Off The Hook
We are a group of private investigators, bounty hunters / fugitive recovery agents, and bail bondsmen that have been in this line of work for over twenty five years and have many stories to tell. We have traveled all over the country catching fugitives and bringing them back to have their day in court. With our years of experience we are trying to educate the public about bail and why it is a needed part of our judicial system.
Off The Hook
The Real Cost of Bail Reform and “Cashless Bail”
What happens when good intentions lead to dangerous policies? In this riveting episode, bounty hunters Chad and Rob pull back the curtain on America's failing bail reform experiment. They share the heartbreaking story of a young Ukrainian woman who fled war only to be murdered in Charlotte by a man released 16 times through pretrial programs—a tragedy largely ignored by mainstream media.
The conversation takes listeners inside a real-life recovery operation as Chad recounts tracking down a biker gang member using drone surveillance and old-fashioned stakeout techniques. You'll experience the patience, strategy, and occasional adrenaline rush that defines the bail enforcement profession while gaining insight into why human judgment sometimes outperforms algorithmic justice.
Between war stories, the hosts explore the devastating ripple effects of the fentanyl crisis touching their community and express cautious optimism about recent border security measures. Rob shares a deeply personal moment, thanking the bail industry for their support during a family loss and highlighting the tight-knit community that exists within this misunderstood profession.
What makes this episode particularly compelling is how it balances personal stories with urgent policy discussions. Chad and Rob cut through partisan noise to examine what actually works in criminal justice, advocating for evidence over ideology. Their frontline perspective reveals how decisions made in comfortable conference rooms transform into life-or-death consequences for ordinary citizens.
Whether you work in criminal justice or simply care about community safety, this candid conversation offers rare insight into a system at a crossroads. Subscribe, share your thoughts, and join the growing community questioning whether "reform" always means progress.
When people are released from jail, they have the responsibility to appear in court, but some of these people choose to go on the run.
Speaker 3:They go back home to mommy.
Speaker 1:And that is when these guys come into the picture. So sit back and listen to the Off the Hook Podcast with Chad and Rob Very fine people on both sides.
Speaker 3:Both sides Chad.
Speaker 1:These are real stories, but the names have been changed.
Speaker 3:Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Off the Hook Podcast. I'm Chad, I'm Rob. What's up? Hey, what's happening? It's been a minute since we've been back in the office. Yep, um, it's good seeing you. Um, I, uh, you got something very exciting coming up. Oh, yes, I think we've got to let everybody know about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, I spoke with my uh, my fondness for the the band pantera I think all right.
Speaker 3:So I had a little. I had a little, uh, a little push I was, I was pushing chad to do this, so he had a little devil on his shoulder and it was my face, yeah, so they're coming, they're coming uh, raleigh, north carolina, two hours from us and um, I saw him with metallica but, but I didn't choose my seats wisely.
Speaker 2:This time, however, he chose his seats wisely all right, yeah, we get to meet him. So I'm going to meet Zach Wild, who was Ozzy Osbourne's right-hand guy since he was 19 years old One of the best guitarists alive and Rex, the original member, and, of course, um Phil and some Nello and smell Uh weird last name.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, it's going to be an absolutely banger for you and your son Taking my son.
Speaker 2:So we get to go backstage and meet them and stuff. We're excited, yeah, coming up this Thursday. I can't.
Speaker 3:I'm excited for you, I'm them and stuff, and we're excited, yeah, coming up this thursday. I can't. I'm excited for you, I'm. I know asher's gonna be.
Speaker 2:He ain't gonna know how to act, man I'm telling you well, it's funny that you know my boy's playlist at the gym, so he goes to the gym um pretty frequently and I'm trying to get him to. You know, get some, get some guns get the guns, get the gun show.
Speaker 2:Mine's not, mine's not so he's working on it and so he's slowly starting to listen to me. I guess I, you know, had knew a little something to get these right, right, but uh, pantera's in his playlist, like my, it's been in mind since the 90s. So, uh, I'm, uh, I'm kind of excited, you know, to see your son like good music. He's not a, you know, even my daughter, you know they don't like Taylor Swift or any of that crap, so we like real music. So it's kind of cool and I get to say, hey guys, this is my son and he likes your music. Now, you know, as they're aging, yeah, I'm excited for you.
