BOND COMPANIES SAY PRE-TRIAL ANTI-FREE ENTERPRISE

By Juan Montoya
Imagine if you were in a business where you were offering a product and the government stepped in and – citing various legal and budgetary reasons – undercut your service at the same time you pay it taxes and pay your workers salaries?
That, in a nutshell, complain local bail bond operators  – is exactly what's happening due to the aggressive operation of the county's Pre-Trial Release Program.
Because they must answer to a Bail Bond board and i has become a dog-eat-dog business to fight over a diminishing number of incarcerated defendants, they requested anonymity to voice their concerns.

But while they say the program's bargain-priced percentage of 3 percent compared to the industry's 10 percent or more to allow a defendant to enjoy their freedom and work while awaiting the processing of their charges through the legal system, they say that they are being held accountable for the full amount of their bonds if their clients don't show up for trial, they say the bonds issued by the program don't have to have collateral and results in thousands of unsecured bonds that are never collected.
"I've had instances where my people have been negotiating getting someone out of jail and then find out that someone from Pre-Trial went inside the jail and issued one a lot cheaper," said one. "We can't go in there unless the inmate calls us. Then they appoint inmates an attorney on their rotating schedule paid with indigent funds."
Unlike the Bail Bond Board which oversees commercial bail bond companies, the Pre-Trial Release and Indigent Legal Fund are overseen by the Pre-Trial Release Program.
Kevin Saenz, the director of the department, defends his program's performance by saying that releasing defendants who meet the program's economic and guidelines to obtain low bonds and free legal representation help the county keep the jail population down that helps to increase the number of federal inmates and brings in money to the county.
"We've brought in grants that actually total more than what the department gets from the county," he said. "Our percentage of defendants that don't show up for court is actually rather low, about 5 percent."
Saenz files reports with the county which indicates that the Pre-Trial Release program is getting the bulk of the defendants charged with crimes eligible under the program's guidelines. For example, of 1,300 pre-trial release bonds written in 2013, Saenz's report indicates that 1,210 made a court appearance, and 16 failed to show. Of those 16, four were served with arrest warrants and the rest remain at large.
Likewise, in 2014, of 1,088 warrants written to felony and misdemeanor defendants by the program's bond sellers, 32 failed to appear and 10 were arrested on warrants for filing to appear,
But commercial bail bonds company owners dispute the numbers, saying that if they operated like the program, they would be put out of business by the Bail Bond Board.
"If I had 20 people who failed to appear on $10,000 warrants, I'd be asked to put up the $20,000 or else I'd be prevented from writing bonds," said one. "Here I am paying salaries, rent, utilities and then the program undercuts my prices and has all those defendants failing to appear at no cost to them."
As an example, he points to a report by County Clerk Sylvia Perez-Garza issued January 31, 2015, that indicates that there are currently 11 bail bond companies who owe $32,972 in judgments among them.
"That's $33,000 between 11 companies," he said. "The total for the Pre-Trial release for the 48 defendants who didn't show up for trial has to be much higher. The county isn't going to go looking for a prisoner with a misdemeanor if they call them from New York. We have to."
Saenz said the program's policies were formulated to identify low-risk, low-income defendants and keep them from overcrowding the jails. Once out, he said, most would be required to follow court guidelines of behavior.But he said that at least one commissioner in the past had asked him why the county wasn't required to put up the collateral for the bonds like private companies.
"Imagine that the county had to pay the county," Saenz said. "That would make no sense."
Another complaint by the bail bond companies is that sometimes, defendants fall through the cracks and are not vetted properly. One pointed to an anecdotal instance when a woman was arrested for possession of 25 pounds of methamphetamines, a huge amount requiring a huge investment.
"We heard she was given a pre-trial release at 3 percent and when she got out, she went and hired an expensive lawyer to defend her," he said. "How did she qualify?"
At one time the program had a contract-lawyer system under which attorneys were hired to represent the indigent but a task force found that the system resulted in long delays and had the county institute a system of rotation to represent them.
The report by the task force indicated that of the 55 lawyers who were on the list, the vast majority of indigent cases were funneled to only 18.
While Saenz defends the program and says the small staff has saved the county money and brought in more than the county pays for the service, bail bondsman say it amounts to a subsidized government program that discriminates against private businessmen like them by monopolizing access to potential clients and undercutting the cost of their services.
"Do they want to drive out private enterprise from Cameron County to maintain that staff busy?" he asked.