In NY, Man Offers Fake Money for Bond

Cyheam Forney had just dropped off his girlfriend at work in Melville when he made an illegal left turn in front of a Suffolk County police sergeant. And that was only the start of his troubles Thursday evening, police said Friday.

Forney was pulled over into the Estée Lauder parking lot on Pinelawn Road by Sgt. Daniel Lynch. Three young children, a boy and two girls, were asleep in the 2006 Nissan, Lynch said.

Forney was apologetic and explained that he was on his way home to baby-sit the children, one of which was his, and the other two his girlfriend's.

When Lynch asked for a license, Forney said he didn't have one. He had no other identification on him, either.

Forney told the sergeant his name, and Lynch ran it through Department of Motor Vehicle records on his computer. Turns out, Forney's license had been suspended 35 times, police said.

"I'm sorry," Lynch recalled Forney stating. "Well, we have to take care of this," Lynch replied. They made arrangements for the children's care and went to the Second Precinct in Huntington.

There, Forney was issued summonses for the illegal turn, too-dark-tinted windows, unlicensed operation and substandard tires. He was offered $500 bail.

But when he handed over his cash, police noticed one of the bills looked fake. Forney admitted it was counterfeit, police say.

"He said some guy gave it to him when he was playing dice the night before," Lynch said.

Forney, 31, of Wyandanch, was arraigned Friday in First District Court in Central Islip and held on $5,000 for felony possession of a forged instrument and $2,500 for the motor vehicle offenses. No one answered the phone at his address.

Bounty Hunter Beats The Odds To Capture Sex Offender

Derek Morrison was hacking from walking pneumonia and had been up for about 60 hours when he delivered a fugitive sex offender to the Clark County Jail a few weeks ago.

Days earlier, the licensed bond recovery agent had driven 1,200 miles practically nonstop, from Vancouver to Arvada, Colo., west of Denver, where he found and handcuffed the man, 24-year-old Cory Robert Fellows.

“Running on vapor” by that time, Morrison put his prisoner in the back seat and began the 17-hour drive back to Vancouver.

Only 15 minutes from the Clark County Jail, he made a mistake.

It was about 4:30 in the afternoon of March 28. Morrison stopped his dusty blue 2002 Toyota Camry to let his prisoner use a restroom at a Burger King in Cascade Park.

What he didn’t know was that his prisoner had gotten the key to his handcuffs.

Moments later, he was gone.

The story of how Fellows was lost, found, lost and then found again gives a glimpse into the complex and challenging world of bail bondsmen — and the bail bond recovery agents they hire when things go wrong.

The target

Fellows had been convicted in Oregon of third-degree rape, first-degree theft and forgery. Charged in Clark County with second-degree assault for holding a pair of scissors to a girlfriend’s temple, he was convicted of third-degree assault in a plea bargain.

Scorning court appearances and probation terms, he allegedly moved from state to state, finding new girlfriends and defrauding them.

“He was really good at what he did and how he did it,” said Mike Thornton of A+ Bail Bonds in Vancouver, who has been working with Morrison for 12 years. “He did it very smoothly and didn’t think he’d get caught.”

In late October, Fellows was in custody at the Clark County Jail on a fugitive warrant, alleging that he’d fled Oregon while on probation for third-degree rape.

With his bail set at $50,000, Fellows convinced his mother, Donna Boyle of Battle Ground, to sign a deed of trust and use her home as collateral for the bond and any expenses incurred to its backer, American Surety Co.

In the Vancouver office of A+ Bail Bonds, Thornton agreed to post a $50,000 bond, and Fellows was released from custody. Four months later, the problems began.

The timeline

Feb. 21: Fellows fails to appear in court, violating the terms of the bail bond.

If recovery agents working for A+ can’t bring Fellows back in 60 days, the company might have to forfeit the $50,000 bail. The owner of A+, former police officer Tom Loos, could go to court to try to get the money back from Boyle, but it would be an expensive process.

It’s time for Thornton to bring in Morrison and get to work.

Feb. 24: Thornton speaks with Boyle. She says she doesn’t know where her son is, just that he was scared of going back to jail.

Feb. 25: The agents hit the streets. They get doors slammed in their faces by the mother’s neighbors.

“They were saying, ‘He’s a nice kid, and you should leave him alone,’ ” Thornton said later.

Feb. 26: The agents find someone who’d heard that Fellows is driving a family member’s green pickup and a motorcycle, and saying he was heading to Colorado.

Early March: A week or more has gone by when Thornton makes the next breakthrough.

“I Googled his name and, sure enough, there was a Web site that said, ‘Got scammed by Cory Fellows,’” he said.

