Bail Bonds for Counterfeiting Violations

I was arrested for using washers in the toll booth instead of coins and put on bail for $10,000. Why is my bail so high when it’s just a $1.00 toll? I didn’t do this 10,000 times!

You have just learned that counterfeiting of a coin violates penal codes 477, 479, and 480 and is a felony offense. The assumptive rate of bail is set at $10,000. However, if you have violated these codes on multiple occasions, you should consider yourself lucky that the judge did not make your bail higher.

$10,000 is a large bail considering you probably only saved a handful of dollars every time you used a counterfeited coin. The good news is that as long as you show up to court on the day of your trial, you will probably only have to pay $1,000. The $1,000 is the money that you will have to pay for a bail bonding agency to get you out of jail. Here’s how that process works:
In order to get out of jail, as you know, the judge has set a bail for you. The amount of this bail is determined by a bail schedule for certain crimes. The judge will also take other factors into consideration when determining your bail, such as a past criminal history and the risk that you may flee and not return to court in order to stand trial.
Unless you can post the full amount of bail yourself (and it sounds as if you do not have $10,000 to pay bail), then you will rely on a bail bonding company to post the bail for you. When this happens, you will pay the bail bonding agency a down payment for its services. Most bonding agencies require a ten percent down payment and some accept payment through credit cards.

The bonding agency will then pay 100 percent of the bail in order to get you out of jail. The bonding agency then becomes responsible for ensuring that you return to court in order to stand trial. As long as you return to court, the bonding agency will get 100 percent of the money back, less some administrative fees. However, if you do not return to court, then the bonding agency must pay the full bail amount and will likely come after you in order to get payback.

You will never get a refund of your down payment, even if you return to court.

You have learned a valuable lesson about using counterfeited coins!