Speaker 3:You got to send me some videos.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, aging yeah, I'm excited for you. You gotta send me some videos, absolutely, yeah, anyway. So let's get off of that. Yeah. So, oh, dude, I went flounder gig on saturday night. Nice, yeah, got some, got a whole two weeks in.
Speaker 2:In uh wilmington, north carolina, here so so don't get too excited yeah it's this bullshit man. What what they're doing?
Speaker 3:the fisheries. I may try to go tonight, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause later on the week it gets uh the, the moon's not as much there, uh yeah we just had a blood moon here last night, but it was raining and we couldn't see it, but it was like the longest in our lifetime. Oh, really, yeah, that, that, that's what I heard, that. Um, I mean, we didn't get to see it because of all the clouds.
Speaker 3:I tell you what, man? It's kind of cool. There's always something going on up in the stars at night. Pretty cool, it affects the flounder. Yeah, yeah, oh man, I saw some fat ones out there. Man, I missed one, but that's okay, going back try it one more time.
Speaker 2:So in the news, yes, did anybody hear about the poor little girl in Charlotte, north Carolina, the Ukrainian girl that got stabbed by the guy behind her who had been released 16 times on pretrial?
Speaker 1:release programs.
Speaker 2:Did you hear about it? No, you didn't hear about it. The bell reform didn't work. Well, guess what? A lot of people didn't hear about that story. Some did, and it's actually getting out on social media more than mainstream news, which is bullshit. Um, this poor little girl was coming home from work, sat down in a seat, minding her own business, listening to radio, playing with her phone, dude behind her fidgeting, and decides he wants to stab her in the neck so she's 23 years old from. Ukraine. She defected from Ukraine to get away from.
Speaker 2:So she dodged war to come to the US Only to die by some scumbag behind her on a train.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and some liberal was pushing this barrel for him. And now look what happened. Like come on When's enough enough.
Speaker 2:So you know not to revert back to Mr Trump, but he did sign an executive order two weeks ago, which I think we both think that it's a good thing, because it's going to take away federal money for pretrial programs that have not worked in these large cities, in which Charlotte is one of them in our state, that they get federal funding for pretrial programs.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, charlotte, because of Charlotte. Charlotte was like the second little hub from New Jersey that they wanted to try, Like they were doing this, at saying oh watch this.
Speaker 2:It's going to make it a lot better. Yeah, they picked the large cities.
Speaker 3:And I mean large cities, are the ones that have the most crime.
Speaker 2:Durham has it too, yeah, and so like it's not just north carolina, you know these programs are starting out. You know chicago, chicago, illinois, uh, you know, new york, la portland, oregon, you know, yeah, all of these places that are poorly run on their programs, that just aren't working. Why do you think so many people want to leave? Their crime is terrible, I mean. Anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, north Carolina. You know I don't understand North Carolina half the time.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a liberal governor we have for the past 12 years, yeah, something like that. I don't know how the state is red, but we have a blue governor. I don't, I don't understand it. Neither I don't know. I don't understand it.
Speaker 3:Um, I don't exactly think the last one was on the up and up, but that's me wearing a tinfoil hat, hey, so, with that being said, guys, y'all got to like really stop and think you know if you, if you were on, just because you got tds um think about people, man don't, don't, don't worry if they got an r or d yeah, like close your eyes and eyes and listen to what these people are saying and if you think that it's truly a good thing, you know, go and go with it.
Speaker 2:But if you think there's some bullshit there they're trying to sell you really think about it rather than just going along with a party affiliation.
Speaker 3:Because it feels good. Or you got, like I said, tds, you don't like the man, look you might not like them feels good. Or you got, like I said, tds, you don't like the man. Look, you might not like the man, I don't like the way he halfway talks, half the time myself, but but look what he's done so far. Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:I mean we, we are changing I mean even some of the late night talk show hosts, you know, have even, have even stated that the things that he's done, that they they won't come out and say it, but they are supporting. Um, so I mean, yeah, I mean, dude, let him, let him, let him do some good work let him work.