A link led to RX7club.com, where four people complained of rip-offs, some related to vehicle parts.

“I e-mailed each and every person,” Thornton said later. “Half of them were former girlfriends.”

Still at the computer, Thornton discovers that Fellows has an active MySpace.com page that claims he was from the Breckenridge, Colo., area about 75 miles west of Denver.

At Zumiez, a hip young folks’ clothing store in Vancouver, Thornton learns that Fellows is an avid snowboarder.

He sniffs around on Mount Hood and e-mails wanted fliers with photos of Fellows to every ski resort and police department in the greater Denver area.

March 20: Thornton gets an e-mail from Officer Mark Kelley in Dillon, Colo.

A woman who lived in Dillon had told police Fellows dated her for awhile, ripped her off and left her hanging.

The officer says that Fellows’ new flame was named Megan, whereabouts and last name unknown.

With only the first name, “I searched thousands of profiles” on MySpace, Thornton said.

No luck.

March 26: Officer Kelley unearths the right Megan profile and e-mails a link to Thornton. The profile includes a comment by a man who turns out to be Megan’s brother.

That comment includes his — and presumably Fellows’ girlfriend Megan’s — last name.

Thornton puts the names together. He gets a hit in the Denver suburb of Arvada, Colo.

March 26, 9:30 p.m.: The journey begins.

Morrison and a buddy, Todd Hicks, load up the Camry and start driving toward Colorado.

It’ll be a virtually nonstop trip; no restaurants or motels, just convenience stores.

“I’d be pumping the gas, and Todd would go in and get the munchies,” Morrison said.

As Morrison and Hicks drive, Thornton is still working back in the office. He logs in to a skip-tracing database that private investigators and bond agents use.

He types in Megan with her last name and learns she has worked as a waitress at a barbecue joint near Arvada. He calls the manager.

Megan no longer works there, the manager says. But he knows Fellows is her boyfriend, and he’s sized him up as a freeloader.

The manager also happens to be a friend of Megan’s sister

March 26, 11:30 p.m.: Two hours into the trip, Morrison gets a call from Thornton with the exact address where Megan and Fellows are staying in Arvada.

The address came courtesy of the restaurant manager.

March 27, night: Racing against time and fearing Fellows might bolt again, Morrison arrives in Arvada, meets with the restaurant manager and shows him his badge and bail-bond paperwork.

The manager puts in a phone call to Megan’s sister and asks her to go outside without alerting Fellows. After learning what was happening, the sister agrees to let Morrison in and arrest Fellows.

“When I pulled out my badge, you could see his face drop,” Morrison said. “His shoulders kind of dropped, like he had no place to run, no place to hide, he was done.”

Well, not quite.

March 28, afternoon: Hundreds of miles later and barely 15 minutes from jail, Fellows makes his move and is on the lam again.

“You couldn’t print what I was thinking then,” Morrison said as he recalled the moment a few weeks later. “I was upset, but I was tired more than anything else.”

The agents still didn’t know how Fellows got the key to his handcuffs off Morrison’s key ring before the bathroom stop at the Burger King near Southeast Mill Plain Boulevard and Chkalov Drive.

At the time, they did know this: Fellows was gone, and they wanted him back.

“We went through back yards, hedges, fences, Dumpsters, everywhere within at least a 10-block radius,” said Thornton, who also helped out.

March 28, evening: Two hours later, with darkness approaching, “we figured out a scam,” Thornton said.

They enlist the help of a young woman to call Boyle, Fellows’ mother, and pose as Megan. She pretends to be worried, and says she wants to speak with her boyfriend.

Boyle tells her Fellows had just called, saying he’d escaped and needed his mother to break into Morrison’s Camry and retrieve Fellows’ laptop.

On a second call, Boyle gives the fake Megan the phone number Fellows had called her from. It came back to a pizza joint a couple of miles north.

Driving quickly to the restaurant, Thornton spots Fellows “nonchalantly walking out.”

Thornton, beefy and 6-foot-2, isn’t carrying handcuffs, but he tackles Fellows anyway and holds on as he struggles.

An elderly couple ask if they can help, and Thornton asks them to call Morrison’s cell phone.

Minutes later, Morrison arrives with the handcuffs and it’s over.

March 28, night: Moaning with fatigue, Morrison walks to the Clark County Jail with Thornton and they deliver Fellows into official custody.

But the surprises aren’t over.

During a search of Fellows during booking, a custody officer says, “You want to see something scary?”

He shows them the handcuff key.

A pause to reflect

The agents say their expenses, in gas, food and pricey online services, cost about $2,000.

How much will Morrison make for the job? That remains to be seen, he said.

