Bail bondsman protests six-month suspension by county board

By Yamil Berard

Fort Worth businessman Phil Guiles' typical customer list reads like characters in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

There are a handful of accused child molesters, and others charged with beating a wife or threatening a girlfriend. Some have been arrested for smoking crack, shooting up heroin or selling dope to kids. Some are suspected of murder.

"It's the whole gauntlet,'' said Guiles, a bail bondsman who ponies up the cash when suspects fail to show up for court. "I don't deal with the cream of the crop.''

But now Guiles, 63, known for his shock value persona, is the one being accused of wrongdoing. He has been labeled by the Tarrant County Bail Bond Board as a villain in a scheme of "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation," and his bail bond business -- Mom's Wide-Awake Bail Bonds -- has been shuttered until 2013.

Last month, Guiles received a six-month suspension, the county bail bond board said, for charging a client $750 for bond work on traffic tickets that didn't exist.

It is the stiffest punishment handed to a local bondsman in recent years.

"There are plenty of good bondsmen in our county, and we don't need bondsmen like Phil Guiles," said Tarrant County Defense Attorney Atticus Gill, a member of the Tarrant County Bail Bond Board.

Guiles says his punishment is excessive and could put him out of business.

"I'm no angel,'' Guiles said. "But I don't think that I'm a bad person. I do a lot more good for people than I do any bad."

Guiles, who has been in business for 15 years, is viewed as an "old-style" bondsman. He sports color-block polos and a bare scalp.

His age-worn office building located on the fork at Riverside Drive and Belknap Street is a sight to see with its oddball splash of exotic animals, longhorn hides and cheap ceramic tile.

Walk in, and Thumper, an Angora rabbit that looks more like a Pekingese dog, stares at defendants while Durango, the iguana, sits by. But Mom's showcase are two giant macaws, Red and BOFO, who had to be moved indoors because they caused too many sidewalk wrecks.

Guiles became unpopular with county officials when he sued the county in federal court over claims of unfair practices in bond forfeiture collections. He lost the case but, along with other bondsmen, drew attention to the issue.

"He's rocked their boat," another bondsman said.

Most members of the bail bond board believe Guiles dug his own hole when he told them he did a ticket bond for defendant Oskar Cruz, who was accused of stealing a trailer in March 2011.

"That was the smoking gun,'' said Gill, who wanted to suspend Guiles for five years. "If he had his ticket paperwork, that gets your butt out of trouble. I would have not had any problem with what he did.

"He admitted that there were not ever any tickets."

Guiles said the overcharge was not intentional and that he believed he had credited back the money to a debit card.

But his records did not detail the service he provided. In March 2012, he gave Oskar Cruz a cash refund of $750, a receipt showed.

Those points didn't seem to sway board members, who sat incredulous as the story unfolded.

"You're just taking a shot in the dark ... aren't you?" Assistant District Attorney David Hudson told Guiles, referring to the tickets.

"You took the $750 with no information?" an astounded Judge Molly Jones, of County Criminal Court No. 6, told him.

Hudson added that Guiles had been disciplined two other times for prior complaints of unfair treatment. The latest incident in which he gave "false information" to the board justifies the six-month suspension, he said.

To boot, the board was also taken aback by allegations surrounding Cruz, an undocumented immigrant with a prior criminal history who had been deported in 2005.

Guiles' attorney told the board that the family was ensnared in a number of attempts to thwart federal laws. Some family members testified, for example, that they had used false Social Security numbers to secure janitorial work, attorney Stacey Mooring said.

Mooring also suspected that one of them was involved in a disability scam.

"It was very apparent very quickly there were a number of credibility and liability issues,'' Mooring said.

The board's disciplinary action against Guiles comes as the county bail bond board is stepping up its oversight of the bond industry, saying it wants to "clean it up."

The board says it wants to weed out bad actors and add a sense of professionalism in its dealings with bondsmen.

"In past years, some board members treated bondsmen like they were snakes,'' said County Commissioner J.D. Johnson, chairman of the board.

Now bondsmen are seen as ordinary businesspeople "who are taking a risk and making a profit,'' said District Clerk Tom Wilder, who is vice chairman of the board.

What else would improve things?

According to bail advocates, the rule that Guiles violated is too broad and needs a revamp.

It makes bondsmen vulnerable to any penalty, including having their licenses yanked. The rule states that bondsmen shall not behave with "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation."

"Anybody with a conscience would not employ it because it's such a generality,'' said Jerry Watson, chief legal officer for Allegheny Casualty, International Fidelity and Associated Bond, the nation's largest bail bond company. "It's like saying bail bondsmen shall not do anything we think is bad.

"I'm surprised some attorney has not challenged the constitutionality of that rule,'' Watson said. "I believe it can be defeated."

The bail bond industry for years has been defined by Hollywood screenwriters, crime novelists and reality television show stars, he said.

So the public often thinks "the only difference between us and the defendant who is getting out of jail is which side of the bars we're on," Watson said.

But most bail bondsmen are licensed and regulated small-business owners trying to sell an insurance product, he said.

Half of Allegheny's agents are women, Watson said.

Many head up charities, he said. Some lead victims' advocacy groups via various initiatives. Others work closely with law enforcement to apprehend fugitives.

The Tarrant County Bail Bond Board is also pushing to improve the image of the local bondsman.

"We are committed to cleaning it up," Gill said. "I have lot of respect for the system in this county. It's a system of integrity."

Yamil Berard, 817-390-7705

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