Speaker 3:That's all we need. I'm trying to get us a nice little 10-second clip here of something.
Speaker 2:Well, so we're going to go into our story time here in just a minute. This one involves myself and Sal Sal. That had been on the show a couple of times some episodes ago. He used to work with us. Sal was from Cleveland bounty hunter that came down and worked with us for a bit. He's kind of doing his own thing now, but this was a. This was a biker guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I wasn't with you on this. Where was I at?
Speaker 2:I don't remember, but it was another guy that worked with Sal and myself and we were hired by another bonding company to go after this biker dude and he was up in Jacksonville it was kind of that area, some little town outside of there.
Speaker 3:Well, we go ahead. It was country. We go ahead and give you a little bit of preview here for next.
Speaker 2:What is this? What it was? How did you hear what I had to get under my skin to call yourself a?
Speaker 1:friend, I've got more friends like you.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's it yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm going to be listening to Thursday night.
Speaker 3:We had to. You know that's, you Get a little introduction to this it's great.
Speaker 2:That's Dimebag Darrell at his greatest. Oh man, Dimebag's gone. Some people are not excited about Pantera reuniting. They just reunited in 2022 after they broke up in the 90s.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I believe when the guy's brother passed away, they talked about a reunion tour and they started picking up people and Zach Wild from Ozzy Osbourne was one that wanted to do it. He was close with Dimebag. That's talent, they're talent.
Speaker 3:I play the guitar and I can't. Just I can't imagine how to play. Like, what are they doing?
Speaker 2:I can't get it yeah, charlie from anthrax, they go back to the 80s. Yeah, and charlie, charlie 62, I think I just saw they still get these guys. I mean phil, the lead singer with the, with the voice man, I mean, he can't jump around like he used to because he had back injuries.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Dude was jumping off huge speakers and just going crazy. You know, I mean he's like. I always see that meme on Facebook. They talk about the decline of testosterone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:And it shows Phil from Pantera just going crazy, and then it shows some, some libertard, you know like how it's changed but how we used to have testosterone and it's a good thing. I think women appreciate it. Men, you need more of it. Yes, you do. It's not good for you beta males running around here oh, quick thing before we get into our story.
Speaker 3:It's not good for you beta males running around here. Oh, quick thing Before we get into our story. Our last episode was with Martha, martha Chase, and somebody commented on it and said Martha, I'm so proud of you and your dedication to your job. You absolutely saved my life. I can never thank you enough for what you love hearing those stories where bondsman I mean we have.
Speaker 2:We have those stories where we have prior clients that they come and say you know, we saved them. Um, that's what we're, that's what our purpose is. I mean, you know we're there at your lowest, yeah, um, we're not just there to you know, just take your money and get you out, and that's not.
Speaker 3:That's not the end of the story I mean it's not because I mean we had one, one girl that we arrested and put back in jail and caught up with a family and told not to get her out so she can get clean right. And now she's doing. She's doing a lot of stuff, she's everywhere clean, been married, got a kid now and I see her all the time. Oh you talking about.
Speaker 2:Ellie, yeah, ellie.
Speaker 3:We had her on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we've had another girl that we got out and she told us, as we were taking her to the jail, that we probably saved her life, I mean she did a Google. What do you call it Google Review Google Review that? What do you call it Google review Google review? That's still on there, Unfortunately. I heard about a year ago that she had passed away. This was years ago, that we went and got her several years ago.
Speaker 3:I think you went and got her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was me and James and anyway. But yeah, we, we, we do our best. You know, some people, you know, fall back. Some people fall back.
Speaker 3:Back to the story of you and Sal getting a motorcycle guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So this was a true biker dude. I don't know what gang he was in. He was in some gang with the leather jacket and the patch on the back, gang, gang y'all. So I was kind of coming into it. So I bring like my gadgets. You know Like I've got a drone that I bring in and you know um we ride in, uh, um Sal's truck and he's got his buddy with him. His buddy looks like he's could be from mega death.