Typically, the agents said, they’re hunting five or six people at a given time. About 10 percent of the folks they bail out fail to make their court appearance, and they catch all but a few.

While Morrison carries a concealed .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol, the last time he had to pull it out was several years ago, when a man threatened to bash his head in with a piece of lumber.

“I could probably count on one hand the times I’ve used physical force,” he said.

At 38, he says he’s getting too old for this type of stuff. But you can tell he sometimes enjoys his often grueling job.

“It has its moments,” he said.

Thornton, 35, is more enthusiastic.

“It’s a kick in the pants,” he said. “It’s the thrill. The money’s just a bonus. We just put our nose to the pavement. You have to think like (the bail jumper) in a way.”

Police in Dillon and Arvada, meanwhile, said they’re investigating allegations about Fellows’ deeds there and plan to seek warrants for his arrest. On April 7, deputy prosecutors in Clark County obtained a warrant for Fellows’ arrest, charging that he failed to register as a sex offender.

Fellows wasn’t in the Clark County Jail on Friday and his whereabouts are unknown.

A mother’s view

Boyle told The Columbian she has another opinion of her son’s capture by the agents.

She says the agents went too far when they posted wanted fliers in her neighborhood, with her son’s photos, telling everyone he’s a sex offender.

The relationship was consensual, and the girl claimed to be older than she was, she said.

Boyle said she arrived home one night and the agents appeared suddenly at her car window, flashing badges.

“It scared me,” she said. “It was like, ‘What?’ I didn’t know who they were.”

And she feels the agents went too far in the way they reminded her she’d signed that deed of trust to her home, to bail Fellows out of jail.

“They told me that one night that I would be on the street within a week. They didn’t have to be that drastic to me,” she said.

And she defended her son, who declined to speak to The Columbian on advice of an attorney.

“I have good kids,” she said. “He’s trying to start over.”

The Bail Industry Gets Political

NAME: Laura Beckett-White

CANDIDATE FOR: Cabell County magistrate

PARTY: Democrat

STATEMENT: "It is time for change in the magistrate court system. The residents of Cabell County deserve educated, experienced, and qualified magistrates to serve them. As magistrate I will work hard to serve the public to the best of my ability using honesty and fairness. I will work together with law enforcement, and other agencies within the criminal justice system, in an effort to decrease crime in this county."

QUESTION & ANSWER: Do you support the continued use of bail bondsmen in Cabell County?

"Bail bondsmen are used at the discretion of the offender. Although I believe that bail bondsmen are a cost effective way of reducing regional jail costs, I think that bail bondsmen need to be approved by county officials and supervised in order to ensure efficiency."

Dr. Phil in Bondsman Controversy

Mercades Nichols, one of eight teens charged in the brutal attack which was captured on a YouTube video, was bailed out by a representative of the show on Friday night, according to a report from MyFOXTampaBay.com.

A judge on Friday set bails ranging from $30,000 to $37,000 for the teenagers.

The Dr. Phil representative was waiting by the jail's exit, and when Nichols walked out, he tried to block Tampa TV station camera people from getting video of Nichols and her family leaving jail.

Police: NY Man Tries Bogus Bill for Bail

Police say it was no surprise a bogus $50 bill got a Long Island man arrested: He was trying to use it to pay his bail on a traffic charge.

The transaction compounded Cyheam Forney's legal problems and landed him in jail.

Arizona Tightens Policies On Illegal Immigrants

As it has become the favorite entry point for undocumented migrants trying to sneak into the United States, Arizona has become a laboratory for whether a state can single-handedly combat illegal immigration.

In recent years it has barred illegal immigrants from receiving government services, from winning punitive damages in lawsuits and from posting bail for serious crimes. A new state law shuts down businesses that hire illegal workers. And the sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and three-fifths of the state's population, dispatches his deputies and volunteer "posses" to search for illegal street vendors or immigrants being smuggled through the county.

"What I love about what Arizona is doing is we don't have to rely on the federal government," said state Rep. Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican who has authored most of the toughest measures. "It has truly woken up the rest of America that states can fix that problem."

The campaign has had an effect: Illegal immigrants complain it's impossible to find good work and are leaving the state.

It has also taken a toll on some U.S. citizens.

Juan Carlos Ochoa, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in an upper-middle-class subdivision near Phoenix named Laguna Hills, can't find a job because a government database classifies him as a possible illegal immigrant. Pauline Muñoz, a 39-year-old mother of six who was born in Phoenix, has been afraid to leave her apartment since being held by sheriff's deputies for 15 hours for a driving infraction -- an example of what she believes is racial profiling.

