Bail Set For Nineteen Year Old DUI Defendant

A judge in Las Vegas denied release from house arrest for Ivan Pantoja-Lizarraga. However, the judge did did set bail for the 19 year old man accused of a DUI related death that killed a local Las Vegas woman.

The defendant was arrested for two charges. The first was driving under the influence of alcohol involving an accident with death and secondly for failure to drive in the travel lane.

The prosecutors are still trying to formally file charges and submit the requisite paperwork. The defendant will have his next court date in a few days as a status check on the prosecutors's progress with formal charges. Pantoja-Lizarraga's bail was set with the requirement of a $250,000 surety bond or $25,000 in cash. The judge said he felt like that was a light bail amount for the state, but his decision stood nonetheless.

Investigators say that Pantoja-Lizarraga was driving a car north on Upland Boulevard when he crashed into Maria Sotelo. Ms. Sotelo was standing behind her light pick up truck when she was struck. She was rushed to University Medical Center, but declared dead upon arrival.

At the standard 72-hour hearing, the Chief Deputy District Attorney told William Klephart, who is acting Justice of the Peace, that formal charges had not yet been filed because the state was waiting for blood alcohol test results. The DA asked for three extra days to complete that process.

The Defense attorney pleaded to the judge to release his client, pending formal charges. While the DA cited the defendant as a flight risk in his argument to keep the defendant on house arrest. Justice of the Peace, O'neal sided with the District Attorney's office by saying the additional 3 days was not an unreasonable wait.

Bail Bondsmen Face New Fees

As was reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal a few weeks ago, the Las Vegas bail bonds industry has come under intense pressure from a city program. This really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. City, state and federal government bodies are looking for revenue in any and all places during these tough economic times.

The bail bonds industry is relatively easy prey. The industry's trade association yields far less power than other industry trade groups. In addition, bail bondsmen have the dubious honor of doing a necessary, but not very popular job. In other words, the public doesn't have much sympathy for bail bondsmen because their work isn't seen as altruistic.

At the end of the day, that means that when cities or states need money, it can be done on the backs of bail bondsmen with relatively little push back.

Tennessee becomes the latest state to generate fees at the expense of bail bondsmen. Robert Arnold, the Rutherford County Sheriff, began collecting an additional $5 fee for each bail bond issued earlier this month.

The sheriff believes the additional fee will generate up to an extra $70,000 annually. He planes to use the new found money for Information Technology upgrades and additional booking staffing. The bail bond agencies will be billed once a month for their prior month's bonds.

When asked, the sheriff falls back on the argument that the allows the bail bonds fee, therefore he can implement. However, there is one simple answer to the question, why is he doing this to bail bondsmen? That being, because he can. Those that have the power, make the rules.

Unfortunately, as we've seen in Las Vegas and now Tennessee, the bail bondsmen have very little power, so they have a difficult time doing much to stop the implementation of these challenging new rules.

Unless the economy strengthens dramatically in the very near future, I would expect more municipalities, states and various agencies to find novel ways to charge bail bondsmen or otherwise generate their own revenue at the expense of bail agencies.

Bail Bondsmen Say Marshals Offering Bail Illegally

The Las Vegas Review Journal did an excellent job, in their June 27^th article “Bail Bondsmen say Las Vegas marshals stepping out of line”, of exposing something that has been the worst kept secret among Las Vegas bail bonds agencies. They are having a very tough year for business and the city of Las Vegas is making the problem worse. Most of the public has been blissfully ignorant to the plight of the Las Vegas bail bondsmen over the past year. Many are slowly dying on the vine, as they claim, due to the new City of Las Vegas program that has marshals clearing warrants and taking bail. Las Vegas bail bondsmen are up in arms because they say the new program is robbing them of much needed business and clientele while violating a few laws in the process.

The program was launched by the City of Las Vegas on July 1, 2010 with the stated intent of generating revenue. The city focused marshal resources and efforts to increase enforcement of outstanding traffic warrants. In turn once contacted by marshals, the defendant has the option of paying a fee directly to the court and thus avoiding jail. The city sees this as a way to fund ongoing administrative costs and avoid lay offs. The city also cites the additional benefit of reducing prison costs by not actually incarcerating these defendants or increasing jail populations. Las Vegas claims that the program has netted a $1.6 million profit since its inception approximately one year ago.

This successful program does come with a price. That price is being paid by the local Las Vegas bail bondsman. For every traffic warrant cleared by the marshals, bail bondsmen potentially lose out on a client. In fact, things have gotten so bad that The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that Aztec Bail Bonds business had 50% negative growth year over year. The article went onto say that the owner has reduced his staff from 10 employees to six. When measuring business by the number of bonds written, Aztec bail bonds has gone from approximately 35 bonds a week to 16.

This decline in business was seconded by the owner of Black Jack Bonding in the article. He said his revenue was off by half from the previous year. Beyond feedback from a local bail bondsman, there are other signs that the new program is affecting the Las Vegas bail bonds agencies. Several vendors serving bondsmen report receivables are aging and increasing. In addition, marketing and advertising spending are declining as bail bondsman budgets shrink.

While the evidence is anecdotal and hasn't been proven to be cause and effect, there certainly seems to be a strong correlation between the decline in local bail bondsman's businesses and the launch of the Las Vegas program in 2010. With the program netting $1.6 million for the City of Las Vegas, it is highly unlikely they will stop it anytime soon. For the bail bondsmen that have been affected, they are resigned to a long hard fight to win back their businesses.

Local bail bondsmen are unilaterally contacting state and local officials to lodge complaints. In addition, they are working through local bail associations to collectively and formally challenge the legality of the program. Time will tell how successful the bail bondsmen are in fighting for their survival. Let's just hope they can last long enough to see the fight through to the end.

Las Vegas ATM Fraud Bail

Las Vegas area Chase bank ATM's have been targeted in ATM skimming scams. Police reported that a man from Seattle has been charged with four counts of identity theft after using customer data from automatic teller machines in Las Vegas, Nevada. Prosecutors think that the defendant has organized crime ties to groups operating multiple states.

A 21 year old named, Beneyam Asrat G-Sellassie, was arrested and is being held on $250,000 bail. Ironically, he posted a $50,000 bond earlier in the month.

The unemployed man tried to make tens of dozens of illegal transactions with fake credit cards. He made the credit cards using customer data skimmed from Las Vegas area ATM machines according to prosecutors.

They go onto say that more cases may surface as they are investigating and actively seeking additional victims. To make matters worse, there are indications that Beneyam Asrat G-Sellassie's efforts may be related to an organized crime ring that has done skimming in other areas.

Chase bank was the vanguard of the effort to catch the suspect. In early June, they noticed skimming devices on their Las Vegas ATMs and alerted authorities.

The defendant alledgely made multiple withdrawals from Chase customer accounts. Although he posted bail after being arrested, he was rearrestd after a search warrant turned up additional evidence.