Al Estes Sr. gets the job done as one of Pinellas County's biggest bail bondsmen. He has the scars, and the toys, to prove it.
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published March 28, 2004
[Times photo: Bill Serne]
Al Estes Sr. works in his Clearwater office this month near the county jail. After 40 years in the business, the bail bondsman has chased his share of bail jumpers, including one whom he tracked to a Mexican prison.
CLEARWATER - "I'm a John Wayne guy. I liked Wyatt Earp, too. That pistol up on the wall? It's the kind of pistol Wyatt used. I'm better with a rifle, but don't get me wrong, I shoot a good pistol, too. Hey, have you ever shot a Thompson submachine gun?"
The main difference between John Wayne and Albert Archibald Estes Sr., the bail bondsman, is that John Wayne is the one pushing up daisies. Estes, 71, is still with us, pilgrim. He totes a six-gun on occasion, swears like a saddle-sore cowboy and lassos bad guys.
Bad guys, in his opinion, are people, usually men but not always, who jump bail. It's plain bad manners to forget your date in court. Even worse, it costs him money, since it is he who puts up the bond to get somebody out of jail until the trial.
"Somebody jumps bail," he growls in a voice half grits and half sand spur, "we're going to go after them. It's legal."
Sometimes he carries a gun, sometimes a can of Mace, always handcuffs, but usually he relies on his intimidating size. If he is lucky to track down a bad guy, he first tries to sweet-talk him into joining him in his vehicle for a quick return to jail. Often a bail jumper takes a look at his hulk - after dieting, Estes weighs 325 pounds - and goes along peacefully. Occasionally Estes ends up rolling on the ground with some foolish felon. At least one bail jumper held a paring knife under his nose, though he still got her, even after she bit a goodly chunk of flesh from his arm.
"Check out this scar," he says.
They come with the business. Estes has been in the bail-bond trade 40 years. What has he learned in four decades?
"We have a lower class of criminal these days," he thunders.
Big man in town
Al Estes is about as close Tampa Bay will ever come to having a celebrity bail bondsman. Just try driving 49th Street in Clearwater in the vicinity of the Pinellas County Jail without seeing his mug shot on a billboard. Paddle your kayak along the beach long enough and you might have to contend with the wake thrown by his 46-foot Bertram. You'll know the yacht must belong to him - the words The Bondsman are prominent.
His other modes of transportation include a huge motor home and two vintage motorcycles, a new Ford Excursion with custom wheels and, of course, a 2003 Hummer. He likes to put his name on license plates or spare-tire covers.
"Your newspaper wrote a story or editorial, whatever, that anyone who owns a Hummer, which don't get good gas mileage, can't possibly be a patriot. A bunch of crap. I'm as patriotic as the next man. Sounded like some liberal writing or something."
If his emphasis on big and expensively flashy sounds vulgar, he doesn't care. Anyway, the bail bond profession seldom attracts shrinking violets. The Yellow Pages lists 44 Pinellas County bail businesses and twice as many in Hillsborough; advertisements frequently feature photographs of a beaming bail bond guy.
Estes is probably the king of the bondsmen. He could be a character out of a Tennessee Williams play, a gaudy Big Daddy with gold pinkie rings that contain diamonds in the middle, a gold watch and a gold necklace. If he sees something material that suits his tastes, his first question might be "How much did it cost?" The stuffed blue marlin that hangs in the lobby is so big it overwhelms the room. Estes has the means to go deep-sea fishing any time, any place, any where. His office writes more than 5,000 bonds a year.
"The bonding business has been very good to me. So what?" he says. "Sometimes people say, "Al Estes has made a lot of money off the criminal justice system.' It pisses me off. What about the police? What about the lawyers? What about the judges? Crime costs money."
When somebody with a friend or relative in jail visits his office at 13790 49th St. N for help, money usually is about to change hands. If a judge has set bail at $10,000, Estes typically makes 10 percent or $1,000, right off the bat. If the perp fails to show up for court, Estes loses nine grand. He does not like this to happen.
Like Big Daddy, he's against mendacity.
"Business has changed. It used to be if somebody, even a criminal, said he'd do something, said he'd come back for his day in court, that was it. Since drugs got into crime, criminals have gone downhill. They come to you with this tale of woe, not just once, but many, many times. You got to be careful who you bond.
"I like to write a bond that's hard for someone to skip on. You know? I like to bring their parents, their grandparents, their friends, their neighbors into the deal. If it's an expensive bail, I want the family to put some money on the line. Maybe their house. Their car. It puts more of the risk on them and less on me.
"A guy is more likely to show up in court if his family and friends are out on the limb. If it's just me, they might skip. Most people don't skip, but you got some who do, and, I'm sorry, you're not going to sit there and let it happen."