And businesses that cater to immigrants both legal and illegal report a huge drop in sales, increasing the drag on the state's already troubled economy.

"There used to be so many people they would fight for parking out there," said Omar Flores, 31, manager of La Mexicana market in western Phoenix. Now the grocery store is mostly empty.

Economist Dawn McLaren of Arizona State University said that part of what's pushing immigrants out is the collapse of the state's housing-based economy. In the construction sector, which employs many immigrants, 10% of jobs have vanished over the last year as home prices have plunged.

The economic woes are magnified by the employer sanctions law, which has led some businesses to say they won't expand in Arizona, McLaren said. "It exacerbates the downturn," she said.

No one knows how many immigrants have left the state, and the most recent government figures show Arizona growing robustly -- as of July, Maricopa was the fastest-growing county in the nation.

But enough immigrants have left that the government of Sonora, the Mexican state bordering Arizona, has complained about how many people have arrived on its doorstep.

Pearce says the overall effect has been undeniably positive for Arizona. "Smaller class sizes, shorter emergency room waits," he said. "Even if [illegal immigrants] are paying taxes -- and most of them aren't -- the cost to taxpayers is huge."

The biggest effect has come from the new employer sanctions law, which took effect in January.

The law is fairly straightforward.

Any business caught hiring illegal immigrants is put on probation. If it is caught doing the same thing again, the state revokes its business license.

The only defense for an employer is if it used E-Verify, a federal pilot project to allow businesses to confirm the legality of their laborers.

The law did what it was supposed to with Jorge Hernandez, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico. He had been working in a Phoenix tire shop for years when in December his bosses told him they'd have to let him go because of the new law. Now he struggles to support his family by working as a day laborer and is thinking of leaving.

"I've been in Arizona for 11 years," he said. "This is the worst one. For those years I worked every day. I had money, I had a car."

Hernandez dreams of moving to New Mexico, where friends have told him the economy is stronger and sentiment against illegal immigrants weaker. "They don't have E-Verify there," he said in Spanish.

E-Verify has at least one significant flaw -- its treatment of naturalized U.S. citizens.

Between October 2006 and March 2007, about 3,200 foreign-born U.S. citizens were initially improperly disqualified from working by E-Verify. Their status was later corrected.

Because many did not register their citizenship with the Social Security Administration, they are often listed as possible illegal workers.

That's what apparently happened to Ochoa, 47, who became a citizen in 2000. He quit his job as a car salesman at the end of last year and got hired by a local Dodge dealership in February. Days later, his new employers called him with bad news -- E-Verify classified him as a possible illegal immigrant. He only had a couple of days to convince Social Security that he wasn't.

He had lost his naturalization certificate, so Ochoa took his U.S. passport, Social Security card, driver's license and Arizona voter identification card to the local Social Security office. He was told he'd have to request new papers from the Department of Homeland Security, which could take up to 10 months.

"I love this country, I'm happy in this country," said Ochoa, a father of two, who escaped eviction this month only because a church group paid his rent. "The guy who made this law, I don't know him. He's started destroying a lot of families."

Katherine Lotspeich, acting chief of the agency that runs E-Verify, said officials will introduce a number of changes, starting in May, to make it easier to fix the problems that Ochoa and other naturalized citizens have encountered.

"The last thing we want is to have people who are naturalized citizens deal with this cumbersome process" to get paperwork, Lotspeich said.

She added that Social Security should have accepted Ochoa's passport as proof of citizenship.

Local law enforcement efforts, meanwhile, have drawn complaints about racial profiling.

For the last two years, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been testing how far a local law enforcement agency can go in combating illegal immigration. His deputies and trained volunteers have detained more than 1,000 illegal immigrants, many of whom were stopped for minor infractions and then asked about their immigration status. State legislators this month moved toward passing a law requiring all local police departments to start fighting illegal immigration.

"I believe that if you get tough," Arpaio said, illegal immigrants "will disappear."

Immigrant-rights groups and attorneys have complained that Arpaio's attack on illegal immigrants leads to Latinos constantly being asked about their citizenship status. Some cite Muñoz's case as an example of perils to Arpaio's approach.

Muñoz was held for 15 hours after being stopped on a speeding violation in Phoenix in December. Deputies discovered she did not have a driver's license. She was placed in a van with several arrested illegal immigrants, taken to jail and held for several hours of processing before a judge released her.

"It's only because of the way you look," Muñoz said. "Even though I'm from here, I don't feel safe to go out and do anything."

Sheriff's Capt. Paul Chagolla, a department spokesman, said Muñoz was detained for driving without a license. She was kept with the illegal immigrants because "when we run an operation we don't always have transport" for individual suspects, he said.

