Keep Bailing

And winds up in jail

People from all over the world come to Southern California to “celebrity watch.”  Here, it’s possible to see famous faces at the grocery store, the gas station, and even the jail.  Yes, we’ve bailed out famous people before (but can’t violate their privacy by telling you who). But we had an unusual case recently where the “celebrity” we thought we were bailing out was someone else entirely. 

This intrepid identity thief had assumed the name of a baseball player.  He was smart enough to choose a non-superstar player: someone whose name might be more familiar than his face. This guy was good enough to fool the arresting officer, the jailer, and us. Even the guy who bailed him knew the defendant to be the ball player.

Greg uncovered the charade when the client began missing his court dates, and eventually fled to another state where he kept impersonating the ball player!  When he was arrested there, we were able to get off the bond by proving to the California court that we had found him, and that he was being held in another jurisdiction.

It was a close call.  If we hadn’t been able to find him, we’d have had to pay the entire bail amount to the court.

We rarely write bail bonds for people charged with identity theft because there’s too much risk involved.  After all, we need to verify their identity, employment, financial stability, and ties to the community to limit our risk.  Identity thieves are in the business of hiding and/or misrepresenting that information, so we have to look at their information even more carefully before making a decision.  One fake baseball player was more than enough!

Photocredit: Ljupco Smokovski – Fotolia.com