Keep Bailing

An LAPD detective accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend’s wife in 1986 is being held on a $10 million dollar bail. The brother of the accused says it is an atrocious amount and demands that it be lowered.

Stephanie Lazarus, 49, a 26 year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, is accused in 1986 of shooting and bludgeoning Sherri Rae Rasmussen.

Steven Lazarus, the brother of Stephanie, spoke to media last Friday after a pretrial saying that her bail needs to be lowered because it is an illogical price when compared to celebrity defendants, such as Robert Blake or Phil Spector who were only held on a $1 million bail during their trials.

In June of 2009, Lazarus was arrested after the evidence in the case was re-examined by cold case detectives as they matched a saliva sample from Lazarus to bite marks on the victim.

Lazarus’ bail was set at $10 million by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge, Robert Perry, under the Read more »

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 »