Arpaio said that there have been few specific complaints of profiling and that his deputies ask suspects about immigration status only when they see a possible crime committed.

He has no apologies for his tactics or their contribution to a flight of illegal immigrants from Arizona.

"The more who leave, the better," he said. "They shouldn't be here in the first place."

Bail Reduction Sparks Outcry

Dale E . Flow, charged in connection with a brutal parking lot beating that left a Hilton Head Island bartender severely injured, walked out of jail March 12 after his bail was reduced from $100,000 to $25,000.

The reduction meant that Flow had to pay only $2,500 -- the standard 10 percent required by bail bondsmen -- to be free pending his trial.

The victim's friends say the bond shouldn't have been lowered, but Flow's attorney said bail isn't meant to be punitive.

Flow, 32, of Rockingham, N.C., was charged with assault and battery with intent to kill,South Carolina's equivalent of an attempted murder charge, after the Feb. 22 incident outside the Lodge, a popular night-spot on the south end of Hilton Head.

Witnesses said victim Colin Spar was hit from behind and knocked unconscious while trying to break up a fight. They said he was then beaten with a heavy metal object, possibly a builder's level.

The beating sent Spar, 23, a 2002 graduate of Hilton Head Preparatory School, to the intensive care unit of Savannah's Memorial Health University Medical Center, where he remained for weeks with injuries that required several surgeries. Spar was released from the hospital more than two weeks ago, but still undergoes out-patient rehabilitation to regain the use of his right arm.

When setting bond, judges take several factors into consideration, such as the severity of the crime as well as the defendant's past criminal record and potential flight risk.

Flow's attorney, James Brown, Jr., said his client is not a flight risk because he is staying with his mother in greater Charleston, his hometown.

According to Brown's motion to reduce the bond, which was delivered to the Beaufort County Clerk of Court on March 4, Flow's only other known criminal charge was for public disorderly conduct. A spokesman for the Richmond County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina said Flow also had a speeding infraction.

Judge James Williams granted the reduction request.He did not return several calls seeking comment.

Pre-trial bonds are required by law to be reasonable. Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said if a defendant is not a flight risk and does not present a danger to the community, the deciding judge may be "stuck between a rock and a hard spot."

However, "prosecution, in most cases, does chime in on what bond was set," Tanner said.

Prosecutor Alex Robinson could not be reached for comment and Duffie Stone, 14th Circuit Solicitor, declined to comment, his spokeswoman said.

Friends of the Spar family like Debbie DeAbate, who has known the injured man for about 10 years, are outraged by the bond reduction.

"$2,500 is almost like an insult." she said. "Colin has missed work and is trying hard to have a normal life again. That's worth more than $2,500."

The Spar family, meanwhile, has been focusing on Colin's recovery.

"My first priority is Colin getting better. Everything else is secondary for now," said Daniel Spar, Colin's father. "We'll let the system do its job."

Flow was indicted by a grand jury March 20. The next term of General Sessions court, where the case will be heard, starts Monday.

Dodge Bail Bonds

With his slicked-back gray hair and pastel suits, George Dodge looks more like Ben Matlock than Dog the Bounty Hunter, the muscled and tattooed bail bondsman-turned-reality TV star."That’s all movie stuff," Dodge said of the Honolulu-based show on A&E.

"It’s great for show, but it wouldn’t fare too well in the state of Missouri."

Dodge, who describes himself as "old school," operates differently than many people in the area bail bonding industry.

He doesn’t allow his agents to carry guns or Tasers, citing safety concerns. He said that’s one of the main reasons he has only gotten into two fights while collecting bounties in the past 26 years.

And Dodge is picky when it comes to selecting the clients and bonds he insures. He estimates his agents turn down three out of every five bonds that are requested.

"I’m old. I’m fat. I’m primed for a heart attack," Dodge said. "I don’t need all the adrenaline."

Dodge, who said he stopped hiring ex-convicts and snitches years ago, has a peculiar prerequisite when hiring new employees.

"I like to hire someone that’s a little greedy," he said. "Greed is going to make them kick their feet out at 2, 3 o’clock in the morning and write them bonds. A little greed kind of helps."

Dodge’s rules have served him well.

At 68, he is the oldest continually active bail bondsman in Boone County, having operated Dodge Bail Bonds since 1982. He now works out of his northeast Columbia home, taking calls on his cell phone at all hours of the night and sending his bonding agents all over Mid-Missouri.

