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When they skip bail, she's on their tail

A Daytona Beach bond agent deals with high risks - both financially and physically.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published May 1, 2006

NEW SMYRNA BEACH - The street was eerily quiet as Linda Little approached the weather-beaten wooden house. Only the sound of a passing train disturbed the silence.

Little was looking for her man, a fugitive.

Stepping onto the porch, she headed to the front door, wondering what she would find on the other side. For any bail bondsman or woman, bumps, bruises and broken bones are part of the job.

"Sometimes they'll fight you. Sometimes they don't," she said. "He's not going to like the handcuffs."

Little, a no-nonsense blonde of 55, had put up $500 of a $5,000 bond so the 31-year-old man could get out of jail. She said he had been charged with passing a worthless check. After he failed to show up in court, Little was responsible for the difference.

"We're not out the money yet, as long as we pick him up," she said an hour earlier, back at her Daytona Beach office. "We guarantee he'll go to court, or we guarantee the money. We have two months."

Little got into the business 13 years ago, she said, after working at a desk for the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, handing the law enforcement side of the bail business.

It's a life she both loves and hates, a job where a call for help can come at any hour of the day or night.

Thick files are stacked on her desk at Alliance Bail Bond Agency on U.S. 92, a bail-bond row that's a couple of miles away from the Volusia County Branch Jail. Color photos of her "most wanted" men and women are taped to a nearby wall.

"I've got a lot of frequent fliers. Most stay local," she said of those who jump bail. "If you're not going to court, why stay in the area? Ultimately, we're going to nail you."

Sheriff Ben Johnson says the bail bond business is a very necessary link in the law-enforcement chain, by giving folks who are arrested a chance to get out of jail before going to court.

"It's a high-risk occupation," he said, both financially and physically. "Common sense is probably the biggest thing they need to have to do the job, so they can read people."

Little's cell phone constantly rings.

She hears all kinds of sad tales, some true and some lies.

"They try to wheel and deal with me on terms," she said. "But I'm not Monty Hall and this isn't "Let's Make a Deal."'

Crack addicts can look elsewhere, "because people high on drugs can be a major danger. They don't feel anything." She carries a Taser, but no gun.

Having collateral is the key for writing a bond.

"If you live in a motel, I'm not getting your butt out of jail," Little said. "If you have family, if grandma runs up and puts up her property, I'll think about it. But the last thing I want to do is foreclose on anyone."

Dealing with the wayward can be a test of nerves and psyche. But when all is said and done, everything comes down to the bottom line. Her future, and her state license, hangs in the balance.

"We're under the Department of Insurance. A bail bondsman can only have 3 percent losses or you're out of business," she said. "You can't afford to take hits."

Little said her biggest financial hit was $50,000, but that she has recouped $20,000 with "an older woman paying me $233 a month."

She averages one or two weekly pickups, and has traveled as far as Maine and Nevada.

"We work hard to make the money and keep the money," she said with a grin. "It's a roll of the dice every time I write a bond."

That's why Little was standing outside the New Smyrna Beach house, hoping to get her man.

Little's colleague, a muscular man in his 40s who prefers to remain anonymous, circled around to the back door. They already had notified the local police they were in town to make a "pickup."

A woman's scream could be heard inside, and within moments Little's assistant stepped out the front door with a shirtless, handcuffed man. He hadn't put up a fight.

"I told the woman to open the door and asked where her old man was. He was in the bathroom," said Little's partner, flashing a grin. "I guess you could say, we caught him with his pants down."

Outside, a New Smyrna Beach police officer soon showed up, but said he was unable to take the fugitive to jail, because he needed to stay on the road.

"The cops get credit for the arrest if they transport him," she said.

But this time, it was the job of Little and her partner to close the case that surprisingly went so smoothly.

"This is a rare thing to happen this fast," she said, glancing at the bail-bouncer sitting in the back seat of her car. "It was our lucky day."

[Last modified May 1, 2006, 01:52:13]