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INSIGHT
INSIGHT
Aired June 25, 2003 - 17:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hunting for bad guys with a gun but no badge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We consider ourselves the garbage men of the universe.
MANN: The United States still allows bounty hunters to pursue criminals for profit. The result: some serious mayhem but a lot of men back behind bars.
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MANN: Hello and welcome.
Right now, a particularly infamous serial rapist is serving a 124 year sentence in California, but until earlier this month, Andrew Luster was a free man, having posted bail and then run off to Mexico.
Luster's case attracted a lot of attention because he's heir to a multimillion dollar fortune from Max Factor women's cosmetics and because he was found by a bounty hunter.
Bounty hunters are particularly American breed that lives where the cultures of cowboys, criminals and cops overlap. Some of them are quiet, careful private detectives. Others are loud and proud, a little less careful and a lot more violent.
On our program today: bounty hunters.
We begin with CNN's John Vause.
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JOHN VAUSE CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're heavily armed, pump-action shot guns, handguns and cuffs. All men wearing bulletproof vests, dressed in black, identified only as special agent.
But their not law enforcement. Their modern-day bounty hunters and they're chasing a skip, a fugitive called Claudio, wanted on drug charges, who jumped bail and may be hiding with relatives in South Central Los Angeles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bail enforcement. Open the door.
VAUSE: By law, they have the right to enter and search this house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on out. Any kids in there? Any kids in there? Bambinos? Ninos?
VAUSE: Even if that law is 130 years old, it stands from a Supreme Court decision in 1873, which gives bounty hunters the authority to break and enter into homes of bail jumpers, even chase them across state lines -- in some respects, powers greater than local police.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We consider ourselves the garbage men of the universe, the job that nobody really wants to do. We go around and we collect very dangerous people and we take them into custody and get them out of society at no cost to the taxpayer.
VAUSE: Zeke Unger (ph) has been a bounty hunter for more than 20 years. He leads a team called the World Fugitive Apprehension Group.
(on camera): When you tell people you're a bounty hunter, how do they normally react?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very puzzled. Sometimes amazed. They sometimes don't understand what we do or how we do it or how we have the right to do it.
Bounty hunting is nothing new. I'm sure everyone's seen bounty hunters riding horseback in the old West. It's a little bit different now.
VAUSE: So are you guys cowboys?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think maybe we are modern-day cowboys. It's the pace of the chase and not the thrill of the kill. Finding these people can be very difficult, very timely. But the reward is when we come back with a body.
VAUSE (voice-over): On this night, the body got away. So did the reward -- $3,500, or 10 percent of the bail.
(on camera): Here's how the system works. When a defendant is granting bail, often a family member of a friend will use a bail bond company like these, and they demand a payment, usually at least 10 percent of the bail.
When the defendant turns up for court, the bail bond company will keep that 10 percent. But if the defendant skips or runs, then the company is liable for the full amount.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we put up $50,000 worth of bail, they take off, we don't catch them, we write a check to the clerk for $50,000.
VAUSE (voice-over): Fred Herbert (ph) has been writing bail for 30 years in Los Angeles. There was a time when he would chase the skips, but these days he hires others to do the work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We normally pay them 10 percent of the amount of the bail in state or maybe 15 percent of the bail out of state, if they go after a skip for us. We just sent our bounty hunter to Nebraska to pick up a gal, so we paid him 15 percent of the amount of the bail, which was $50,000, so that was a pretty good encouragement -- $7,500 for him to go to Nebraska and pick her up.
VAUSE: But sometimes it can go terribly wrong. Duane "Dog" Chapman chased convicted rapist Andrew Luster all the way to Mexico. The heir to the Max Factor fortune had been on the run for six months. Chapman caught the rapist, but there was one very big problem: bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico and the bounty hunter found himself on the wrong side of the law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think his actions are just beyond the bounds that I can condone. He's out there apprehending on his own, certainly that's not something we endorse in the FBI, a fugitive, in another country, to boot.
VAUSE: And authorities say there are many cases where bounty hunters have crossed the line.
June last year, Kansas City, a man was strangled by a bounty hunter who was looking for the victims brother. A jury later convicted the bounty hunter of involuntary manslaughter.
Richmond, Virginian, a bounty hunter was charged with second degree murder after he allegedly went to the wrong house and shot and killed a man on Christmas Eve.
But the biggest outcry came in 1997, when a young couple was shot and killed by two men who broke into their Arizona house claiming to be bounty hunters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bounty hunters was really a ruse to try to keep them out of trouble if something went wrong. They were really going in there for other unlawful activity.