Speaker 3:you know, like blonde hair the Viking guy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the blonde hair he's got like tattoos on the face. You know, I'm like here I am clean cut guy, right, yeah. And uh, I am clean cut guy, right, yeah. And anyway, we're all riding in the truck to go to go to the biker guy and I'm like the least one that fits in Right, and we ride by and the the information we had put them out, like it was out in the country. There was a road and probably about half a mile down the road there wasn't an exit to get on the highway and there was a gas station. You know one of the, you know we're talking about. You get off the exit. There's a gas station everybody goes to, congregates around. So it was kind of well placed. But the property had like a bunch of little buildings behind it. It was, like I said, it was country surrounded by fields, so there were these little barns and we didn't know which one dude could be in. We knew he drove a motorcycle, right, right did you have a description of the motorcycle.
Speaker 2:Well, we were hoping that it would be the only one we would see you know, I think that's all we had.
Speaker 2:So we, we find the address, we go down to the little convenience store. We're looking with our binoculars. You can't see a lot, you know, because it like there is tall, like it's fields, but it's like whatever that stuff. They grow like soybeans or whatever you know. So it's hard to see, after so far, the curvature of of the tops of these buildings from behind. Anyway, I'm like, well, let's fly the drone down there. And uh, so we open the sunroof and I send the drone down there and we're looking and you know, this is like, hey, yeah, this is great. You know, we're fly over there pretty high altitude, so we can, and it's just a mess of junk behind these buildings, cheds and broken down clunker cars and whatever. We don't see any motorcycles. It's the kind of place you don't go asking a lot of questions because, well, everybody knows everybody out there. So you don't go to neighbors necessarily out there. So we give it some time.
Speaker 2:We do go and talk to the people inside the store because obviously dude's going to go get some smokes, he's going to go there. They had seen him there, you know. So we were, we were in the right area, um for sure, and we just kept hanging out. And we got up with um, we looked and noticed he was on probation. So we get up with his probation officer and they're like, yeah, we can't seem to find this guy. Um, it was the female that was his probation officer. She gave us information that she had. And um, he's like, yeah, I just I haven't had any luck finding him. And I'm like, well, this isn't sounding good, but we're just hanging out there getting bored, watching um, we were there probably I don't know a good three or four hours, just kind of keeping our eyes out. We were about to give up. Uh, it's at the end of the day and all of a sudden we spot a motorcycle coming down the highway. It's a long straightaway.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah. And so we decided that's him. You know, we're like this, gotta be him. And we let dude come in and he goes back and he goes behind one of the buildings into one of those little sheds. Evidently that's where he was staying. He parked his bike under like a lean-to thing, and so we just booked it down there, got out and surrounded the building and got him out. We got him without any kind of incident, yeah, any kind of big incident. He, uh, he wasn't. He couldn't run. You know, the bike was the only thing that would have gotten him away. He was an older guy, not in great shape, so I think he had like a bum leg or something.
Speaker 3:So so what was he out? What was he running from? Do you know the charges?
Speaker 2:uh, I want to say they were, they were felony drug charges. Um, it was like a, it was a sizable bond. I want to say it was a 50 000 yeah wow, yeah maybe, maybe larger it was, it was a good size bond that's enough to.
Speaker 3:That's enough to hurt yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So we were able to. To get that, we put the guy in, drove to the uh sheriff's department there, ran into the probation officer while we were there, right, and uh she was like, how did you? You know, she was amazed that we found the dude and we were like, well, honestly, it wasn't that hard and we just had to wait. Uh found him. So I mean, it was a quick, that was a quick one, but it was just like a long waiting period, you know, waiting on the guy, right? Um, so we wrapped that up and then I think we had another one that we rode by after that in Jacksonville and we went and checked out, but nothing panned out for that day. So it was a quick one. I mean, other than waiting, it all came together real quick. It wasn't like a long hunt process that we normally go through yeah, it was nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we're. We're having to do that right now because I it's been, it's been a minute since. Uh, you know I've been in office because you all right, so you know this case that we're working on the way the guy was in another state, we went to the airport oh yeah, the constant.
