Mobile
Mutiny on the Bounty
These bondsmen like their prey shaken and stirred. Just don't call 'em bounty hunters.
By Jared NeumarkPage 2 of 6
Benton breaks his silence: "$5,000 and we go away. That's the reality." That's the price of Saul's bond. Benton wrote the bond, and had Saul gone to court, Benton would have made $500, the 10 percent fee Saul paid to the bondsman for taking on the full liability of the bond. But the condition of all bonds is that the criminal show up in court. Once a person skips, the bondsman has 150 days to return him to jail or the entire bond (in this case $5,000) comes out of the bondsman's pocket. That's the game.
And there are a few types of players. Benton, a professional bondsman, prefers writing the bonds. He got into the business with a genuine desire to help the down and out who are too broke to afford the 10 percent bondsman fee. Price, a runner, enjoys the hunt. He makes most of his money on the back end recovering skips, and is often hired in a freelance role -- a last-minute option if someone proves too difficult to locate.
Benton and Price aren't bounty hunters, though the difference is minute. Unlicensed bounty hunters, such as reality TV celebrity Duane "Dog" Chapman, can have felonies on their records. Not bondsmen. In North Carolina, all felony charges must be expunged by a judge before a person can become a bondsman. Lloyd Patterson, vice president of the Mecklenburg Bail Bond Association, dislikes when bondsmen are confused with bounty hunters. "They have a reputation for renegade behavior," he says of Dog and his ilk.
Back on the chase for Saul, a young girl at the Hidden Valley house is talking to Benton. "He's got no connection with nobody in this house," she tells Benton of the fugitive. It isn't exactly true. This is the house Saul had listed as his residence when he was bonded out. Upon searching the back of the home and seeing all the subdivided rooms in the basement, it's clear to Benton that Saul's coyote business is still bustling. According to Benton's regular Spanish-speaking interpreter, who is not with Benton and Price tonight, Saul had been living here with his girlfriend -- the cosigner, homeowner and mother of the shirtless man inside. To a bondsman, that's enough of a connection.
Price threatens to bring immigration to the house but later explains to me it was an empty threat. ("You can call immigration right now and say you have a van full of illegal immigrants and they'll be like, 'And your point?' They don't care. Now if you say you've got a fucking car full of Abu Dhabis from Iraq-a-stack, oh, they'll be over there like swat.")
"I'm tired of saying it," Benton continues. "Give us $5,000 dollars or we'll be back and back and back."
The girl is unfazed. "You're going to come back and back and back, and we're going to say the same thing."
"I'm not stupid," Benton yells at the 12-year-old girl. "You don't know anybody who knows Saul? You play hard and I'll play hard. I'll be back. I'll be back at three or four in the morning and I'll wake you're whole fucking family up! And I'll keep doing it until you pay the money or get Saul to fucking come fix this! It's up to you." He storms out.
Price is all smiles as we follow in Benton's stormy wake. "Hey, Larry. You calm down yet? You want to go have a beer?" He turns to me: "Larry got mad. He used dirty words."
In the bonding industry, people are resources and Hispanics are like a valuable kind of oil no one's figured out how to extract. One hundred and forty-four bondsmen work in Mecklenburg County and another 50 come into Charlotte periodically from surrounding counties. Only two deal primarily with the Hispanic population. Price says it's a cultural difference. Illegal immigrants think appearing in court may result in deportation. Others simply don't understand the system and fail to show up for continuance after continuance.
"Every bondsman in this town has got 'the interpreter,'" says Price. "And every single bondsman who's done it has gotten burned."
Benton needs his interpreter, Lewis, to help with Saul's case. But on this late February night, Lewis has claimed he needed to finish his taxes. Price doesn't buy it.
Price: "Motherfucker. It's like rock-paper-scissors ... pussy. Pussy out-beats everything."
Benton: "Shut your hole."
Price: "Man, I'm hungry. You don't understand. I'm wasting away over here."
Benton: "You've got plenty of reserves there, fat boy."
Price: "Hey, sticks and stones and I'll shoot you. I don't give a fuck." (We pass by a strip mall of restaurants.) "Man those Chinese will make a buffet out of anything."
Speaking of 4.23000
-
Without a Trace
Dec 5, 2007 - More »
Latest in Cover
More by Jared Neumark
-
Best of The Blotter 2007
Nov 28, 2007 -
Preaching and drinking
Mar 7, 2007 -
Preaching and Drinking
Dec 27, 2006 - More »
Calendar
-
Wine & Paint @ Blackfinn Ameripub- Ballantyne
-
Face to Face Foundation Gala @ The Revelry North End
- Fri., April 19, 6-10 p.m.
-
-
An Evening With Phil Rosenthal Of "Somebody Feed Phil" @ Knight Theater
- Fri., April 19, 7 p.m.
-
-
Kountry Wayne: The King Of Hearts Tour @ Ovens Auditorium
- Fri., April 19, 7:30 p.m.
-
-
Queen Charlotte Fair @ Route 29 Pavilion
- Through April 22, 4-11 p.m.
-
-
Canuck in the Queen City 7
A Canadian transplant looks back at her first year as a Charlotte resident
-
Homer's night on the town 41
If you drank a shot with the Knights mascot on Sept. 20, you were basically harboring a fugitive
-
Delic Holdings Inc. Announces Meet DELIC, the Premiere Psychedelic and Wellness Edutainment Event and Expo for Newcomers and Veteran Psychonauts, Announces Initial Speaker Lineup 42