VAUSE: Across the United States, there are no uniform laws for bounty hunters, banned in some states, unregulated in others.
Los Angeles civil rights lawyer Steven Yagman (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you've got people who haven't been trained in law enforcement, who don't really know the law, and who haven't been screened psychologically or for judgment, who are out doing the same thing as law enforcement officers, with the power of life or death and the power to do things that otherwise would be kidnapping.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to remember that the people we are going after are already fugitives. It's not that we're making a determination if they're good people or bad people.
VAUSE: Ron Robbins (ph) prefers to be called a bail recovery agent. A private investigator as well, he's critical of what he calls Rambo-like tactics of some of his colleagues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They think it's instant money because some guy just mad $30,000 or $40,000 or $100,000. There's just a lot more to it. There's a lot less physical stuff than there is mental and picking up the telephone is the best tool that anyone can have.
VAUSE: As for the protection afforded by the 1873 ruling, he says it's not as clear cut as it seems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the old Supreme Court rule that everyone always based all their work on. You know, if you crossed state lines and break open the people's door, even on a Sunday, and drag them back to jail. You know, it always sounds nice and neat until you get sued by someone for, you know, trying some of those kinds of things.
VAUSE: But in Los Angeles alone, there are more than 17,000 fugitives on the run and many are caught by bounty hunters every year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that law enforcement needs to be brought up to snuff so that it performs that function and that bounty hunters ought to be done away with. However, until that happens, perhaps it's beneficial to keep bounty hunters in place, because otherwise insurance companies wouldn't write bonds and people wouldn't be able to get out on bail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One child coming out. Another child coming out.
VAUSE: Back at South Central, Unger (ph) and his men say they'll keep hunting Claudio, keep searching his house, pressure his family and friends, and hope that ultimately they'll turn him on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pressure makes diamonds.
VAUSE: The system, they say, may not be perfect, but for more than 100 years, they insist, the system has produced results.
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MANN: John Vause joins us now from Los Angeles to talk more about the hunters he has come to know.
John, it just seems like a whole other world to me. What kind of world is it? What's it like to be with these guys?
VAUSE: Jon, it really is a world which has survived since the Wild West days of American history, and there still are the bounty hunters out there, like Zeke Unger (ph) and his team of men who knock them down and drag them back to jail, and it's a world which is being glamorized in films, like "The Wild Bunch," and "Midnight Run," even in the movie "Star Wars."
But a lot of other bounty hunters, who actually don't like the term bounty hunters -- they prefer bail recovery agent or even the grand title of felon recovery agent -- and they say it's really fairly tedious work. They work long hours. They often sit for days at a time in a car outside a bail jumpers house, waiting for that person to show up.
So there's a couple of worlds out there. And in many ways, the governments, the state governments, across the United States, are trying to regulate it so that they can bring the knock them down and drag them back guys a little bit more under control.
MANN: I'm just curious about numbers. There are obviously criminals in every city and community in this country. There are jails and bondsmen in most cities. Are there a lot of these people running around with guns in cars trying to catch the bad guys?
VAUSE: Well, the numbers are actually quite difficult to work out.
The experts in the industry will tell you, there's only really a couple of hundred men out there, and a few women, who earn their women by bringing fugitives back in.
Zeke Unger (ph), for example, claims to have brought in as many as 2,000 fugitives in his time as a bounty hunter, but this is where it gets difficult, because across the United States, virtually anybody can sit in a bar and say, "I'm a bounty hunter," because it's just not regulated in most states.
In fact, in some states it takes more hours of training to become a hairdresser or a nail manicurist than it does to become a bounty hunter.
MANN: They carry guns. They can break into buildings. These are the kinds of things that criminals do, yet these people are said to be on the right side of the law. What kind of relationship do they have with others who are enforcing the law? With the police and with the courts, for example?
VAUSE: It's very difficult to work out what the police think of bounty hunters.
We contacted the LAPD. We contacted the L.A. Sheriff's Department, the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, which is where the Andrew Luster case is from. We also contacted the FBI. And virtually, they all had no comment.
They didn't want to be involved in this story, and what they were saying is that basically that bounty hunters are out there, they don't want to know them.
But I have a suspicion -- and dealing with the police on the streets when we were doing these stories, that a lot of the police are actually quite happy to have the bounty hunters out there, because with budget cuts and manpower, a lot of local police departments no loner have dedicated units which track down felons who have either jumped bail or are wanted out there.