Speaker 2:Like can I say what? Like who he is? I mean not like who not yet.
Speaker 3:I don't think yeah, oh, okay but dude's got some connections. Let's put it that way, dude was supposed to show up, did not show up, and at the airport, and was supposed to show up with the, the bondsman, to get stuff straightened out. Yeah, and didn't do it. Neither really, so so he's lying, he's definitely lying. But it's coming. We're going to do some more research but, like I said, I ain't had time to mess with it here lately.
Speaker 2:So I don't, I would not want to square up with that dude. No, I don't want to neither man.
Speaker 3:I hope we hit him with a truck or something.
Speaker 2:Sorry bro, Not a big hit him with a truck or something. Sorry, bro, not a big guy, but a fast guy, exactly With his hands.
Speaker 3:Very fast with his hands. I'm kind of dreading it. I hope we kind of get him in a certain spot that we don't have to worry about nothing.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, well, that'll be a cool one to tell if we get to.
Speaker 3:I'm hoping so. I mean, I hope we get them, because it pays well.
Speaker 2:That was from a bondsman at the meeting right.
Speaker 3:NCBA, NCBA, yeah, yeah. So I tell you what. And Chad, I got to bring this up. I didn't really want to, but I wanted to say on podcast because I know all these people NABBA, NCBAA, all these bondsmen across the US being so supportive. You guys are awesome and thank you for supporting for us off the hook podcast and thank you for reaching out to me over the past week. I've had, you know, some family stuff going on and and NAVA and the NCBA and even the local yeah, the Cape Fear Bell Association.
Speaker 2:Everybody's sent flowers NAVA and the NCBA, and even the local yeah, the Cape Fear Bell Association.
Speaker 3:Everybody's sent flowers and thank you very much. I appreciate that so much. I can't I can't tell you how much that means to me and my brother. So thank you very much. But on another another hand it's it's good to see kind of how everybody is so tight with each other. You know, michelle, she was great. You know she reached out to me a bunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was the first one to reach out as soon as she got wind. I will say that yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that was the first flowers that arrived at my mother's house. Yeah, yeah, so I, I I'm appreciative, very appreciative of how the bell family is and how supportive y'all you guys have been. Uh, my mother would have been very, very proud of you guys. She actually, you know what the the last thing she posted on her Facebook was Michelle, really, yep, that was Michelle being interviewed on Fox.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yep, that was the last thing she posted on there and that made me proud, knowing that she was keeping up with it, keeping up with Michelle and to keep up with us. So we got to keep this fight going against bail reform. Yeah, got to keep it going. So, other than that, I just want to say thank you and I appreciate everything yeah, we're sorry about your loss, buddy it's tough. Make sure you, if you got a mama around right now, make sure you give her a hug, give her a big old hug.
Speaker 2:They're not here forever so, chad yeah.
Speaker 3:So now that you got this concert coming up? Nope, they're not. So, chad yeah, all right. So now that you got this concert, coming up.
Speaker 2:I think I'm more excited than he is. Well, it ain't hit me yet, I mean as far as what I'm going to expect. But yeah, I get to meet people that I've listened to since the 90s. Man, I mean, their first album was in 91 or 92. Yeah, and like, I've been working out since then, off and on, and uh, they're in my playlist every day at the gym. So they've gotten me in. And my old workout point, which is sad he's passed away Um, he died from an overdose, died in his sleep. That's hard. He was my old workout partner and he would always say Chad, put Pantera on 10. We're going to train.
Speaker 1:We're going to go train today and I'm like all right.
Speaker 2:His name was Chad also. He was tall Chad, I was short Chad, and I miss the guy Also. He was tall Chad, I was short Chad, and I miss the guy.
