Keep Bailing

It’s called capping — and it’s occurring at the Orange County Jail with alarming frequency.  Capping is the practice of one inmate getting kickbacks from a shady bail bond company once he signs up fellow inmates to use their services.

Here’s how it works:  The inmate connected to the bail bond company offers to make three-way calls for other inmates willing to use their services.  Anyone who isn’t interested is intimidated until he changes his mind.  As reported by the Orange County Register, no less than eight witnesses, all of them arrestees at the jail, recently testified about this illegal practice to both the OC Sheriff’s department and the OC Bail Agents Association.

Each witness was interviewed by private investigator Bill Hunt, a former Sheriff’s Lieutenant currently running for Orange County Sheriff.  Hunt’s subsequent report alleges that some prisoners have bullied others regarding the company they should use for posting their bail.  Hunt also discovered that someone who had access to booking information was passing telephone numbers on to these same bail companies, who then in turn called the prisoners’ family members to pay up.

One woman, Michelle Johnson, said she received this type of call from a friend at the Orange County Jail, in October 2008.  Johnson heard a man in the background pressuring her friend to use a certain bail service.  The friend told her it was an officer.

Johnson paid a 10% premium of $2000 on a $20,000 bail amount to secure her friend’s release.  But a few days later, the same bond company phoned her and said the bail amount was actually $200,000 and that she owed them another $10,000.  Johnson threatened to take it up with the district attorney and the calls stopped.

Arturo Pacheco, an eye-witness who was arrested in August for driving on a suspended license, backed up Johnson’s statement with testimony of his own.  Pacheco claims deputies and jailers were aware of capping but they never stopped it during his incarceration, even though another inmate tied up the phone for this purpose.  Pacheco alleges that this inmate kept offering to hook his fellow arrestees up with two local bail agencies who would cut them deals below the legal 10% fee set up by California’s Department of Insurance.

Several law-abiding  OC bail bond companies contend the county isn’t doing enough to stop this illegal practice. Three of them have filed a federal racketeering lawsuit that accuses the sheriff’s department of allowing gangs and prisoners to illegally solicit customers.

Officials continue to downplay the bail capping scams, but evidence dating back to 2001 gives these charges credibility.  Back then, several bondsmen accused former Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo of seeking their participation in a bail kickback scheme.  Jaramillo, who was in cahoots with a lawyer named Joseph Cavallo, pleaded no contest, but Cavallo was later convicted of paying for referrals from Xtreme Bail Bonds, along with two of that company’s employees.

In a recent statement, OC sheriff’s spokesman, John McDonald, insisted his department is taking the complaints seriously, but they have not been able to find any evidence of illegal solicitation.  Authorities continue to investigate the matter.

Our advice: keep at it. We hear about this and other bail bond scams every day from our clients.