Bakersfield, CA-The California bail industry has encountered a lot of press coverage this week after the California Department of Insurance (CDI) issued a press release concerning the alleged activities of Cruz Bail Bonds, owned by Joaquin Cruz. The press release states that CDI worked collaboratively with local law enforcement and prosecutors in a two-year investigation. Cruz was charged with 19 felony counts including embezzlement, false imprisonment, attempted extortion and hiring unauthorized bounty hunters.
According to the press release, CDI investigators discovered that between September 2004 and October 2008, Cruz, owner of Cruz Bail Bonds, allegedly manipulated and coerced bailees and indemnitors into signing incomplete documents. Cruz then purportedly used the documents to fraudulently forge, transfer and sell collateral that he possessed as a bail agent - to profit from his clients without their knowledge. This included the alleged transferring of titles to homes and vehicles to Cruz or his common law wife, Eduvina "Diane" Chacon, even when bailees had not broken terms of their bail bond agreements. Once title was changed, Cruz or Chacon would allegedly use the property themselves, or sell it to retain profits. Property and monetary loss from their alleged scheming is estimated to be at least $298,000.
CDI investigators discovered that Isaac Trevino, a licensed bail bond agent and notary public, conspired with Cruz and Chacon to falsify, forge and alter title documents for property and vehicles. The alleged intent was to pass the titles as genuine with the Kern County Recorder's Office and the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
The CDI investigation was launched in August 2006, after the Department received a complaint from an indemnitor, alleging that she had been kidnapped by three unlicensed bounty hunters hired by Cruz. The victim alleged that the bounty hunters threatened to take her to jail if she did not give them additional money or collateral that had not been agreed upon initially.
One of the alleged victims was interviewed by KGET-TV in Bakersfield, who claimed that he had been kidnapped and held for ransom in an extortion plot.
Cruz is an appointed agent of Allegheny Casualty and International Fidelity.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
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