Speaker 3:Well, this is another reason because we're telling stories about you know, friends and family. You know we've all had this problem with this fentanyl crap coming from the South, right, yeah, and it's time something's got to be done about it, and I'm glad to see that things are getting done. I mean, you've lost people, I've lost people.
Speaker 2:I think we've all had somebody affected in their family by something with all this drug stuff.
Speaker 3:So I'm glad to see something. It's got to stop, yeah. And if he's going this hard on everything else, just imagine what Bell Reform is going to be like.
Speaker 2:It's a step. It's a step in the right direction. I mean, look at all the drug seizures that just happened that they've done. They stopped all these barrels of a precursor to make fentanyl that came in from China. I mean, it was like I forget how many barrels of this stuff to make this stuff. What about?
Speaker 3:the boat the.
Speaker 2:Chinese are smart, they will defeat us from within without firing one bullet, without dropping a single bomb. You can bet on that. Tiktok part of it, TikTok part of it. The dumbing down of our people and the neutering of the men it's all little things that's happening that make you weaker.
Speaker 3:Whatever?
Speaker 2:you do. Don't send a boat full of drugs our way. Boom Drugs, yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm glad they did it.
Speaker 2:I'm glad he had you know something to ball to do it. Mess around and find out Finally found out. You know, stop barking that we're going to do it. You did it, Okay, yeah, Now I think that sends a lesson to the others.
Speaker 3:We hope so. They might be as dumb as they, you know. All right, we got more.
Speaker 2:Bring it on. You know, we'll shoot them down too, did you?
Speaker 3:see where they sent. Venezuela sent two fighter jets over to one of our.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and we sent what? Were they? Two P-50s or something like that, or like 10 of them over to Puerto Rico. We sent 10 of them down there Like all right, you're two are 10. What's up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got way more than that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's just some that probably you know.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm hoping you know he's doing everything he can and hopefully, with this executive order, it will also show how many judges here in the US are backing this and hopefully they'll stop. They'll get some common sense going. All right, it's not working, because I think some judges are going, okay, yeah, yeah, this ain't working and hopefully they're changing their tone about it. So we'll see. We'll see. I mean, who knows, I think we'll see.
Speaker 3:About six say it's I mean who knows I think we'll see about six to eight months from now you'll start seeing change well, it's, it's slow to happen, it always is, and everything right.
Speaker 2:So, um, back to uh. You know all you bell agents that are listening, regular folks that just like to listen to our podcast. We'd like to hear from you, absolutely. We want to hear from more, more stories from you bondsmen, you bounty hunters, surety companies. You know any of you in the industry, lawyers anything to do with the legal system? You know. We'd like to either have you on hey, can we say anything about sponsors?
Speaker 2:We are being sponsored, but we haven't, we haven't set the deal yet. We hadn't set the deal. We have but it's not done deal yet. So, but we have two, two that we picked up, possibly three, which is cool, because what that's going to do, what we're going to do with the money from that, we're going to get more cameras and we're going to do a switch system so that one of us talks the camera's on us.
Speaker 3:Just upgrade baby.
Speaker 2:We're going to make this thing a little better. Always try to improve.
Speaker 3:Well, if you like us and you like what we are about, you can help support us by watching us subscribing on youtube off the hook, bell bomb podcast, going on and subscribing on spotify all your favorite streaming platforms. Look us up, listen to us. Once a week we got some good stuff. You know we're funny. From time to time we're also serious some.
Speaker 2:Uh, my ideas are away you know, we'll entertain talking about it, yeah.
Speaker 3:I would love to have somebody from the community come in that doesn't know about this. That has gotten into it now, right, that'd be nice to have some input from there.
Speaker 2:Yep, and we got some people that we got in mind Awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, Chad, awesome show again. Right on dude, Another one. We love you, Mina, but until next time we'll see you Peace.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Off the Hook with Chad and Rob. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review, and be sure to follow us for notifications for another exciting episode. For another exciting episode. But in the meantime, you can go to our website at wwwoffthehookbillcom to see more. So until next time, stay out of trouble, or it'll be you that needs to get off the hook. See you soon, you.
