Keep Bailing

Do Not Pass Go… Do Not Collect Two-Hundred Dollars

If for some unfortunate circumstance you are jailed in California and want to bail yourself out, you’ll need to pay 10% of whatever the bail amount is. For example, if your bail is set by the judge at $10,000, you’ll need to come up with $1,000 to pay a bail agent.  Even in this strapped economy, there are a lot of families who can get together and come up with that kind of money. Pretty basic, right?

As a caveat, if your bail amount was set  at $30 million dollars (as in the case of  one, Mr. Phillip Garrido), you would need to pay your friendly bail agent 10%, well… $3 million dollars.  Let’s just say that like the rest of America,  the Placerville  judge wasn’t taking too kindly to Mr. Garrido when he showed up for his day in court. Seems as the accused kidnapper and rapist of Jaycee Dugard, Mr. Garrido’s stiff bail amount would make it very difficult for him to get back onto the streets. A fit decision, I’d surmise. However, Garrido’s bail amount was far from being the highest ever set. And he isn’t alone when it comes to notorious people with multi-million dollar bails Read more »

“Will the bail be decreased at court?” That’s a question we get quite often. Usually, it’s asked when someone is comptemplating should I bail out my friend? Well, the judge has all the lattitude. No, the judge will not automatically lower bail when the defendant goes to court. The judge may increase bail, decrease bail, leave it the same, or change to “no bail.”

Such may have been the question of Allegra Fromby a former elementary school vice president was out on bail in San Bernardino County for $75K. She had been charged with two counts of felony drug possession. At her court appearance on 9/14, her bail was Read more »

An inmate facing murder charges in the beating death of a man in Orange County’s Theo Lacy Jail has filed a claim  alleging that Orange County Deputies ordered him to attack the man.

Stephen Carlstrom is seeking $100 million in damages. Along with several other inmates, Carlstrom is charged in the 2006 killing of John Derek Chamberlain. 

Meanwhile, Read more »

Most every county jail has a website, including the Orange County Jail. The websites provide all kinds of information, including inmate information and can be used by anyone who has access to a computer. For Lake County, Sheriff’s are now delaying the posted information by 2 days. Their reasons for delaying the information is that they feel that bail bondsmen are obtaining information about recently booked inmates and heading to the jail to illegally solicit bail business, which is a misdemeanor offense.

Bail bondsmen are believed to be lying to the jailers, indicating Read more »

Cell Phones on The Cell Block?  No One Talks For Free!

Reports that prison guards across the nation are finding more and more cleverly hidden cell phones in inmates cell rooms is not good news for officials. By using dogs and other means, they’ve located more cell phone contraband as of late.  It’s a growing problem. Officials have discovered the connection of these cell phones being used in escapes, drug deals, extortion, and murder.

Guards in 2007 discovered one inmate in Maryland had used a hidden cell phone in an attempt to “order a hit” on a witness who was going to testify against him in a homicide case.

New technologies are  Read more »

San Diego Charger Shawne Merriman was arrested early Sunday morning and taken to the San Diego Men’s Central Jail. According to the San Diego Untion Tribune, San Diego Sheriff Deputies were called to the Poway home of linebacker Merriman in the post-bar hours of Sunday morning.

There they found Merriman and “reality star” Read more »

KNBC’s Burbank weatherman, Fritz Coleman is under siege by emails and letters from Melanie Renfrew, a Harbor College teacher. Renfrew says that people are confused between the terms onshore and offshore winds and that Coleman should change this.

KNBC obtained the restraining order because Read more »

Jail Gets Green Light…  Funding Still in the Red

$220 to $240 million. That is the price. And it doesn’t come without controversy. Commissioners in the county of Mecklenburg, North Carolina have agreed 6 to 2 to move ahead with a brand spankin’ new 1,700 bed jail with all the  trimmings. 

The caveat is that the county of Mecklenburg already has three detention center jails; 1 uptown, 1 in the north and a newly-opened Jail Annex with 2,800 beds in Northern Charlotte. It seems that overcrowding has been an ongoing issue, with hundreds of inmates still having to sleep on jail floors.

So, how does an already tapped county pay Read more »

Ok, I’ve gotta comment on this story because I can relate to it on so many different levels: parent, bail bondsman, Walmart shopper, on-looker… but first the story:

A 61-year-old Georgia man named Roger Stephens was held without bail yesterday for slapping a two-year old child at Walmart. Stephens was upset that the child was crying. He warned the mother, Sonya Matthews, that he would “shut that baby up” if Matthews couldn’t stop her daughter’s cries by herself.

When the child continued to cry, Stephens followed through on his threat. He slapped the 2-year-old Paige Matthews “across the face approximately four or five times,” according to the Gwinnett County Police Department report. Of course, the child screamed and cried even more after being assaulted, but Stephens said to the mother, “See, I told you I would shut her up.” He was arrested for felony cruelty to children and held without bond at the Gwinnett County Detention Center.

Ok, so as a parent and a member of society: Read more »

Sad news for Fair Oaks Elementary School in Redwood City: the parent association had $5000 stolen by the former president of the group. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Rosendo Cazares Abarca was sentenced to a year in the San Mateo County Jail for stealing $1500 from fundraisers – including one where photos were taken with Santa Claus, the other a garage sale - and misappropriating another $3500 in funds by writing checks to himself and family members.

Since Abarca was not bailed out and waited in jail for his trial, nearly a year, he will likely be released on probation shortly. Apparently at the time of the incidences, Abarca was unemployed and drug addicted and on probation for felony drug possession. (Was he fulfilling his community service requirement? Gotta laugh at something here.)