Bonding companies to be shutdown today

February 12,2007
James Osborne
Monitor Staff Writer


EDINBURG — Nearly half the county’s bail bonding companies are expected to be shut down this morning when a computer error that allowed bondsmen to write nearly unlimited bonds is corrected.

According to Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office records compiled Friday, 10 bail bonding companies are over their bond limits, in some cases by more than $1 million.

Those limits are determined by the amount of collateral the bondsmen have registered with Hidalgo County, but for years the companies had been operating under wildly inflated figures county officials say were mistakenly entered into the system.

At 9 a.m. today the correct bonding limits are scheduled to be entered into the sheriff’s office’s system, preventing any company over its limit from writing further bonds.

Sheriff Lupe Treviño said he didn’t anticipate any problems for prisoners wanting to bond out.

"There are plenty of companies that are going to be available to offer the services," he said.

"This is something that has been hanging on our heads for years. A group of us finally got together and grabbed the bull by the horns. You have to feel good about it."

The decision to correct the situation, which was made at an Hidalgo County Bail Bonds Board meeting Tuesday, had met with heavy criticism from bondsmen, who for months have been calling the county’s figures inaccurate. But Friday everyone was quiet.

Calls made to every bonding company over its limit were not returned. Even the bondsmen’s representative on the board, the usually outspoken Tillmin Welch, waved off questions.

"I’d rather not comment and see what happens Monday," Welch said.

Drama briefly developed after Tuesday’s board meeting when a 3-foot-high stack of unaccounted-for court documents was discovered in the district clerk’s office. The initial concern was that the papers, all of which were dated for 2006, represented cases that had not been disposed of and were running up the bondsmen’s outstanding bond figures.

Former district clerk Omar Guerrero had been absent from the office for some time and is now wanted by police after an arrest warrant was issued in early December in connection with charges he sexually assaulted a female minor.

After three days of franticly reviewing the newly discovered court documents, District Clerk Laura Hinojosa said the cases would have little effect on the companies’ bond totals.

"Somebody is out there saying there are thousands of bonds in here that haven’t been done," she said.

"It’s not true and I have proof. My staff has been doing their job."

Mike Robledo, the head of the county’s information technology department, said only about 20 cases that would affect a bondsman’s limit were found. Robledo said he planned to enter the new cases into the system Friday.

"Needless to say, I want to sleep well knowing we did everything to make sure the numbers are as accurate as possible," he said.


James Osborne covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.

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Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face .... Marcus Antonius

I AM Some Folks "KARMA" and A MODERATOR @ FRN

County shuts down eight bail bondsmen
February 13,2007
James Osborne
Monitor Staff Writer


EDINBURG — The first day in the effectual shutdown of a third of Hidalgo County’s bail bonding companies quietly passed Monday, after months of debate among county officials.

Computer technicians at the sheriff’s department replaced the bondsmen’s erroneous and inflated bond limits with corrected figures shortly after 11 a.m., fixing a years-old error that allowed the companies to write unlimited bonds and run up millions of dollars in debt.

As a result, eight companies were prevented from writing bonds and another had so little credit the owner was forced to stop operating for the meantime.

"I’ll be back in business tomorrow once I increase my collateral," said Rene Anzaldua, the owner of Anzaldua Bail Bonds, on Monday.

County officials have been quick to praise last week’s decision to institute the correct limits as a much-needed solution to a long-time problem.

While the details on how the error occurred remain muddy, officials have said a programmer accidentally entered the false limits during former sheriff Enrique "Henry" Escalon’s administration, and they were never fixed.

The bondsmen’s representative on the Hidalgo County Bail Bonds Board, Tillmin Welch, is opposing the shutdown and said the accuracy of the county’s records system remained questionable.

"As the vote was taken last week, at least in my case, there was a 20 percent inaccuracy in the report," Welch said.

"If it’s a computer error creating this problem and it’s not corrected, two months or two years down the road you’re going to be right back at this same point again."

Welch’s wife, Carrie, is the owner of A-1 Bail Bonds, one of the companies shut down Monday. In November, records showed that Welch’s company and that owned by Hidalgo County Democratic Party Chairman Juan Maldonado were the two biggest offenders in exceeding their bond limits and that they owed the county a combined $6.3 million.

Both companies’ debts have since significantly reduced, though both were still shut down Monday.

Ever since the debate on the bondsmen’s debt began last fall, officials have grappled with the question of whether their record of outstanding bonds is in fact correct. That list, thousands of pages long, determines a bondsman’s available credit, and there have been numerous reports of criminal cases closing out in the courts, but the bond on the prisoner remaining active.

The bail bonds board acknowledged the problem and held off on imposing the correct limits for months, to allow board president Judge Rudy Gonzalez to individually meet with bondsmen and address any errors.

While Welch remains unconvinced, the board has now given the bond list its seal of approval.

"The figures are as accurate as they possibly can be," Gonzalez said. "Even if we contend they’re off a little bit, it’s incumbent upon the bail bond company to come in and point it out to us."

As recently as last week, Mike Robledo, head of the criminal justice division of the county’s computer department, reported sporadic instances in which the system did not allow a bond to be removed from a company’s account. He theorized the error was because the sheriff’s department’s computer system was not properly maintained.

Last Tuesday, the board ordered the work immediately performed, but as of Monday afternoon it still wasn’t.

"It’s something the sheriff’s office will have to do," Robledo said.

