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Bondsman's Car Stolen; Suspect Calls for Bail
By Mike Martinez
TRACY, CA -- The moral of the story is: When you steal your bail bondsman's car, don't call him and ask to be bailed out when you're caught. At least, one bail bondsman doesn't recommend it.
John Yonan, owner of Minuteman Bail Bonds in Tracy, walked out of his home last year and discovered his fire engine red Mitsubishi Eclipse sports car was gone.
The car was recovered later the same day in Oakdale, and Yonan drove to pick it up from a car dealer the next day. He found damage: dents, scratches, bald tires, and the engine eventually needed to be replaced twice. Yonan found a letter the thief had written. It was a list to his mother of what to do with his belongings when he went to jail.
He gave it to police -- it served as "a road map to the thief" -- and they arrested a suspect, Yonan said.
The next day, Yonan answered the phone at his bail bonds business and the man on the other end asked for money to be posted so he can be released from jail.
"The guy starts describing how much his bail is and what his charges are," Yonan said. "He said 'Grand theft auto,' and I said, 'Was that a red car?' He said 'Yeah,' then I asked, 'Was it a Mitsubishi Eclipse?' He said 'How did you know that?' I told him 'You stole my car.'"
After a pregnant pause, the voice on the other end said "Oops," and hung up.
Yonan started his bail bonds service in Tracy a little more than a year ago after dropping out of the high-tech world and Silicon Valley. Apparently, when dealing with criminals on a regular basis, something like this is bound to happen.
He talked to a colleague from Los Angeles on Thursday who said one of his bail agents was assaulted and later that afternoon got a call from the guy that mugged him.
"It happens more often than I thought," Yonan said. "You have to think about it. When someone goes to jail, they have a finite amount of bail agents to call. If it's committed against me, there is a high likelihood they're going to call me."
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) he would have properly unwritten the bond, covered it with collateral and found a way to surrender the defendant on a "breach of contract." Then he could have recouped some of his loses! 
