Keep Bailing

According to the Santa Maria Times, a lawsuit filed by several local bail bondsmen was dismissed by the Superior Court Judge that alleged Sheriff Bill Brown and others were impacting their business by preventing inmates from making their free phone calls to bail bond companies.

A final ruling by Judge Thomas Anderle sustained a motion filed by the defendants that the lawsuit had no real legal basis.

The suit filed claimed that Brown, who entered in an agreement with Securus and Evercom, and Lt. Mark Mahurin, restricted and blocked free phone calls from the Santa Barbara jail, which inmates are entitled to.

Anderle stated that there was nothing in that contract which indicated that the County and Partners for a Safer America ever intended to benefit plaintiffs by ensuring them free phone calls from inmates.

“The contract does not even reference the telephones in the county detention facilities,” Anderle said.  He also stated, “There were no allegations in the complaint that the advertising signboards were not installed, or that Sheriff Brown somehow interfered with the signboards.”

Sheriff Brown did mention that there are some issues with the phones in the jails not working properly and said the county is working on repairing them through the vendor.  To claim that the county is trying to make money by messing with the phones is “ridiculous”, Brown said.