At its height just three years ago, Dodge Bail Bonds employed 76 agents across the state, working in all of Missouri’s 114 counties. Now, Dodge said he has cut back. His son, Monty Dodge, moved to Rogers, Ark., and Dodge said he’s content to run a one-man operation, only taking the bonds and clients he wants. Now, Dodge Bail Bonds has some 20 agents who work Mid-Missouri. There are four agents, including Dodge, who work in Boone County.

But what Dodge - a former building contractor and Randolph County sheriff’s deputy - is maybe best known for among police, prosecutors, judges and suspected criminals he works with is being a straight shooter.

"I had a guy I arrested one time tell me that ‘They can take your money, take your life, but they can’t take your word away,’ " Dodge said. "That sort of stuck with me."

Dodge was born and raised in Moberly and attended Kirksville State Teachers College, now Truman State University, in the 1950s. A social science major, Dodge dropped out after his junior year when he realized a humanities degree wouldn’t "quite meet my expectations salary wise."

He then worked 15-plus years as a building contractor - before the housing market went south in the 1970s - followed by a nine-year stint as a sheriff’s deputy in Randolph County.

"Hell, I wasn’t doing much of anything except piddling with selling a house here and there," Dodge said. "And then I run into" former Sheriff Orville Price "and asked him if he needed to someone to work, and he said sure."

Dodge retired as a nighttime captain in 1982 at the insistence of his wife of 49 years, Ilene.

Once he left the sheriff’s department, his former co-workers poked fun at Dodge’s new line of work, he said. At the time, Dodge was one of only three general bail bondsmen in Boone County.

But his new job, he would tell his ex-colleagues, had its benefits. " ‘You boys get up at 2 o’clock, chase down a guy who wants to fight you. His girlfriend bites you, his parents cuss you out, his dog growls at you, and you don’t get paid a damn cent more for that because you work by the hour,’ " he said he told them. " ‘I get up at 2 o’clock and bail the old boy out, and he loves you. His girl hugs you, his parents shake your hand, his dog wags his tail at you, and I get paid extra.’ "

Dodge Bail Bonds has been a family affair - his two adult sons, 48-year-old Marty and 49-year-old Monty, and his wife all have worked as bonding agents for him at one time or another.

But Marty, who has his own excavation company in Hatton, wasn’t really "cut out" for the family business, Dodge said, and Monty recently moved with his wife and kids to Arkansas.

So in recent years, Dodge has branched out from the bail bonding business. He owns a title loan business with four locations in Mid-Missouri and several pasture farms in Callaway, Chariton, Cooper and Randolph counties.

For a short time, Dodge also was a newspaper publisher as part owner of the North County News-Leader, a weekly newspaper that serviced Centralia and northern Boone County.

It was a lofty venture, and Dodge admits he "didn’t know a thing about newspapers." The paper’s office closed in April 2002 - about two months shy of its one-year anniversary. The failed venture was just another testament to where Dodge’s strengths lie.

"It’s not all peaches and cream, like sheriffing, but some people are cut out for bonding, and I guess I’m one of them," he said.

Dodge is one of 139 active general bail bond agents in Missouri who oversee the state’s 858 active bonding agents, said Emily Kampeter, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Insurance.

Industry experts say agents are an odd mixture of career criminals and former law enforcement officers. In recent years, Dodge said, the bail bonding business has become increasingly competitive with agents "looking to make a quick buck."

The growth has created some substantial problems, especially for state regulators. Bail bonding agent applicants who have been convicted of a felony within the past 15 years are barred from receiving a license but, in years past, the state Department of Insurance has had some discretion in granting licenses to ex-convicts.

A change in state law in 2006 requires bail bond agents to submit fingerprints on all applications and renewals. State officials have tried unsuccessfully to regulate the bail bonding industry even further - including a failed attempt in the General Assembly last year to require all bail bonding agents to report a felony arrest within 10 days, Kampeter said.

"It’s not the intent of this administration to allow discretion regarding felony arrests," she said.

Jack Hastings, a 39-year-old former Ashland and Boonville police officer, works full time as the head of security at Stephens College and moonlights as a bail bondsman for Dodge. He said the bail bonding industry - including Boone County’s 28 active bail-bonding agencies - is rife with problems.

"When I interviewed, George came across as a really good guy who did everything by the book, which is different than what I’ve seen," said Hastings, who has worked with Dodge Bail Bonds for about 2½ years.

Hastings, who worked as a police officer for 13 years before becoming a bondsman, said he quickly learned one of the vital tricks of the trade from Dodge - a good bond is all about the co-signer.

"A good co-signer is someone who is either going to pay that bond if that person runs out or help us find him," Hastings said.

"One of the first questions I ask is, ‘Where do you work?’ If it’s a mother who says she’s worked at University Hospital for 10, 15 years, I think it’ll work. But if it’s a girlfriend who wants to get her boyfriend out of jail, and she works at Wendy’s - well, you and I both know she’s not going to be able to pay that bond."

