Inside the Real World of a Bounty Hunter

WATERLOO – Imagine a job where you could work, at any time during the day or night, convince people to reappear after vanishing and get paid only when you bring them back.

When a bounty hunter tells someone what they do for a living, the images of movies and television, especially Dog The Bounty Hunter, often come to mind. Yet in media, the bounty hunters pull in the people who are missing before the credits roll.

The team of Waterloo-based bounty hunters we followed on May 12th are part private investigators, part gentle interrogator and part sales professional.

“We’ve had guys get beat up, guns pulled on them,” admits David Lederman, owner of Lederman Bail Bonds in Waterloo, located across the street from the Black Hawk County Jail. This is his family’s business and has been since 1965.

Lederman said when a person calls their office to try and arrange for a bond to get released, the process starts. He said most of the bonds they write are for $1,000 or $2,000. The bail bonds company puts up that amount and Lederman collects 10 percent of the amount from a defendant’s co-signor — $100 or $200 for this example.

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