FINALLY! Got My Bail Money Back

Have I gone into this before?

I don’t remember…

Back when Chief got arrested last year, I had to put up 3000.00 for bail. That’s 10% of 30,000.00 for those of you who have no experience in these things. Up until then, I didn’t either but you learn as you go in these kinds of situations.

Luckily, I live in an area where every one of my customers have been arrested at one time or another for one thing or another so yknow.. I got a lot of street lawyer advise.

So back then.. one of my customers was a woman that lived in the second floor apartment next door. She had two young girls and even though I wasn’t to thrilled with the THINGS she did .. I did like her. She’s basically a good person.

When she found out that Chief got arrested, she gave me the most important piece of advice I had ever received. Well, pertaining to your mate being arrested that is.

She said that when I paid the bail .. I needed to put it in my name.

I had only had half of what I needed and Chief’s brother Sarge was able to give me 1000.00 and his dad was able to give me 500.00. I had given them my word that I would pay them back especially when I found out that Sarge had borrowed the money from someone he knew.

I was told that I wouldn’t be able to get the bail money back until after his case was over.. which was in July.

And then the phone calls started. I called the number on the bail receipt but it had been disconnected. I called the number listed on the internet as was told that I wasn’t going to be able to get the money until after his probation was over.

NOTE: I’m not going to go into the whole store again. It’s all under the TRAVESTY category if you want to read it but he did NOT do what he was arrested for and for the simple fact that we could not afford a good lawyer.. or even one who wasn’t used to have innocent clients, he pleaded no contest.. which I think is basically like pleading guilty.. because HE just wanted to get it over with so we can get on with our lives. He initially wanted it to go to trial but he didn’t have any confidence in the lawyer and like I said, he just wanted it over with. A decision that I DID NOT AGREE WITH.

I kept on getting different and conflicting information .. yes, I would get it back because I wasn’t part of the case.. no, I wasn’t getting it back because we had the same address.. yes, you had to wait.. no, you didn’t have to wait. I couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone and every phone number I called just made things more muddied and confused.

Hamster meet wheel.

So fast forward to last week. Or rewind to last week :: depends on your perspective ::

I had mentioned before that Weed was starting to get his life together and in doing so, he has been working in the shop to pay off his fines. Trying to find an address to mail the check to was just as confusing so I figured I would just drive up to the courthouse and pay it in person.

So last Tuesday afternoon, me and Bird drive out there and between the traffic and finding a place to park, I didn’t walk into the lobby of the courthouse until ten of four.

I ask the person at the information desk where I needed to go and he tells me that it was too late to pay on anything since they stop collecting money at a quarter to four since they close at four.

Great.

So we drive all the way back and I made plans to drive out early the following day.

Bird was kind enough to let me keep her truck over night because I wasn’t comfortable driving my van with a potentially messed up transmission out to where State Troopers congregated on every corner. She has a huge Durango and even though I can DRIVE anything.. I’m not so good with PARKING everything I drive!!

So when I drove out myself the next day, I had to drive around and around and around until I could find a parking space that I could park in only to find out that I didn’t have any quarters so I had to drive around and around and around again until I found a parking space that I could park in at a meter that took dimes and nickles.

Yes.. they exist.

Yes.. they’re not close to the court house

Yes.. I fell to my knees and praised the cell phone gods who were thoughtful enough to include a GPS in my phone.

So I make my way to the courthouse and when I get to the lobby, I ask the information guy where I needed to go to put money on the fine.

He told me to go down the long hall until I can’t go anymore.. make a right.. go down that hall until I can’t go anymore… then make another right and go down the steps.. there will be a sign outside the entrance to the finance department and as soon as I go in, the payment window will be on my immediate right.

I SWEAR that’s what he told me. I’m actually really good with directions and remembering them so I’m positive it was HIM and not ME that got me lost. Especially since there wasn’t a right turn off the second hallway I went down.

So I wind up getting lost in the freakin’ courthouse because.. yknow.. you never run into anyone that works there when you’re lost .. only when you’re trying to sneak into a closed court hearing .. another story for another time.. but as I’m roaming around like a mouse in a maze, I happen to pass an office with a little sign in the window that said BAIL OFFICE.

Heh.

Hmm.

I wonder.

Just so happens that I’ve been carrying around the bail receipt in my wallet for the past year and if they can give me some information on that, that will be cool. They’ll probably even be able to direct me to the payment window.

So I go in and there’s this really nice woman behind the counter. I tell her that I’m lost but just happened to have a bail receipt on me so yknow.. two birds one stone.

She takes the receipt.. looks at it.. and then says, “.. I’ll have so-and-so check for you.”. So she passes the receipt along and I wait. And wait. And wait.

