Great Falls bounty hunters use brains, tricks of the trade to bring in their man
By JARED MILLER
Tribune Staff Writer
It's no stretch to say that Paul Jara hunts human beings.
He's a bail bondsman by trade, which means he'll front your bail for a fee. But if you don't show for your court date, he's hot on your trail.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Human beings are easier to hunt than deer," said Jack Sanders, another bail bondsman and bounty hunter in Great Falls.
"They're dumb," Sanders added. "They're creatures of habit. A lot of times they're on meth, and their friends will turn them in for 50 bucks."
Last summer, Jara persuaded one client's mom to hand over her fugative son's address in Wyoming by fabricating a story about a mix-up with the courts.
Then Jara, a former long-time deputy sheriff, drove to the hideout in Jackson Hole and surprised the guy just as he was heading into town for the Fourth of July festivities.
"Part of our success in capturing these fugitives is the trickery and surprise that we use," said Scott Olson, founder and owner of the oldest bounty hunter training program in the nation.
The main goal of bounty hunting, in fact, is to outsmart the fugitive. Brute force is almost never used.
Not like on TV
About 4,000 professional bounty hunters — sometimes called "bail enforcement specialists" — work in the United States today, said Olson, who runs the Illinois-based National Institute of Bail Enforcement.
Many of them are women. Most don't carry guns.
And contrary to what viewers have seen on A&E's series "Dog the Bounty Hunter," most don't dress like professional wrestlers or antagonize fugitives for the sake of TV ratings.
Montana has its share of bounty hunters, though the number is hard to gauge. All four bail bond agencies in Great Falls do their own fugitive hunting.
"Freelance" bounty hunters work on commission, earning about 10 percent of the bond amount for a local case. The rate can hit 30 percent if travel is involved.
Olson calls them "adrenadollars," and said most bounty hunters thrive on the chase.
"What attracts a lot of people into our business is hunting down another human being," he said. "Once you track down another human being who can track you back, either you love it or you leave it."
Around 600-800 professionals graduate from Olson's school each year. They come from lots of backgrounds.
"We've got bankers, business people, mechanics and housewives," Olson said.
Thanks a lot, Mom
Bounty hunters start each pursuit by doing their homework.
They first dig out the paperwork completed by their clients when they bonded out of jail.
It's packed with handy tidbits like mug shots, aliases, phone numbers of relatives and friends, vehicle descriptions and other personal facts.
"They want out (of jail) so bad that they give me all good information," Sanders said.
The next step is making calls and convincing a friend or relative to spill the beans on where the fugitive is staying.
Not all moms are pushovers. But you might be surprised how many family members and friends are willing to part with an address or other key facts about a fugitive for a few bucks.
Fifty dollars is usually all it takes, Jara said.
In fact, family members often are the first ones to offer information, since they frequently put up the cash for the bonds. Or the bond company might even have a lean against their home or property.
If all that doesn't work, Great Falls bounty hunter Red Jorgenson buys a newspaper ad with a picture of the fugitive and the word REWARD in big, bold letters.
Cold coffee, bad neighborhoods
Once the bounty hunter knows where the fugitive is hiding, things can get thrilling.
Montana has no laws regulating bounty hunting. But federal guidelines grant bounty hunters lots of leverage to capture accused criminals.
An 1872 U.S. Supreme Court ruling says bounty hunters may pursue fugitives "to another state; may arrest him on the Sabbath, and, if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose."
Accused criminals give up many rights when they go to jail. They don't get them back just because they make bond.
"We're an extension of the courts, so they're under our control," Jara said. "Which allows us to pursue them where we believe they may be at."
Bounty hunters even have more latitude than police, who are still limited in their pursuit by warrants and probable cause requirements.
A key tool in the fugitive recovery business is surveillance. Old-fashioned stakeouts are common.
"A lot of times it's drinking cold coffee in a bad neighborhood waiting for someone to show up," Olson said.
