Bail bondsmen crossed line, Wildomar mayor, Sheriff's Department allege
10:25 PM PDT on Wednesday, March 30, 2011
By SARAH BURGE and JOHN F. HILL
The Press-Enterprise
Two bail bondsmen could face criminal charges after Wildomar Mayor Marsha Swanson says they barged into her family's home Monday night, broke her grandson's nose and Tased her daughter.
Sheriff's officials say Fausto Atilano, 48, and Bryan Stark, 46, of Fausto's Bail Bonds in French Valley, went to the Wildomar home searching for a woman Swanson said is dating her grandson. The bondsmen had no legal authority to enter the property, sheriff's officials said.
Atilano says they had a right to be there and insists he was the one assaulted.
"I was jumped and attacked by at least four people who were also at the residence, and a pit bull," Atilano said in a written statement.
Swanson said her family didn't provoke them.
"They Tasered (my daughter) ... in the stomach," Swanson said. "No one was resisting, no one was doing anything."
Lt. Mathieu Burden said sheriff's officials are seeking battery and trespassing charges against Atilano and Stark. The Riverside County district attorney's office was reviewing the case Wednesday, but neither man has been arrested.
According to court records and Burden, the woman the agents were pursuing, 23-year-old Erica Lynch, had been arrested in February on suspicion of receiving stolen property and released on $5,000 bond. She was not wanted by authorities and had missed no court dates, Burden said, but the bail bonds company revoked her bond.
LEGAL RIGHT
Because Lynch doesn't live at the home and was not a fugitive, the bail bondsmen did not have the legal right to enter the property, Burden said. Likewise, the agents failed to notify the sheriff's department that they planned to apprehend someone, as the law requires, Burden said.
Believing Lynch to be at the Shoemaker Drive home, Burden said, Atilano jumped a fence into the backyard and Stark knocked on the front door.
A fight broke out, during which a woman was pepper sprayed and shocked with a Taser and a man was "punched around," Burden said.
Atilano says he, too, was injured, Burden said.
The bail bondsmen and residents called authorities about 7 p.m.
Lynch was in the home at the time and Swanson said she was taken away by the bail bondsmen. Lynch was in jail Wednesday.
According to the mayor, who answered the door, one of the bondsmen implied he was a Riverside County law enforcement officer serving a warrant. He forced his way into the home where her mother, daughter and other family members live, Swanson said.
One man pushed past Swanson, who said she refused to let him in, while the other jumped a six-foot fence and circled to the back of the home, she said.
They smashed her grandson's face into the cement floor, breaking his nose, Swanson said.
'Blood all over'
"There's blood all over," the mayor said.
Swanson did not name her grandson, who is in his 20s.
After Swanson's daughter, 46-year-old Jamie Scranton, yelled at the men, one of them shocked her in the stomach with a Taser, Swanson said. One of the stun gun barbs was removed at a hospital, she said.
On their way out, one of the men pepper sprayed her daughter in the face when she told them they couldn't leave before sheriff's deputies arrived, the mayor said.
Swanson said her family was shaken. Scranton is having nightmares. Swanson's mother, who is 84 and uses an oxygen tank, was home at the time.
On Wednesday morning, Atilano called the encounter "unbelievable," said residents sicked a pit bull on him and suggested that the family got preferential treatment from sheriff's because she is mayor.
Atilano wrote that Lynch had "failed to comply with the terms of her bail bond agreement" and "was determined to be a flight risk for her court appearance."
"This attack included the brandishing of a knife, being charged at with a 2 x 6 piece of lumber, being punched and kicked in the head and body, while I was on the ground," he wrote.
"Fearing for my life," he wrote, "I defended myself and attempted to escape this attack."
Atilano said he sought medical attention for head trauma and a dislocated finger.
Swanson could not be reached later to respond to Atilano's account.
Burden dismissed accusations that sheriff's officials showed favoritism.
"We just do our job," he said.
Burden said investigators had to pursue criminal charges.
Bail bondsmen can't be allowed to "run amok" without regard for the law, he said.
"They think that they have carte blanche because they're in the manhunt mode," Burden said.
"Sometimes when you're in that mode, common sense goes out the window."
Somebody didn't do their homework on this one.
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