Hastings, who said a good part-time agent can make upwards of $20,000 per year, said he goes to painstaking lengths to vet his bonds and, as an insurance policy against clients who fail to show up in court, takes 10 percent of his earnings and puts it in an escrow account for a rainy day.

Dodge, Hastings and other agents said they’ve built up their client base largely through word-of-mouth.

Rodney Kemp, the 37-year-old owner of MO Music Records, said Dodge is a helpful, friendly and, most importantly, honest bail bondsman.

"It ain’t just about the money with him," said Kemp, who has previous drug and assault convictions dating back to the early 1990s. "He’ll try to help you. Back in the day, I got into trouble, and I didn’t have a lot of people to show how to do things better, but George did."

But trust is a hard commodity among bonding agents these days, Dodge said. In light of a record-breaking $750,000 bond posted for murder suspect Kristopher Prince in September, the 13th Judicial Circuit, which includes Boone and Callaway counties, overhauled its bonding rules in January.

Under the new rules, the court performs a more thorough check on whether a bail bonding agency working on an inmate’s behalf has enough assets to post a surety bond. The circuit clerk’s office also requires administrators to be contacted if a bond of more than $250,000 is posted, and those bonds can only be posted between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The bond for Prince, who is in custody at the Boone County Jail on charges of second-degree murder and three weapons offenses, was posted on a Sunday. Prince is accused of killing 17-year-old Teddarian Robinson in April.

As a result, Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Knight has called for more cash-only bonds for criminal suspects arrested in connection with violent crimes. That has some bonding agents, such as Dodge and Hastings, worried.

"Things aren’t like they used to be," Dodge said. "It used to be a better business, but you’re not always going to make a ton of money."

Law Enforcement and Bail Bond Agents Innovative on the Job

Each episode seemingly showed a new way to combine a straw, toothpicks, a paper clip and a wad of gum: The task varied from story line to story line, but on the television show MacGyver, the hero always, somehow, created an ingenious tool and saved the day.

While law enforcement officers don't hit the streets with firearms fashioned from marbles and rubber bands, it turns out that they are surprisingly good at ad-libbing solutions to problems and finding good substitutes for gear that either doesn't exist or is unavailable for their use. Officers have been known to turn cell phones into recording devices, for instance, and to make zip ties into temporary handcuffs. One department even outfitted a hobbyist's remote-control mini-helicopter with a wireless camera to create an inexpensive yet functional piece of aerial surveillance equipment.

Darin Logue, an Officer.com writer and a special agent-investigator for the State of Missouri's Department of Social Services, says he understands.

"I'm a big advocate on using what you've got," Logue explains. "I am commissioned in a number of countries, with four to seven departments in each, [and] it is a lot of area to cover. A lot of the departments don't have the budgets to buy the expensive latest-and-greatest products so we have to improvise a lot of gear."
Benefits and limits

In fact, departmental budgets are a common obstacle to obtaining new technology and specifically designed equipment. With budgets becoming more and more constrained in today's high-technology, computers-for-everything day and age, law enforcement is increasingly forced — or inspired — to think creatively when it comes to getting the job done.

Jeff Barton, who has served as an officer and bondsman and is currently a director of surveillance for a Missouri-based casino, explains the fundamental problem that faces many cash-strapped agencies: If a department doesn't have the resources it needs, then it's limited as to what officers can do.

As a result, thrifty and resourceful officers, SWAT team members, and even bail bondsmen have developed creative new uses for existing law enforcement equipment. And one obvious benefit of that is financial in nature: the job gets done, and it gets done at less cost to the department.

In a budget-minded department the constant search for the appropriate tool — or its substitute — can yield unexpected benefits, including the development of an innovative procedure or an easier-to-use tool.

While imagination can be inspired by almost anything, an officer's resourcefulness is limited by the technology that's available and the task that is at hand. In addition, using a tool for something other than the purpose it was designed for can bring its own set of problems.

"I don't want to say that there is no liability in using something that may not be designed for a particular application," notes Logue. "There are certain liabilities, but it depends on what they are being used for."

As an example, Logue says that if an officer were to use a flashlight as a baton, the question could be raised in court as to what training he or she had received that concerned using flashlights as defensive weapons.

Another limitation to on-the-job ingenuity can be the simple cost of the created device, which may be prohibitive, or the fact that the department cannot pay for it.

"It may not be free; the tool may cost money," says Barton. "The officer may have to put the money out of his pocket unless his department happens to pay for it."
The MacGyver effect

Sometimes, though, officers can be as resourceful as their situations allow. Each job may require a different solution for the problems at hand.