The bail bonds board is scheduled to meet this afternoon to discuss the shutdown, and the issue concerning Welch is whether the computer system is in fact fixed.

While she would not say it categorically was, Hidalgo County Treasurer Norma Garcia, who sits on the bail bonds board, said vast progress had been made over the last year.

"Sometimes, it’s a case where something becomes so chaotic you almost get used to it," she said of the situation a year ago.

"What’s that saying? When chaos becomes order or something like that."

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James Osborne covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.

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Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face .... Marcus Antonius

I AM Some Folks "KARMA" and A MODERATOR @ FRN

In Colorado, bail agents write under an insurance company. As long as the insurance company is licensed in the state and the insurance company and the agent are in good standing, there is no limit as to the overall or personal liability amount that an agent can write. This is only governed by what the insurance company allows the agent to write. I am not aware of any limitation on the insurance companies as long as they remain licensed and in good standing.

We also have Professional Cash Surety Agents, who put up cash or a bond collateral directly with the state. The minimum is $50,000, and they are limited to writing a single bond for double their collateral. So, if they put up $50,000 in cash or bond with the state, they cannot write a single bond in excess of $100,000, but they could build up a million dollars in liabilty with bonds less than that.

I don't know how other states work, but when a bond is discharged here, the discharge is normally entered into the court's computer system by the court clerk the day it is discharged, usually while still in court. In order for the bond agent to know the bond is discharged, they get a Certificate of Discharge from the court. It is up to the defendant to provide the proof to the BA to get the return of their collateral. With many bonds written on a signature, it usually falls on the BA to get the discharge, since we have to provide these to our insurance company to get our personal liability on bonds released.

Only one court (my local one) sends them out automatically, and they still miss a few. Periodically, I take a list over to the clerk's office of cases that I have been told were finished, or those that are several months old and I feel should be done. If they are closed, I will get a discharge, or if not, the current status on them.

There are a few counties that I can submit a discharge and a SASE along with the bond to, and they will sign and mail it back to me when the case is closed. Most other counties I have to mail discharges to at a later date, sometimes several times, to get them back. Some counties now charge a fee to sign and send them, one no longer accepts them by mail, but requires that the defendant or BA personally go to the court records division, research the discharge, and get it personally. It is a pain in the a$$, but our insurance companies won't release our liability on a bond until we submit the discharge from the court to them.

This news article points out how one county works, my response suggests how things work in another state. How does your state work?

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Kathy Blackshear
Blackshear Investigations
Blackshear Bail Bonds
Sales Associate, Prepaid Legal Services, Inc.
Walsenburg, CO

Proud Member of the AB Reject Club

Bail bond glitch may have been inside job
February 16,2007
James Osborne
Monitor Staff Writer


EDINBURG — The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department is investigating allegations that officers at the county detention center have been fixing bail bondsmen’s computerized accounts, Sheriff Lupe Treviño said Friday.

“What I heard is there may be some detention release officers, booking officers, who may be in collusion with some bonding companies,” he said.

“I don’t think we have a problem, but we always look.”

A computer technician with the county’s information technology department started combing through the thousands of bond entries two days ago, a process that it expected to last at least a few weeks. Treviño said the department recently conducted its own internal audit but found nothing.

“Maybe we missed something,” he said.

“(The computer technician) Mike Robledo is very knowledgeable and has no connections to the sheriff’s department. I think bringing in an outsider is the most transparent thing to do.”

The investigation comes less than a week after the sheriff’s department effectively shut down a third of the bail bondsmen operating in Hidalgo County.

For years the department’s computers had been working on erroneous and inflated credit limits, allowing bondsmen to write vast numbers of bonds without adequate collateral. Monday, officers entered the correct limits, preventing nine companies from writing any more bonds.

Two of those companies are now back in business after paying more collateral to the county.

The question now facing Robledo is whether officers at the detention center have been releasing prisoners for bondsmen without subtracting the bond from their credit limits.

Asked if that was possible, Robledo said he wasn’t sure.

“At this point in time, I’m not sure if that is or isn’t possible,” he said.

“It’s something the sheriff wants addressed.”

Robledo’s wife is related to the owner of a bail bonds company.

The sheriff’s announcement met with reactions of skepticism and elation from the bondsmen. Their representative on the Hidalgo County Bail Bonds Board, Tillmin Welch, had questioned Robledo about the sheriff’s department’s computer system at a recent meeting but said he was surprised by the news.

“If there’s an investigation going on, it’s news to me,” he said.

Since Treviño took office in 2005, at least five department employees have been the subject of criminal investigations. Most recently, sheriff’s deputy Emmanuel Sanchez resigned after state troopers in Georgia discovered nearly $1 million cash in his car during a routine traffic stop.

“I want a corruption-free department. I’m fighting (for) that every day,” Treviño said.

James Osborne covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428. For this and other local stories visit www.themonitor.com.

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Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face .... Marcus Antonius

I AM Some Folks "KARMA" and A MODERATOR @ FRN

The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department is investigating allegations that officers at the county detention center have been fixing bail bondsmen’s computerized accounts, Sheriff Lupe Treviño said Friday.

“What I heard is there may be some detention release officers, booking officers, who may be in collusion with some bonding companies,” he said. Sheriff Trevino


Surely not I hope that the findings are that it has been simple computer errors, that would be the best thing that could happen here - it is time for all to play by the rules not just the few

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Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face .... Marcus Antonius

I AM Some Folks "KARMA" and A MODERATOR @ FRN