Donald Trump reportedly used a bail bondsman after being arrested at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, paying $20,000 of his bond set at $200,000 and taking out a loan for the rest of it. The fact that the former president resorted to such a measure has sparked questions on social media about the state of his finances.
That’s not how bail bonds works. It’s not a loan. You pay the bondsman 10%. Then the bondsman guarantees that the defendant will show up to his court dates. If the defendant fails to show up the bondsman has to pay the court the entire amount. Bondsman often use bounty hunters to pick up defendants who haven’t shown up.
And they get their pay normally by keeping the 10% from the defendant. If the defendant skips town, they lose the other 90% unless they can locate the defendant and get them back to court.
It pretty much is
I’m curious, does the bondsman actually give the court cash, or just guarantee that they will if the defendant doesn’t show? And if that is the case, do they bond out more people than they actually have cash to cover, knowing that it is unlikely that they’ll ever have to cover all those positions?
Someone correct me, but I think it’s dependent on the court. But either way, that’s why they generally employ bounty hunters to track down the defendants to make sure they don’t have to pay the court the rest.