughters, to make sure that I “dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s”. I can tell you from experience that there are still a bunch of crooks in this business and it makes me sick when I run into them, in my career as a bondsman.

Even now, as I write this.. I am attempting to recoup a buff account from a bonding company that I have not written for in over 3 years, have no outstanding powers, no forfeitures or show causes and after this amount of time have found out in the last 48 hours, that all the cases I wrote were never exonerated to the surety company by the agent that I wrote under at the time. He just never sent them up the ladder and now, I have to go back and exonerate directly to the company… every bond I wrote for the period I represented them. In addition, I have no recourse against anyone because the reports I sent were sent regular mail and I cannot prove that he received them, although I have copies of all but the “final disposition”… which is the one piece of evidence in an exoneration that you need to prove that the case is finalized… so now I start over!! My son in law, who worked under the same agent at the time, just found out that he has over 4 million in outstanding liability that has never been exonerated up the ladder… and he has to do the same thing!!

We are on our on now and thank God do not report to anyone but straight up to the surety we represent… no middle man.

Sorry, I got carried away there… anyway, you get my point.

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Bill Marx, Sr.
"FREE STATE BAIL BONDS"
"FREE STATE INVESTIGATIONS"
DCJS: 99-176979
Cell: 434-294-0222

"Endeavor to Persevere" "Lone Watie"

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that , comes from bad judgment" "Will Rogers"