Like It or Not, Bondsmen in Orange County Have to Work All Hours and Take Risks to Perform a Service : Bailing People Out

When Paul K. Caris threw away a traffic ticket in 1978, he never realized he was making a career move.

A few months after ignoring the ticket, he applied for a license to sell cars, for which he had to be fingerprinted. A week later, a police car rolled up with a warrant for his arrest.

“Bail was set at $200, and I used my one phone call to reach an attorney friend of mine. He dispatched a female bail bondsman to get me out.”

The 55-year-old Greek immigrant and his bondsman became friends and began to date, then moved in together in Laguna Beach. Caris helped her run the business, and he learned the trade, then hung out his own shingle as a bondsmen in 1985 after the relationship broke up.

“It’s been the best job I’ve ever had,” says Caris, who has worked as a gas station attendant, car dealer and dance instructor since arriving in the United States in 1959. “The work is basically easy; the money’s good, and I’m able to take lots of time off to visit my family in Greece.”

Caris is one of about a dozen Orange County-based bail bondsmen whose offices--replete with bilingual signs exclaiming their fast, courteous service--are clustered around the county’s jails in downtown Santa Ana, Westminster and Anaheim.

It’s a service that’s foreign to most people until circumstances--such as a drunken driving arrest, a forgotten traffic ticket or a more serious crime--get them put in jail.

After bail is set, the new prisoner either calls his family, who in turn contacts a bondsman, or he leafs through the Yellow Page listings under “Bail,” where he finds ads with bondsmen’s smiling faces.

“James Bond Bail Bonds” is the name of Caris’ Westminster-based company. “It’s easy to remember. I get calls from around the country because of the name.”

His most memorable call rang a few years ago when a wealthy doctor in Hawaii needed to bail out his son, who was being held in the Costa Mesa jail on a felony charge. The father needed to come up with $10,000 bail.

“I talked to him on the phone for about 15 minutes and decided to post the bond. The following day I received a check from him to cover the bond, then later, when I returned his money after his son appeared, he sent me a card along with an $800 tip that said, ‘Thank God there are people like you for people like us with rotten kids.’ ”

To become a licensed bail bondsman in California, you must be at least 18 and show proof you have been a resident of the state for the past two years. A prospective bondsman cannot be a lawyer or have any involvement with a law enforcement agency, and they cannot be “ . . . an associate of persons of bad reputation or criminals . . .,” according to the California Code of Regulations.

A bondsman also must be sponsored by another agent who can vouch for ability and character. After passing an hour-long exam on the laws regarding bail in California, and paying $255, a license is issued, which is good for one year.

The California Code of Insurance, which regulates bondsmen, specifies that they can only charge a fee equal to 10% of the bail they put up, no more, no less.

When called to a jail to free a suspect held on $1,000 bail, for instance, they will meet a friend or family member who gives them $100 in cash or a credit card, as well as enough collateral to cover the $1,000 bond. Collateral can be the pink slip for the prisoner’s car, title to a house or a Visa account with enough of a credit line to cover the bond if the prisoner fails to appear on the appointed court date.

The bond is then given to the court and the suspect freed. When he or she appears in court on the appointed day, the bond is returned to the bondsman and the collateral is returned to the suspect’s sponsor.

If it weren’t for the hours and frequently being shocked awake by a phone call asking them to come to a jail on a rainy or cold night, most bondsmen would like the work more. Typically, bondsmen work out of their homes and use an answering service, a pager and often a cellular phone to connect them with the job.

The amount of business a bondsman handles depends on how many see a particular ad and make the call. On a great week, a bondsman working 60 to 70 hours can gross more than $20,000. However, bondsmen also can go days or even a week without a call, and high earnings are usually had in place of an active social life and several nights of deep, restful sleep.

“I had seven calls last night,” says Steve Mehr, 35, co-owner of Steve and Scott’s Bail Bonds, which is a beer bottle’s toss from the Orange County Jail on Santa Ana Boulevard.

“It was business I could take care of over the phone, and I’m at a point where I can just fall back to sleep. I’m fortunate that my wife is very patient about my hours.”

Steve and Scott Mehr, along with their father, Don, are part of a family tradition that began in the 1920s. Ernie Webb, Orange County’s first bail bondsman and Steve and Scott’s grandfather, operated out of a small office near the Santa Ana courthouse. He taught the trade to his son-in-law Don who, in turn, has passed along the business to his sons.

“I just assumed I’d be a part of the business when I grew up,” says Scott, 30. “We were kind of brought up in it.”