He sits at a desk in a dimly lit office. The desk is so big it almost obscures Al Estes. The desk is piled high with stacks of papers, baskets, computers and printers. Next to the desk are smaller desks also groaning under the weight of papers and equipment. Papers and boxes are stacked on the floor next to the couch. Sometimes he sleeps on the couch rather than going home. His office is open day and night. One time his Christmas dinner got cold because he had to run over and catch a guy who had skipped bail.
"Got him."
A tough start
Al Estes was born in Toledo, Ohio, on Christmas Day in 1932, during the Depression. His dad died, his mother was poor, he lived in an orphanage until 1950, when he ran away and joined the Marines. On Sept. 16, 1951, while he was about to jump into a foxhole in Korea, a sniper shot him in the left elbow.
"I was lucky. Some guys lost their arms. I had a good surgeon and was never babied. And I never coddled myself. Never. For years I was able to play golf and softball. When I make contact with a ball it hurts now. But what are you going to do? Retire from life?"
A phone rings. He has three phones, including a ridiculously tiny cell phone that disappears in his maw of a hand.
"Yeah? Yeah? Well, how much it cost? Okay. Okay. Just do it. Okay. Bye."
He turns the phone off.
"Where was I? Oh, yeah. The Marines. I stayed in. I spent four years on the Marine rifle team. In that display case on the wall are the ribbons I won. I was a drill instructor at Parris Island. When I got out in 1959 I ended up in St. Petersburg because I had an aunt and uncle there. I was in the police for a few years. I learned a lot, but I also realized I'd rather work for myself. So I started the bail business in 1964. First it was in St. Pete, but when they built this new jail I wanted to be close and moved out to Clearwater."
He stops talking and turns on a television. A surveillance camera outside the office searches the parking lot and allows him to see who's around. He likes to know who's on the way in. A pair of Rottweilers also have run of the place. The sign on his door has a picture of a Rottweiler and this message: "I Can Make It To The Gate in Three Seconds. Can You?" Don't run if you don't know his Rottweilers' names.
"I built this business from scratch," Estes goes on. "I built it from the ground up. I didn't go to college. Didn't need to. I got nothing against college, though sometimes these college boys can't make a decision. I still make the important decisions around here."
Hunting The Shark
Estes once bonded out an accused murderer for $300,000, which meant he made $30,000 on the deal. The accused murderer, a Gulfport firefighter, had friends and family who were willing to risk their belongings to help raise the money. That impressed Estes, even though the guy was eventually convicted for murdering his female neighbor. If Estes had been on the jury, he says he would not have voted to convict. A guy with family and friends willing to put so much on the line can't be all bad.
He still recoils at the memory of Francisco Antonio Vasquez, a.k.a. "El Tiburon." The Shark pleaded guilty in Pinellas County on a drug trafficking charge two decades ago. In a moment he lived to regret, Estes posted the $150,000 bail. Court day arrived, but El Tiburon didn't.
"So I put up a $20,000 reward for information and found out he was in Mexico. I hired two interpreters and headed down. When I got there, he was in prison in Mexico City. Bad places, Mexican prisons. They wanted him there. Wouldn't let him go with me. I lost all my money. Live and learn."
In front of him, on that massive desk, are red folders. Red folders contain information about people who have skipped bail. Estes runs a big office - he employs more than a dozen people here and elsewhere - and always seems to be chasing somebody or other.
"Hell, you got to get lucky to catch some of them. The stupid ass will be driving without lights or something and get stopped and that's how they get taken again by the police. If we get a tip, we'll go. And despite what people think, they usually come with us peacefully. I'm not a Dale Carnegie graduate, but I don't go in there like gangbusters.
"If you're smart, go in quiet. Introduce yourself. Say "Hey, man. What happened? Why didn't you show? You know, I got to take you in. But you can bail out again.' The idea is to get them in your car as quick as you can. You don't want bystanders to get excited.
"A son's mama is the worst. She'll raise hell. A lot of boys these days, they're raised only by their mamas. Their sons can't do nothing wrong even though they've been arrested four, five, 10 times. Their mamas still bail them out. Okay with me. I can make my living. Those sons need tough love, but their mamas still bail them out."
Al Estes has three sons. One is a banker in North Carolina. Al Jr., 41, and Eric, 33, work for him. They are both strong and tall and do most of the muscle work these days. They do most of the running and the tackling and the handcuffing.
"I still come in every day," Al Estes Sr. says. "It's a 24-hour business, you know. My health, I guess it's okay right now, though I could afford to lose some weight. I had prostate cancer a while back. Prostate cancer really knocked the s-- out of me. They put me on this g- d-- drug that made everything worse. Ah, what the hell."
Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at 727 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com
Times librarian Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