So, in many ways these bounty hunters are doing a job that the police just simply can't, and in many ways, when the police do catch a bail jumper, it's by pure chance. They might stop him at a traffic stop, for example, run a check on his name, find out that he's a bail jumper and take him in. There are no dedicated officers to bring bail jumpers back in and put them before the courts.
MANN: And there aren't, I imagine, enough places in jails for all the people who are arrested, so if you do the math, there's not enough room in the jail for them, they've got to be -- or a lot of them have go to be considered candidates for bail -- I guess nobody would actually be bailing anyone out if they didn't have some prospect of getting the money back.
VAUSE: Well, there's also that point, but also the point that Steve Yagman (ph), the civil rights attorney that we spoke with -- he made a very good point. He said if this system wasn't in place, the insurance companies would be very reluctant to write bail. If they didn't know they had these bounty hunters out there who would go after bail jumpers and try to get their money back, this underwriting of bail bonds, which is a multimillion dollar industry in the United States, if the insurance companies didn't have that guarantee, then they would be very reluctant to write bail for anybody, and so bail would just not be available.
MANN: John Vause, fascinating story. Thanks very much.
We take a break. When we come back, more on the case that brought bounty hunting back into the spotlight.
Stay with us.
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DUANE "DOG" CHAPMAN, BOUNTY HUNTER: I think that I'm probably the last true bounty hunter in the country today. I know that I hold the record, more captures than any law enforcement or/and bounty hunter in the world today. And I'm very proud of that.
MANN: Duane "Dog" Chapman boasts he's the very best. He also acknowledges being arrested 18 times for robbery in his younger days and having done time in jail.
Chapman is the man who found and captured the millionaire rapist who fled to Mexico, Andrew Luster. But as we've been reporting, because Mexico doesn't recognize bounty hunters, it considered the capture a kidnapping, and Chapman found himself behind bars, along with some associates and an American TV crew that went along.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they are heroes. I mean, you know, they took a rapist off the street, and to me that's a big deal. I mean, this man is a serial rapist, and he stalks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MANN: Welcome back.
Clearly, Mexico doesn't love American bounty hunters. In the United States, though, they have a more mixed reputation, both for unnecessary violence on one hand and for doing a job the justice system could not survive without on the other.
Joining us now to talk about the work that they do is Thomas Nixon, president of the National Association of Bail Recovery Agents and we should note a man who brought more than 300 men and women to justice.
Thanks so much for being with us.
One of my colleagues said that as you were watching the pictures of Duane Chapman and some of the other people, you were squirming in your seat. Are you uncomfortable with the image that bounty hunters have gotten, of big men with big guns, because of Duane Chapman?
THOMAS NIXON, NATION. ASSOC. OF BAIL RECOVERY AGENTS: I would say there's definitely a negative image that has been reported about recovery agents.
Recovery agents have done a wonderful job with taking criminals off of the street, and we shouldn't be judged by one individual.
MANN: OK, fair enough. Let me ask you about your experience, because you've done this kind of work. What's a typical case like?
NIXON: 97 percent boredom, 3 percent fear, basically.
A lot of times, you're sitting out on a location, waiting for someone to come home, waiting for someone to come to work, things of that nature. But if it's done correctly, everyone goes home and no one gets hurt.
MANN: In your own career, is there any one case that seems particularly memorable, particularly rewarding for you?
NIXON: You know, child molesters are big on my ticket, you know, but everyone is innocent until proven guilty. These people have not been found guilty yet in most cases. They've fled prior to being actually convicted.
So, you know, at the same time, you have to take into consideration that this person is still innocent until proven guilty.
MANN: Now, I'm curious about how you actually find these people. One of the things that we read in our research is that, for example, Mother's Day is an excellent time to go looking for people because they're all predictably going to go try and visit their mothers. Can you tell us about the tricks of the trade? Is it technology? Is it strategy? Or is it just dogged waiting around that finally finds these people for you?
NIXON: Well, we are creatures of habit. Things that we do, you know, on a daily basis, we normally continue to do, even if it's in a different state. What you normally do, you're going to continue.
Holidays are important to everyone. Mother's Day is a very important holiday to most men, and most women, so holidays are very important -- Christmas, things of that nature.
MANN: I did get a sense, though, in the research that we've done and also in the reporting that our correspondent has done, that really, there is almost a schizophrenia in the industry between people like yourself, who are quiet, articulate people, and others like Duane Chapman, who likes to wear black leather and really pose as a big-time man hunter.