Besides racing to jails and releasing the accused, bondsmen have another duty--finding the people who’ve skipped bail on them. “We may have a pink slip on a car, or title to a house, but if a guy sells the car, or the house is in foreclosure and the accused fails to appear, our only recourse is to find him,” Steve Mehr says. “Usually we’re given six months before the bond is cashed, and it’s not often that we lose and don’t find the guy.”

About three times a month, the Mehrs are on the lookout for one of the people who has jumped bail on them. With a certified copy of a bond, they have the power to arrest someone who has failed to appear in court anywhere in the United States or its territories.

Steve Mehr likes to recount the story about how his father managed to collar a bail jumper just before the bond was to be forfeited.

“There was a man involved in a drug case who had skipped bail and disappeared. No one knew what happened to him. Then, just 10 days before the bond was to be forfeited, my dad got a tip that the guy was in Illinois.

“He jumped on a plane and contracted the services of an investigator to help find him. They finally picked him up, flew him back on the last night and had him booked in jail at 10 p.m., just two hours before the deadline.”

Most bondsmen try to avoid this side of the business and hire professional bounty hunters. “I feel I’m a good bondsman,” says Brad Bowyer of Aquarius Bail Bonds in Santa Ana. “But I’m a lousy detective. When someone fails to appear and needs to be found, I’d rather hire somebody to do the job.”

Bowyer, along with his mother, brother and sister operate Aquarius out of their homes and use an answering service. Each takes turns being on call. Bowyer often takes the late afternoon and evening shift, because he works during the day as a tool and die maker.

“I got involved in the business before my father died a few years ago to help out. I thought it would be a temporary thing, but now it’s become a good way to supplement my income.”

Bowyer hates the hours, but he finds his job rewarding. “There’s something very satisfying about being involved in a family business. You know that when you’re doing well, everybody else in the family prospers too, and that adds to the satisfaction.

“You also meet some great people from all walks of life. Usually I’m dealing with the family of somebody who’s been jailed. And I don’t think most of the people I’ve bailed out are bad; usually they’re at the wrong place at the wrong time, or they’ve made a stupid mistake and have been caught. There are only a few who really seemed bad.”

A bondsman isn’t obligated to post a bond for someone, even if adequate collateral is available. “If we’re called for a prisoner we know has skipped bail before and we don’t trust him, we can back out,” Steve Mehr says.

“Much of this business is your ability to size up someone’s character,” Caris says. “You’ve got to be good. When I got the phone call from that father in Hawaii, he told me about his son and how he really wanted to get him out of jail that night. I took a chance and wrote the bond for him after he said he’d get a check out to me to cover it right away. But I’m used to dealing with people, and I felt I could trust him, and it worked out.”

Caris says that the element of trust is why the bail bond business tends to be family-run and wary of outsiders. He operates his company on his own, because his two daughters decided not to follow in his footsteps. “I told them they could make a good living, but they’re 25 and 26, and they’re not crazy about the hours. You need a special relationship with the people who work for you.

“If someone is writing bonds for your company, you’ve got to know them well enough to believe that they’re not going to write a $50,000 bond and take the pink slip to an old Toyota as collateral and ruin your company. Within a family there’s trust. Besides, there’s already a lot of competition; why teach somebody the business so they can go out and start their own?”

Between the various bail bond companies, relations range from friendly to cold. “Most of us, we’re on good terms,” Steve Mehr says. “We’ll run into each other at jails and ask how business is, what’s new, that kind of thing. But there are a few bondsmen out there who have some questionable business practices.”

A bail bondsman lives and dies on the strength of his or her Yellow Page directory ads, with many spending more than $10,000 per month on directory advertising. But if calls from the jails suddenly fall off, they know they may be a victim of dirty tricks.

“There are people who will get ahold of the directories at the jails and rip out all the bail bond pages except the page with their own ad,” says one bondsman who asked anonymity. “Or they’ll give kickbacks to inmates who recommend their business to new prisoners. They’ll even offer kickbacks to the guards and deputies.”

Besides fighting off these guerrilla tactics from each other, bondsmen have to put up with one of the realities of the criminal justice system--overcrowded jails.

“Because the jails get so full, many people are released on their own recognizance,” Caris says. “Several times I’ve gone out to a jail to bail somebody out and once I get there I find that they’ve been released. It’s just something that comes with the job.”

Caris’ phone rang. A murder suspect being held on $500,000 bail needed his services. It was one of those rare, expensive bonds that would bring him $50,000 if everything worked out.

“A lot of police and a lot of the public don’t like us. They think that these bad guys have been arrested, and they should stay in jail. But bail is a legal right. Don’t be angry with me, get angry at the Constitution.”