It’s a weird feeling being in a courthouse. At least, I feel weird being in a courthouse. I get all … reserved or something. Like if I pissed somebody off with my impatience, I’d get arrested.

But then.. all the state troopers congregate on the street corners looking for wayward parkers so I don’t know what the hell my issue is.

Some time passes and then So-And-So comes to the counter and asks for my driver’s license. I give it to her. She makes a copy. Brings paper work over to me and tells me to sign it. When I do, I notice that there’s a 2100.00 check attached.

ME: Is this a real check?

HER: Um. yes.

ME: Like a real check that I can deposit today?

HER: Didn’t you ever get a check before?

ME: Um.. As a matter of fact NOT FOR BAIL, NO.

And then I sucked her attitude up just in case she decided to take the check back or tattle to the 90 year old court clerk that had wondered in.

So I get my check.. all giddy and happy because now I can pay back Sarge and Chief’s dad and still have some extra to squirrel away in my Get-Up-And-Go fund.

They gave me directions to the payment window.. I paid on Weed’s fine.. and away I went.

I called Chief’s Dad and told him to meet me at the shop because I was going to give him a check and a check for Sarge to pay them back for the loan.

It was a good feeling.. especially because I think they didn’t think they were getting  back.

UPDATE EIGHT – On and On and On

.. so today was Chief’s scheduled pre-trial hearing.

What that means is that both sides show up and the prosecution shows what it has and then they decide what way they’re going to move forward… if it’s going to be thrown out or go to trial.

I thought today was going to be the beginning of the end but it got continued.

Again.

Chief said that it’s a good thing. It means that it means that they don’t have anything because if they thought they did, then it wouldn’t have been postponed as many times as it has.

Like I’ve said before, he’s 10000% innocent and if it wasn’t for the fact that the police lied and the “annonymous” informant lied then I wouldn’t be so much on edge.

Next court date is June 16th.

UPDATE PART SEVEN: Back To Court

… back on March 20th, Chief had to go to court for a preliminary hearing. At that time, his lawyer told him that the could get him in the ARD program :: Accelerated something-or-other ::, probabtion, community service and some fines but nothing that would stick to his permanent record.

Chief’s response was that he didn’t care about his records .. that he had his own business.. but the lawyer said that he should care because it could following in a negative way if Chief needed to get a business loan or something like that.

The lawyer said that Chief had to make a decision.. either do what needs to be done to end everything and get on with our lives, or keep fighting and spending 1000.00 everytime the lawyer faced a judge.

He said it was harsh to hear but you can’t play fair with an unfair system and it was ultimately up to Chief to decide.

I could feel my eyes welling up with tears and the anger inside of me was unbelievable. I felt like everything I thought to be true about democracy, about our justice system, about police officers was trashed.

Chief did nothing… ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.. but because we can’t afford attorney fees he was going to have to plead to something he didn’t do?

We didn’t even really discuss it.. Chief just went ahead and signed the paper work for the ARD program and waive his rights to a preliminary hearing in the borough so that it would be moved to the county seat.

My stomach hurt.. I felt like throwing up.. but what choice did we really have?

I started thinking about how many other people were in prison because of the same situation.. because they couldn’t afford a lawyer or maybe because their family had already been through enough. It was really too hard to think about and too taxing to come to terms with the fact that this was the way it was going to be .. especially because Weed, the bastard, was still walking the streets dealing pills and pot.

Initially, Chief was told that the new arraignment would be today but that he wouldn’t have to go the arraignment in the county seat.. that the lawyer was going to go. But Sunday when we stopped at the shop, the lawyer had put his business card in the door with a note to call him and that it wasn’t an emergency.

I called and the lawyer said that due to an emergency, he was going to be out of town today and that Chief was going to have to go to court and plead “Not Guilty” himself. He gave the time and other instructions and then he said that he had bad news.

He said that because of a previous gun charge, Chief would not be eligible for the ARD program.

NOTE: He was never convicted of a gun charge. Back when he was 17, his older brother got into a fight or something and there was a gun involved. Nobody was shot or hurt or anything, but because his brother was over 18 at the time and would have really fucked up his life with a gun charge, Chief took the wrap. Nothing ever became of it except a dusty blurb in his record of youthful mischief.

The lawyer went on to say that he didn’t know there was a gun charge and I told him that it was in the original warrant. He mumbled something but it pissed me off because OBVIOUSLY this jerk off didn’t even READ the warrant.

Chief said that he was glad he wasn’t able to get ARD because now he could just do what he wanted and fight the charges and we would do whatever needed to be done to see this thing through… even hire another lawyer because OBVIOUSLY we’re having serious second thoughts on this one!