How many people are there like that out there? How many characters does the industry attract?
NIXON: Well, unfortunately, over the years you've had people that have gotten into the business that have tarnished reputations and get into the business basically for the image that it portrays, but for the most -- for the successful person that's in this business, you know, we don't go around telling people that bail enforcement is something that we do. The only time you find out is if I unfortunately have to come to your home.
MANN: It's not just an image problem, though. I get a sense that the business really is in trouble. There are examples like the ones John Vause mentioned, the example, I guess it was in the last two weeks, of a recovery agent or a bounty hunter, if you want to call him that, in Kansas City, who was convicted of involuntary second degree manslaughter.
There are states that are making the practice of bail recovery or of bounty hunting illegal. There are petitions circulating, calling for much stronger regulation of the industry, demanding that all bounty hunters, for example, have warrants before they can go into people's homes, that they have insurance for the damage that they do, and that they have to be licensed, and that they can't get those licenses if, for example, they are convicted felons.
It seems like there is a lot of pressure on the industry right now to clean up its act.
NIXON: The pressure is a good thing. I mean, regulation is always good. I'm not against regulation in any way.
States that make bail recovery illegal, I wouldn't want to live in that state, because basically it's going to be a safe haven for criminals to basically setup shop. So, I'm not -- I am a big advocate for regulation.
MANN: What about the privilege which bounty hunters have which even police don't have, of bursting into someone's home. Cops need a warrant to do that. Bounty hunters just need a shoe (ph), really.
NIXON: Well, I'm able to look at it from both sides. I'm also a licensed bail bondsman in the state of Virginia. Being a bail bondsman, basically I'm on the hook for whatever that bond amount is, so for an individual to have to have a warrant to apprehend someone, you know, basically, all the person has to do is give false information and, you know, if the address isn't on the warrant, then the officer doesn't have the authority. Whereas a bail recovery agent, as long as that person, if he makes visual confirmation on that person, he's 100 percent sure that that's the subject, then he can take that person into custody without the need of a warrant.
MANN: I guess the strongest thing you can say about the system is that it works, so let me ask you, does it? How many people end up skipping out on bail? And how many do bail recovery agents or bounty hunters end up finding?
NIXON: Well, the numbers vary. I mean, I would say 70 percent of everyone that is arrested is eligible for bond. I mean, they're getting a bond from the magistrate or the judge, so.
MANN: So we're talking hundreds of thousands of people a year, potentially, who are going to bail bondsmen.
NIXON: That's correct.
MANN: OK. Go ahead.
NIXON: And if it weren't for the bail bondsmen, you'd have prison overcrowding, and who takes care of that but the taxpayer.
MANN: But of those hundreds of thousands of people who have money on the line to make sure that they show up for their court dates, how many actually don't show up? How many end up, for one reason or another, coming across the desk of people like you?
NIXON: You may have about 30 percent.
MANN: 30 percent?
NIXON: 30 percent. Some of them, you know, honestly, forgot to go to court. You know, it's -- the time lapsed. Maybe, you know, their court case wasn't set for 30 to 60 days and the person honestly forgot to go to court, and they're willing to turn themselves in and get themselves together, basically, but these are individuals.
MANN: Some are, some aren't. Guys like you go after them. How many do you actually catch? That's what it comes down to. How many do bounty hunters actually catch of the people who go missing or miss the date?
NIXON: I would say the numbers are very high. You're look at probably 85 to 90 percent of an apprehension rate with most successful individuals in this business.
MANN: Is Duane Chapman going to change this business, do you think? Is he going to attract more of the wrong kind of people, get in your way? Or will the industry be helped by the publicity, do you think?
NIXON: Actually, I think it will be helped. I think that there's going to be regulation, obviously, because of his actions. And regulation is good. And it may also deter individuals who have tarnished backgrounds from trying to get into the business, because they face, you know, being arrested themselves.
MANN: Thomas Nixon, president of the National Association of Bail Recovery Agents. Thanks so much for talking with us.
NIXON: Thank you.
MANN: A final word before we go. Duane Chapman, the bounty hunter who set us off on this story, faces four years in prison in Mexico because of the incident involving Luster.
He's stuck in Mexico, but he isn't, we should note, behind bars. He spent the equivalent of $1,400 and yes, he posted bail.
Having captured thousands of people who tried to flee under similar circumstances, there's no suggestion Chapman himself will do anything other than sit tight.
That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.
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