Recently Big Boyz Bail Bonds was contacted in regards to a $35,000 bond for a defendant locked up in Baltimore City Central Booking. This at first glance seemed like any other bail that Big Boyz has done in the past; nothing at all was out of the norm.
Big Boyz Bail Bonds went to the defendant's mother's house and completed paperwork and accepted 1% down on the Baltimore city bail bond. On two different occasions Big Boyz Bail Bonds called down to Baltimore Central Booking to verify the bail information. On both instances, detainee information told us the bond was $35,000 at 100% with no detainers. This means a bail bondsman can post the bail with no trouble.
However, when our bail agent arrived at central booking to post the bail we were given different information. At this point central booking told us the bail had a cash stipulation. The cash stipulation said that the first $5,000 of the $35,000 bond had to be paid in cash only! No corporate surety (bail bondsman), and no property was allowed to be posted for the cash portion of the bond. As you can see from the diagram above the bond was initially $100,000 and was reduced to $35,000 at bail review. However, the judge at bail review added this cash stipulation in the bond to make it more difficult for the defendant to get released.
Without much hesitation, Big Boyz Bail Bonds decided to lay out the cash for the defendant. Big Boyz Bail Bonds put up $5,000 cash out of their own pockets to help release this defendant from custody. Most might be asking, is this legal? The answer is, yes. As long as we do not accept a fee for posting the cash portion of the bond there is no problem, and the courts make us sign an affidavit swearing to this fact.
Now how many of your "ma and pa" bail bonds companies are going to lay out $5,000 from their own pockets for one of their clients. Big Boyz Bail Bonds does this with no problem at all and are ready and willing to do it again and again for their clients. Baltimore city judges are simply trying to weed out our services because they don't believe in our purpose. So this blog post is not only an intriguing story, but says something interesting about what is happening in Baltimore City bail world.
