Bail bonds: not your typical small business

Feb. 27--Linda Franklin sits in her home office, recalling a months-long search last year for a man she ultimately found hiding in the refrigerator of his girlfriend's home. She had staked out houses and nightclubs, consulted with her informants on the streets, and issued a reward leading to the man's arrest. After all, she had $25,000 on the line.

A matter-of-fact, 65-year-old Franklin is a grandmother. Her curly hair and polished nails are elegant, and she admits that the security cameras around the exterior of her home are among the measures she takes -- as a woman who has had a gun held to her head during an armed robbery -- to stay safe. A handgun and a Taser also are among her accessories.

Franklin is a bondsman.

She is among a steadily growing number of them in Alamance County, though the business has changed in some ways since she started writing bonds 23 years ago.

For a while, there were only a handful of bondsmen in Alamance County, the majority of which were professionals, meaning they have a security deposit of at least $15,000 with the state insurance commissioner and get to keep the entire premium they charge -- permitted by law to be as much as 15 percent.

Surety bondsmen work on behalf of insurance companies, don't have to put up that large amount of money to start their businesses, and split with the insurance companies the money charged for the defendants' premium.

Bail bond runners also are licensed bondsmen employed by professional bondsmen.

Doug Cozart, 69, who started his professional bail bond business in 1985 after eight and a half years as a sheriff's deputy, has now been around the longest. Michael "Doc" Reaves, 54, both a professional and a surety bondsmen, has been writing bonds for 24 years, followed by Franklin, who also writes both types of bonds. Dexter Shoffner died in 2011, and Glenn Jarrell, another longtime Alamance County bondsman, died in January. Gary Aldridge, a longtime bail bond runner for Jarrell, is now employed by Franklin.

And then there are Robert Davis and Tim Cheek with Alamance Bail Agents, and Anthony Broadway with Broadway Bail Bonds. They're among the younger surety bondsmen who have cropped up in the last five or six years to claim a portion of the local clientele.

ONCE A DEFENDANT is taken before a magistrate, most often a bond is set, or he or she is released on a written promise to appear in court.

If a secured bond is set by the magistrate, the defendant can call a family member or friend to come and post the bail through cash or property, making him or her an accommodation bondsman who can't charge a premium for that service.

Page 2 of 5 -- The alternative is to call a licensed bail bond agent, who, by law, can charge a nonrefundable fee of as much as 15 percent of the bond being written. While those bondsmen don't have to pay bail money up front to the state to release defendants, they're on the hook if defendants don't show up for court.

"When someone is released from custody by a bail bondsman, technically, the bondsman becomes his jailer," Cozart said. "But we try to work with people as much as we can."

Once the defendant walks out into the lobby of the jail, he meets with the bondsman, who asks question after question, gathering information about him, where he lives, what he drives and whom he knows. The bondsman explains that he has to show up for court, among other requirements.

If the defendant skips court, the bondsman receives a bond forfeiture notice and has 150 days until the final judgment day to, essentially, go find the defendant, surrender him to the jail and file a motion with the county school board attorney, district attorney and clerk of court stating the bondsman met one of seven reasons to set aside forfeiture:

--The defendant's failure to appear has been set aside by the court and any orders for arrest recalled;

--The charges for which the defendant was bonded have been disposed of;

--The surety has surrendered the defendant;

--Law enforcement served the defendant with an order for arrest;

--The defendant died before the final judgment day;

--The defendant was serving a sentence with the Department of Corrections at the time of the failure to appear; or

--The defendant was incarcerated in a local, state or federal detention center at the time of the failure to appear.

Even if the 150 days pass, the defendant is nowhere to be found and the bondsman has to pay the full bail amount, the bondsman still has three years to petition the court and, in some cases, can have the payment remitted.

Such was the case with Franklin's search for the man hiding in the refrigerator, who had eluded her and law enforcement for nearly seven months. After apprehending him, she hired a lawyer to request her money back.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN bondsman and defendant -- the bondsman's client, really -- is unique.

The bondsmen speak well of their "repeat clients," the people who loyally call the same bondsman over and over each time they need to get out of jail.

They're clients whom the bondsmen will get up in the middle of the night to bail out, even on a low $300 when there isn't much profit to be made.

Page 3 of 5 -- "You're almost a friend to the (defendant's) family now," Broadway says, sitting in his Burlington office where he sells insurance through AAA Carolinas as another job. "I get invited to cookouts, birthday parties, college graduations. I just got invited to a wedding."

Except when the relationship with the bondsman is strained -- when the defendant skips court and his family members and friends won't cooperate in locating him.

"In the bonding business, when you get them out of jail, everybody loves you," Broadway said. "Mama loves you, the defendant loves you. Once they miss court, everybody hates you."

Under law, the bondsman is entitled to arrest the defendant, even to enter his residence at any time for that purpose, something law enforcement isn't entitled to do without a warrant.