So today he went up to the court house and was formally arraigned. He was back in about 2 hours :: they take people without lawyers with them first :: and now the pre-trial hearing is set for May 20th (I think).

Chief explained that the pre-trial is when they would probably try to hash a deal leaving him with nothing but a posession charge and a fine.

Hopefully that’s the way it will work but it still turns my stomache.

Oh.. and one other thing…

The Annonymous Informer? The one that we’re almost 100% sure was involved and haven’t seen since this all happened?

Yea.. well.. he came into the shop yesterday. I was there and Chief told me to hold my tongue.

Apparently, he had been in earlier and started asking Chief questions about the case and something about Chief fucking up whoever went to the cops or some bullshit like that.

Chief was really calm and said that there was nothing to talk about because he had nothing to worry about and let it go at that.

He explained was ironic that this dude happened to show up the day before his arraignment and that there was every possibility that he was wired to see if Chief would say anything ..  or it could just be that the dude knows how Chief is and wanted to find out if Chief knew he was involved. He also said that if he was the informant and was called to appear, that there would be no way in hell that he would show his face.

This whole thing just makes me head spin.

UPDATE PART SIX – Secrets

There was no doubt that I was being put through the wringer with all this. When Chief and I got together, I knew that being a step-mother to three unruly boys was going to be hard and if you ever say the movie “Overboard” with Goldie Hawn then that’s probably as good a comparison as I can give you.

Unfortunately, I’m not a millionairess like she is in the movie.

But this was even harder on Chief. Not only was he the one that was arrested but because it had to do with his son. The son that he let fool him into thinking that he wanted to clean up his act. I can only imagine the hurt he felt. The feelings he had to struggle with. How one half of him loathes him and the other half loves him. I can’t imagine that internal struggle when faced with the fact that the son you held high hopes for fucked you over.

I wanted to keep the store closed Sunday but Chief wanted to open it.. give him something to do, I guess.. or have a sense of normalcy. So we opened. Bubba was with us and at some point during the day, Spaz called him. Chief told him that he was at the store and I expected him to come right over but a few hours went by and he didn’t.

The crack whore had called the store and Chief went off on her. I can’t remember exactly what he said but do remember him telling her that I was going to come over to get both Spazz and all their stuff and if she gave him a problem then he was going to come over with the police and charge her with kidnapping because she has NO custody rights at all to the kids.

I went over and collected Spaz and all the boys clothes. I knew at this point that she was telling the kids that Chief was going to jail and that she was going to get custody of them and that I couldn’t do anything about it.

This got under both of our skins but she’s an idiot and basically she’s counting on him to go to jail because her having the kids means that she gets more welfare and had already put in for emergency housing when she found out Chief got arrested.

But that’s another post for another time.

When me and Spaz were driving back to the shop, we saw flashing police lights. We pulled in front and here’s Weed outside the store. As I walk up, I shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “… what’s going on” and Weed started saying that Chief assaulted him in the store.

I was like, “.. didn’t I tell you to give him space? The he didn’t want to see you or have you come near him? Didn’t I tell you that I would get you the money you earned working?”

He said, “.. I don’t care about the money. I just wanted to talk to him”

I said, “… but I TOLD you he didn’t want to talk to you or come around. Why can’t you just leave him be?”

The cop asked me who I was and I told him and then he told Weed to leave. Weed gave him an attitude and the cop told him that if he didn’t change his attitude, he would take him in for disorderly conduct.

Weed left and I went into the shop where Chief told me that Weed came in and when Chief told him to leave.. that he didn’t have anything to say to him.. Weed got up in his face and Chief lifted him by his shirt and threw him out of the store and called 911.

All day, Chief was fighting his hands shaking. He was fighting his emotions. He was fighting his mind. And by 5:00 it had taken its toll.

We had to go to a local store to pick up latex gloves and on the way back to the store he was telling me that he couldn’t rest. That he wasn’t able to get his mind to stop racing. That he was afraid it wouldn’t stop.

I had asked him about one of the prescriptions that the doctor had given him and he said he refused to take it. That he was on it before and it made him worse.

I asked about it and he was more then reluctant to tell me. I told him that he could tell me anything. That I loved him but I needed to know what was going on.

He said that there are some things that a person just doesn’t want to talk about. I told him that he could trust me.. that I wasn’t going to think any differently of him. He told me about when things were really bad for him. When he would hear voices telling him that nobody loved him… that nobody would miss him if he died.. that he tried to commit suicide.

He tried to hang himself but the rope broke. He put a gun in his mouth but it jammed. He turned the oven on but nothing happened. He tried running a hose from the car’s exhaust but the car ran out of gas.

