Gunderson cites state leadership failures for rogue bail bondsmen's actions

I don't take any pleasure in writing this column.

When you spend two legislative sessions warning your colleagues that specific, predictable harms will follow from specific, preventable policy failures — and those warnings prove accurate — there is no satisfaction in being right. There is only the sober reality that real people were hurt in ways that did not have to happen.

This week, the Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance suspended the bail bond license of Laine Callahan of Kalispell, accusing him of using the financial leverage of unpaid bond debt to coerce a female defendant into performing sex acts, and of running an unlicensed recruiting operation inside the Flathead County jail — allegedly directing defendants to refer others to his business in exchange for debt relief. Over a four-month period, Callahan wrote 133 bonds totaling more than $1 million.

This is exactly what I told the Legislature would happen.

The Tool We Asked For — Twice

In the 2023 Legislative Session, I carried House Bill 808. It was a simple bill with a straightforward purpose: require bail agents to collect the full 10% premium at the time a bond is executed. No payment plans. No deferred debt. No financial relationship between a bondsman and a defendant that outlasts the moment the defendant walks out of jail.

The theory behind that bill was not complicated. Montana law gives bail agents extraordinary authority over defendants — the legal right to surrender a client back to custody at any time, for any reason, without a warrant. That authority is appropriate and necessary when a defendant flees. But when it is combined with an unpaid debt, it becomes something else entirely: a mechanism of ongoing control. A defendant who owes a bondsman money can be threatened with jail to compel compliance with whatever the bondsman demands.

HB 808 passed the House. It passed the Senate. Governor Gianforte vetoed it, citing free-market competition as his rationale. I respect the Governor. I disagree with that veto.

Representative Nelly Nicol carried the bill again in 2025 as HB 729. Same result — passed both chambers, vetoed again. Since that second veto, Louis Ikeda of Northwest Bail Bonds in Billings pleaded guilty in federal court in April 2026 to coercing female defendants. Timothy Westervelt, operating as an unauthorized recovery agent under that same company, was arrested in Park County in January 2025 on child sex offense charges. And now, Laine Callahan.

The Legislature and the Governor were told, with documented examples, what payment plan debt enables. We are now watching the documentation accumulate.

How We Got Here — The Fugitive Recovery Overhaul

Before I address the out-of-state problem, some context is necessary. The 2023 Legislative Session also produced House Bill 62 — the bail recovery agent licensing law — driven in large part by the 2021 murder of William Harris in Butte. Jay Hubber of Alibi Bail Bonds recruited a co-defendant through bond debt reduction to assist with a fugitive apprehension that turned fatal. That case became the justification for eliminating independent fugitive recovery agents and restricting apprehension authority exclusively to licensed surety bail bond producers.

The bill that resulted — HB 62 — was not written with meaningful input from the bail profession. It was drafted under the direction of a lobbyist with no operational understanding of how bail recovery actually works in Montana. The profession warned that the bill's structure was unworkable, that it would create dangerous gaps in defendant supervision, and that it would drive out-of-state companies to fill those gaps with agents who had no Montana training or accountability. Those warnings were dismissed.

The Out-of-State Problem

Montana's reciprocal licensing structure then compounded the problem by automatically approving non-resident producers with minimal review of their Montana-specific qualifications, supervision capacity, or operational infrastructure.

The result was predictable: a company could enter Montana's market with one or two agents, write bonds across the entire state, and have no realistic ability to monitor defendants, maintain contact, or respond appropriately when a defendant missed court. When defendants absconded, these companies imported out-of-state fugitive recovery agents — some licensed in other states, some not licensed anywhere — who had no familiarity with Montana law, Montana communities, or Montana's own HB 62 requirements.

Mr. Bail Incorporated, domiciled in Virginia, is the clearest example. State regulators were already investigating their Billings operation for using unlicensed bondsmen when, on March 4, 2026, four of their agents — two unlicensed, two holding temporary licenses issued less than 30 days earlier — shot and killed Joshua Wykle in a Missoula parking lot. Mr. Bail's license has since been revoked. That does not bring Mr. Wykle back.

What the Profession Has Done

I want to be direct about something: Montana's licensed bail professionals did not sit on their hands while this was happening.

The Montana Bail Agents Association filed CSI complaints against unlicensed operators — including the complaint that preceded Timothy Westervelt's arrest. MTBAA did not oppose bail recovery agent licensing in principle; the association supported accountability for fugitive recovery.

What it opposed — correctly — was a bill written without professional input that created more problems than it solved. The association has since worked constructively with the current Commissioner's office to identify and correct those structural deficiencies so that the underlying policy goal — accountable, professional fugitive recovery — can actually be achieved.

Montana's bail professionals asked for the tools to clean up this profession. They were denied those tools twice at the Governor's desk. The bad actors — and the out-of-state corporations willing to exploit vulnerable Montanans for profit — filled the space that responsible regulation would have occupied.

The Road Montana Is On

I have watched what happened in California, New Jersey, Illinois, and New Mexico. Each of those states, responding to high-profile bail misconduct, chose a path of elimination rather than accountability — gutting cash bail, removing bondsmen from the equation, substituting unsupervised pretrial release for a system of private accountability. Failure-to-appear rates climbed. Defendants on unsupervised release committed new crimes. Victims suffered. Those states are now, quietly and painfully, trying to find their way back.

Montana does not have to travel that road. We have a profession that wants to be regulated correctly, a new Commissioner's office willing to work collaboratively, and enough documented evidence of what goes wrong when the Legislature, Executive or Agency refuses to listen to learn from our own recent history.

In the next session, I intend to carry that legislation again. I am asking Montana voters, Montana journalists, and Montana's next Governor to be paying attention when I do.

Steve Gunderson represented House District 1 — Libby and Troy in Lincoln County — in the Montana House of Representatives for four terms, leaving office in January 2025 due to term limits. He is the Republican candidate for Montana Senate District 1 in the November 2026 general election. He carried HB 808 in the 2023 Legislative Session requiring full premium collection at bond execution.