"Officers can be as innovative as they need, or as out-of-the-box as they want to be," says Logan. "To a certain degree, there really are no limits."

While Law Enforcement Technology does not hold a bias toward non-law enforcement specific equipment, some contributed ideas for alternative tools for three aspects of law enforcement include:

Tactical

* The fiberglass handle of a sledge hammer can be used as an option to the tactical ram for breaching. Officers can carry this common tool in their trunks without a specific storage system and such sledge hammers can be found at almost any commercial consumer hardware store. Limitations to usefulness can include a break or fracture in the handle or the possibility that the chosen size or weight may not provide enough force for the intended task.

* A telescopic pole originally intended to hang holiday lights can be outfitted with a video camera and used as a make-shift tactical pole cam.

"We bought a wireless camera, built a heavy-duty housing for it and devised one [of these tools] for a relatively low price," says Logue. He adds that it is possible to wire the camera from its audio-video ports to a consumer monitor on an officer's back.

* An automotive telescopic mirror and/or magnet can be used for evidence or drug searching and for material retrieval in smaller places. This telescopic pole and mirror were designed for automotive searching for engine problems. The telescopic pole and magnet can retrieve dropped magnetic tools and parts. Small, tight hidden places could potentially be a hazard when searched with a bare or gloved hand. Using the telescopic mirror and magnet can aid officers in searching for, locating and retrieving evidence.

* Zip ties can be used as handcuff alternatives to the large zip ties; if the large ties are too large for available storage, these smaller versions take three to secure a suspect: one on each wrist and one holding the ties together.

Undercover

* Certain consumer mp3 players on the market are able to record conversations to an mp3 file. Instead of a potentially expensive hidden wire, the consumer mp3 player may be able to record conversations while the officer holding it assumes the guise of someone listening to music.

* Many common cellular phones can fill in for an officer's note pad. A voice memo can be recorded on the phone for future reference, and the result will be a digital recording that won't be as easily lost as a scrap of paper or a note scribbled on a wrapper.

* Another innovative use for cellular phones involves those that have the ability to record a the dialogue on a call.

"You can program the phone to record both sides of the conversation or block your own voice from the playback," notes Logue.

Such recordings can be limited by law, though. Conversation recording regulations vary from state to state; in Missouri, it is acceptable to record a conversation as long as one contributing party is aware of the recording. Also, additional software will be needed to retrieve the recording from the phone.

* The blood pressure/heart rate monitor clip may not be a tool that would seem useful to an undercover officer, but it can be used as ruse — a crafty way to obtain the illusion of a polygraph test in suspect interviews. The effect can be created by attaching the stripped wire end of a finger heart rate monitor clip to a laptop USB port.

Surveillance

* Red evidence tape can be used to create red light by taping it over the vehicle interior dome light to save night vision during surveillance operations. Logue also suggests any red material applicable can be taped onto the light to achieve the same effect.

* Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) radios may be able to transmit on a different frequency from many police scanners, allowing officers to communicate off the police scanner and rendering listening suspects none the wiser.

* A remote controlled (RC)mini-helicopter may appear to be a neighborhood child's toy but could be outfitted with a wireless camera to provide surveillance without moving officers too close to the situation. However, using a helicopter for this effect brings its own limitations such as wind conditions, flight time and load capacity. The weather on any given day might not allow the RC helicopter to fly with accuracy to the intended location. A short flight time may force officers closer to the intended landing position for surveillance, thus putting officers closer to potential danger. The helicopter's load capacity — its ability to carry an amount of weight — may be too low to handle the surveillance gear that would need to be attached to meeting the requirements of the mission. In addition, officers might have to receive a homeowner's permission to land the craft on a roof.

Two are better than one
Alternative tools are commonly not concocted off-hand, or on the street with a ball of string, a pencil and a milk crate. Instead, working together with fellow officers creates a brainstorm where many ideas can come to fruition.

Logue says that his team meets regularly and occasionally discusses the latest law enforcement technology and how to recreate it with tools they already have in their possession.

"If we can't figure something out," Logue adds, "we try to find the departments that do have the money for [new] equipment and we use their older equipment."

Indiana Governor to Speak at ISBAA Spring Meeting

Indiana Surety Bail Agents Association is holding its Spring Meeting on May 13, 2008 from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (approximate). The meeting will be held at the Hilton, 8181 Shadeland Avenue (I-69 & 86th St.), Indianapolis, IN.
The Special Guest Speaker is Governor: Mitchell Daniels (8:30 a.m.)
Continuing Education credits are being given for all paid members.