As trite as it may sound, he said that he realized there was a purpose for him to be here but now that his hand keep shaking he was scared that the same things were going to happen again.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how I felt. On one side, I was completely sympathetic and just wanted to hold him and tell him everything was going to be all right but on the other hand, I questioned what I had gotten myself into and if I was going to be able to get through it myself in on piece.

I had already been in a marriage with someone who was mentally damaged and even though there is no comparison between Chief and my ex, I didn’t know whether I would have the strength to go through it all again.

He wasn’t stable.. he couldn’t function right. He had difficulties doing everyday simple things. His mind couldn’t focus on anything and I didn’t know what was down the road for us. I didn’t know if the shop was going to be a casualty.. didn’t know if our relationship was going to be a casualty.

This was, by far, the hardest thing I was about to face.

UPDATE PART 5 – Bail and Release

Saturday started off with me going to the wholesale place. I really didn’t want to spend any money but knew that if I didn’t there wouldn’t be anything to really sell to make money. I kept it as lean as possible but still spent about 90.00.

Weed.. who had been given community service and who NEVER went to community service.. decided that on THIS Saturday, he wanted to go to community service. Jerk off.

But I took him… opened up the store and did the best I could to do things the way Chief does them.

It’s funny, I’m with him every weekend opening up but never realized just how much he did until I had to do it myself.. and remember what to do. The ins and outs.. how many rolls to put aside.. how to cook the bacon so it was just right enough for breakfast sandwiches. I was slow.. but he would have been proud of me and thankfully, I have really good customers’ that understood the situation.

By around 3 o’clock, I had all the bail money. I texted the lawyer to ask how I post it because no one at the police station would tell me and the courts were closed on Sunday.

While I was waiting for him to answer, the phone rang around 5 and it was Chief. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy to hear from him that I sat on the floor under the slicers and started to cry. He told me what I needed to do with the bail money. That I had to drive up to the county prison after 8 that night and post it and he would be released.

So at 8, me and Bubba made the trip up. It took us about an hour and a half to get there. I knew where it was from when Weed was released and knew that you just basically sat in the parking lot until the prison guards told you want you needed do do.

We sat from 9pm until 12:45am. It wasn’t until then that the guard van had me follow them to the office building where they escorted me to the bail office and I posted bail. Then they escorted me back to the parking lot until around 4:30 when he was finally released.

I couldn’t believe that he was in front of me. I didn’t realize how much I had missed him and how much… even with all the bullshit that’s been going on.. that I loved him.

Understandably, all he wanted to do was smoke a cigarette and have a cup of coffee. He wouldn’t let go of my hand.

We stopped at a convenience store, got coffee and then because he hadn’t eaten anything real since Thursday, we stopped at an all night McDonald’s and had the best burgers we ever had in our lives.

It was on the ride that I found out that he hadn’t seen the warrant. I told him what was in it.. what it said.. who they were basing their summations on. We both knew Weed was somehow involved..

He said that all the uniformed officers were really nice.. that THEY knew he didn’t have anything to with what they were saying.. he said that the guards were really nice and that one of them actually let him use his cell phone. That he tried to gegt a hold of me but he didn’t remember the cell phone number correctly so he called his father. He said that while he was in the holding cell, the head detective came in to talk to him and he told him that he doesn’t sell pot, he smokes it. He asked who he bought from and he told them Harry. The detective came back with Harry’s picture and Chief id’d him. He said he knew Harry had had something to do with it.. that he was the only one hanging around the store that knew that Chief smoked AND he was asshole buddies with Weed AND with Eric, the guy who robbed our house.

It all fit..

The two anonymous informants with the same story COULD NOT be anyone other then Harry and his girlfriend Christine.

Chief reiterated that he didn’t want Weed anywhere near him. I told him that I made sure both Weed and the crack whore knew that.

Funny thing is, once Chief was released from jail and Weed had to stay at the crack whore’s, she completely changed her story and said that Chief WAS doing what they were accusing him of. She even went so far to say that “.. it even says so in the warrant.. that he admitted it to the police.”

Kids: see what drugs and a lack of education does to you?

That’s not what the warrant said.. and she knows it.

When we finally got home, I continued to fill him in on what was going on and whatever. He said that he hated the way they separated us. That one minute we were together and the next I was gone. That he was so worried about me and how I was handling things because he knew that he was okay but knew that I had no clue what was going on.

While he was in the hospital, they told him that he had on-set diabetes.. that he had a lung infection.. that he had high blood pressure and gave him a lot of prescription for a lot of things.

I can’t describe the feeling I had having him home but I also knew that this isn’t something that was going to go away.