Special delivery
It's critical to understand the fugitive's environment so the fugitive is the only one getting a surprise when the bust goes down, Jara said.
It's also important to bring backup. Bounty hunters almost always work in teams.
They frequently call on local law enforcement to make sure the confrontation doesn't get out of hand.
The Great Falls Police is happy to provide a "civil standby," said Sgt. Shane Sorensen.
"We're there to keep the peace and make sure nobody gets hurt," Sorensen said.
Bounty hunters also are good at notifying landlords or property owners before they break down doors or smash windows, Jorgenson said.
Jorgenson prefers to make the arrest when the fugitive is alone, which reduces the risk that they'll do something stupid to save face in front of friends.
He also likes to swoop in early in the morning. Most criminals are lazy, undisciplined and tend to sleep in, Jorgenson said.
Impersonation is another important tool. Olson likes to dress like a FedEx delivery man. He cuffs the fugitives when they reach out to sign for their phony package.
"There's times they don't even know what hit them," Olson said.
In harm's way
Most arrests are anticlimactic. Many fugitives don't even struggle. Those who have been on the run for a while often are just relieved the chase if finally over, Jorgenson said.
Jara said he occasionally catches a fugitive who doesn't want to go quietly, but usually they submit after a little wrestling.
Most bounty hunters don't carry lethal weapons. Even most big-city pros use no more than pepper spray and a baton, Olson said.
"In the 10 years I've been doing it, I've packed a gun maybe twice, and pulled it once," Sanders said.
Earlier this month, a judge in Pittsburgh convicted a bounty hunter of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed fugitive last year.
The bounty hunter and his partner tracked their prey to a rundown home on Pittsburgh's north side. Wanted on drug charges, the fugitive hid behind a couch.
When the fugitive took a swipe at the bounty hunter with a silver object, the bounty hunter shot him in the hip. The wound proved fatal, and the shiny object turned out to be fingernail clippers.
The bounty hunter could serve up to five years in prison.
"That was just a guy who was on a mission to kill somebody," Jorgenson said. "He had no reason to carry a shotgun."
The lack of guns doesn't mean an absence of danger.
Olson was the target of a drive-by shooting last year during pursuit of a big-time drug dealer. Olson had a contract on his head worth $10,000 during the case.
"They will turn the tables if they know someone is after them," Olson said.
In most cases, bounty hunters usually are trailing low-level criminals. Judges try to keep those guys in jail until their court date.
Most Great Falls fugitives are wanted on drug charges, and their sloppy drug-induced lifestyle makes them easy to catch.
But jail overcrowding and escalating violent crime in some areas leaves judges little choice but to grant bond to dangerous criminals. It keeps bounty hunters on their toes.
"There's people out there that wouldn't be able to do this kind of work," Jorgenson said.
Big bucks at stake
A bounty hunter's work isn't done when they make the bust. They must also safely return the client to the court system, sometimes over long distances. The transport can be dicey.
One of Sander's jobs turned into a nightmare when the fugitive jumped from Sander's moving van near Bonner.
Sanders was bringing the young man back from Seattle on charges connected to a possible homicide.
"He just looked at me and said, 'I've got to try it,'" Sanders said.
The impact of the fall punctured the man's lung, and he bled to death on the roadside.
"If I'd have known he was going to do that, hell, I'd have let him go," Sanders said. "But he was in a lot of trouble and he had to give it a whirl."
Bounty hunters work on a deadline. In Montana, they have 90 days after the broken court date to retrieve their former clients. After that, they're on the hook for the price of the bond.
The cost can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. A few lost clients can force a bail bonding company to declare bankruptcy.
For men like Jara, Jorgenson and Sanders, good bounty hunting is just good business.
Reach Tribune Regional Reporter Jared Miller at
jarmille@greatfal.gannett.com, or at (406) 791-6573 or (800) 438-6600.
Originally published December 26, 2005