If the defendant is inside, the bondsman typically will handcuff him, put him in the bondsman's car, and take him to the Alamance County jail, where he'll be held again.

Sometimes it's that easy, and other times the bondsmen also have to act as investigators to track down clients.

Though the younger bondsmen like Davis and Broadway rely heavily on social media to find information on defendants' whereabouts -- Davis even posting clients' photos on the bail business's Facebook page, sometimes offering rewards for assistance -- before the Internet, bondsmen didn't have as many additional resources.

Back then, it was "a hope and a prayer, sometimes," Cozart said with a smirk.

But bail agents have always had their informants.

"If you're a bondsman and don't have street contacts, you won't be in business long," Franklin said, noting her longtime commitment to confidentiality that has earned her a respected reputation among Alamance County criminals ratting one another out. "I'll take that to the grave. I have to have eyes on the street."

Davis says it's to his advantage that he doesn't have to drive a patrol car or wear a uniform, something that puts some potential informants at ease who want to help, especially when a $50 Wal-Mart gift card is handed to them.

"There are a lot of people out there who want to clean up their communities but don't trust police officers," he said.

BOUNTY HUNTING IS illegal in North Carolina. Bondsmen can't just hire someone to go find and apprehend a defendant skipping bail; that bounty hunter likely would be charged with kidnapping, some type of assault, or breaking and entering.

Page 4 of 5 -- But licensed bondsmen can help each other, a law Cozart, past president of the N.C. Bail Agents Association, said is among the changes the organization brought about to help bail agents in the state.

It's common for bondsmen to group as much as find clients, usually at no charge to each other.

Though some bondsmen, including old school guys like Reaves and Cozart, occasionally will go by themselves to pick up clients, Davis, a combat veteran, said he always takes at least two others -- and wears a body camera at that -- to protect himself from allegations about inappropriate conduct that some defendants raise.

In addition to Cheek, a self-proclaimed "Harley-riding preacher," "adrenaline junkie" and former professional wrestler, Davis also employs Chris Bowman, a retired member of Britain's Royal Artillery.

All the bondsmen can list the states they've traveled to to arrest a client who has skipped court. Though most have never had to use weapons upon placing someone under arrest, Davis' first time going to arrest someone as a bondsman, while he was working with a friend in Greensboro, resulted in a shootout and the fellow bondsman being charged.

"I learned what not to do," Davis said.

In addition to their investigative skills and ability to remain in control while placing someone under arrest, several of the local bondsmen like to tout their efforts to give back to the community.

For Broadway and Reaves, it's coaching youth sports and making donations to charitable organizations. For Davis, it's partnering with Kearah's place, a faith-based transition home to help women on drugs or in need of other types of assistance, or giving clients "money for food or a kick in the (pants)."

Davis said he wants to "change the perception people have of bondsmen," referring to some bail agents who "play off the ignorance of a lot of these people."

"Some are taking sexual favors, food stamps for payment, all kinds of shady nonsense," Davis said.

Reaves, a retired 23-year city of Burlington employee and current Realtor who was named to the N.C. Bail Agents Association's 2015 Hall of Fame, said such rumors about improper conduct about bondsmen is nothing new, and he isn't always quick to believe what he hears.

"I've been hearing about it since I've been in the business," Reaves said, adding that, for some reason, even rumors about his death have circulated over the years. "I've died three times since I've been in the business."

THE RELATIONAL DYNAMIC among bondsmen is a funny one. On one hand, they're competitors, each trying to get the bonds with the lowest risks and resulting in the highest premiums for their profit.

Page 5 of 5 -- On the other hand, they share information about past clients and go out to help each other with arrests.

As more and more surety bondsmen have entered the business with a less established reputation, they've lowered the premium from the longtime accepted 15 percent rate and made payment plans commonplace.

"The majority of bondsmen are doing more credit than they've ever done," Cozart said. "Times are hard. There's more bondsmen. We're just working with people."

When Cozart started 31 years ago, only three or four bondsmen were working in Alamance County. Now, there are 12 to 15, he said.

Franklin, who worked two full-time jobs for two years to save enough for a security deposit to become a professional bondsman, isn't thrilled with the rise in surety bondsmen undercutting the 15 percent rate.

She mostly stays firm on that rate unless the bond is fairly high, and usually offers deferred payment only to regular clients she trusts.

Franklin still remembers the first man she got out of jail on a $500 bond as a professional bondsman, and the $75 premium she was paid, no longer having to work as a runner splitting premiums with a supervisor.

"I thought I had made it," she said. "When I first started 23 years ago, we could make a real comfortable living," Franklin said.

But that money doesn't always come as easy now.

"It's risk management at the end of the day," Broadway said, explaining that bondsmen have to do their homework on a defendant before agreeing to write a bond, checking his record to see whether he has previously failed to appear in court. "All of us younger bondsmen hope we can be in business as long as" others have.

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