Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Bounty Hunter Stories | Tom Briner

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Bounty Hunter Stories | Tom Briner

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and he is a former bail bondsman bail bonds bounty hunter repo man nice all right and he came up with a book and actually your second cousins of Tim McBride. Tim McBride, yeah. Right. So if you haven't seen Tim's video, check it out. It's on the channel. He was a huge marijuana smuggler. And I'll bet that's pretty cool at like family reunions and stuff.

Do you get to talk about Tim? That book should be a movie. Everybody's all excited about that. I know everybody in my family thinks, you know, wow, what an upstanding citizen that my brother turned out to be. So, all right. Yeah, so let's go ahead and let's get into it. He's got a bunch of stories about being about bounty hunting and just how the whole system works and tracking people down. And he's got a bunch of interesting stories.

And that's going to be the podcast. So check this out. Well, first of all, where are you from? Originally from Mansfield, Ohio or Ontario, Ohio, just a little, little suburb of Mansfield. Okay. Okay. And, I mean, how, like, how did you end up getting into, you know, doing the bail bondsman and stuff? Well, it's kind of a funny story. I was, I was recruited to play basketball when I was 30 years old at college. So I, I went to a small school up in Minnesota for about a year, absolutely hated the school.

So I ended up moving to Ohio, and I played for a small college there in Ohio, Ohio State, Newark. And I was looking for a job one day because I was going to school during the day and wanted something to do at night. And I found an ad in the paper looking for a repo man, which I had no experience at. But I thought, well, that is a cool job. So I went and applied and lied my way into an interview. And about a few days later, they called me and they said I had the job. So that's how I actually got my foot in the door. And within the first month, I set the company record for the most repos.

So I guess I had a knack for it. So when you go to find a car, like, I mean, to me, to me, to me, I feel like you're still in the car, but you're already have the key. You just have to go find the car, right? Well, yeah, sometimes you have the key. Sometimes you don't. Some of the finance companies will send you a key just because they know

they're dealing with someone that maybe doesn't have great credit. So they might, you know. Want the key. Yeah, they might want an extra key. Or you can bet now you can't do this anymore, but back when I was doing it, you could actually go to a dealership. and you could get a key made off the VIN number, and then you could just jump in it and go.

But every once in a while, you still have to knock on a door and try to get the keys from the people or just tow the car. So a lot of guys have tow trucks now. Yeah, well, now it's like all tow trucks, but I mean, I know 20, 30 years ago, these guys were practically stealing the cars back.

We started off with a car dolly, then we mounted a winch on the dolly just to winch the car up if we didn't have a key right and then we moved into tow truck so yeah okay so how did that how long did you do that for oh i i did repos for probably 10 or 12 years okay yeah what does that what do repo guys get i mean what were you like per car yeah yeah you get uh so much per car and the farther you drive the more you get. So back then, if I picked up a car in county, I got $125 for the car. And if I, the farther I went out, I, you made more.

How long ago was this? Oh, gosh, just back in the 90s. I mean, that was good money. That's good money. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we were, we were bringing, you know, back then we were bringing in at least thousand bucks a week. So, I mean, back then, that was, that was pretty decent dough.

for a kid in college. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what, so how, when did that, I mean, did that move into the, you know, the, the, I'm sorry, bail bonds? Do you want to say bail bonds? Yeah, yeah. Because it's kind of that goes along the same territory. Yeah, you're, you're finding something either way.

You're finding a person or a car. So, yeah, we had a bail bond agency in Newark, Ohio, where I lived at the time. and it's a small town and word got around who the repo man was and uh the lady her name was Yula Rizzo she was an older lady and she needed somebody to find people for her and she called me one day and she said I heard you're really good at finding cars and I said yeah I'm pretty good at it and she says well how would you like to find people so I said yeah I can do that so I started working for her did that worked for her for a couple years and then the company that underwrites her bonds and stuff

needed a bondsman in Mansfield where I was originally from. So I jumped at a chance and we opened an office up there. So I'm going to go back for a second. You started doing the, it was the repose. Did you end up getting a degree? Like did you, you were going, you said you were kind of going through college. Yeah, yeah. Why did you stay with repo and why did you continue to do the repo?

Like, why didn't, did you get a degree and whatever and go with that degree or just you enjoyed it too much? I did. I absolutely loved doing it. And I went to school for, I was going to be a gym teacher, basically, a physical education major. And I went for four years. And as my wife is mad at me, because I quit when I had three classes, basically. to go. And I never got my degree. Wow. But, uh, you could do that at night now. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, it was, I don't regret a bit of it. Yeah. But I mean, what was going to

change? If you, if you completed it, you were still going to be the repos. Yeah. Yeah. Most likely. So you, so you opened up, um, would you call like an agency for yeah, yeah, yeah, for this company. Yep. And I mean, how does that work? Like, do you have to get, like, how do you become a bail bondsman really well you have at the time you had to have a property and casualty license so and it has absolutely nothing to do with bail bonds but you had i think it was basically a way for the state to try and monitor you and get some cash out of you for a license so you now you actually have a class that teaches bail bonds, what you're going to run into and things.

But back then, it was property and casualty, and once you had that, you were allowed to write bonds. That's nuts. I mean, I actually had my property casualty license in Florida. Yeah. I did it for, I was like a workman's comp adjuster for like a year, just out of college. Yep, that's all you needed. Yeah, that's nuts.

Like they didn't mention anything about bonds. No, I was the only one in the class for. bail bonds. So, all right, so then what happens? Like, I mean, you have to put up the money or is it a you have to get a bond. You have to do. What do you do? Well, let's let's say you were, you got arrested for domestic violence. Me? You. And you came to me and they said, or a relative, because you're in jail, would come to me and say, I need to bond out my boyfriend, husband, whatever. And I would go over to the court, and I would basically write them a check for whatever the bond is. It's $10,000, let's say it's a $10,000 bond.

So I write them on, it looks like, this looks like a big check, basically. Right. And it would be for the amount of $10,000 to make sure that you show up a court. And your portion of that, you would owe me $1,000. So that's how we made our money. I would make, I would make $500 on the deal, the insurance. insurance company that underwrites me they make 500 on the deal so that's basically how you write a bond it's it's not difficult okay how does it work now like don't you have to get a now

you said you have a tat you have a because they don't cash the check no oh they they can if if your person doesn't show up for court do they give you time to like if they don't then how do you get the money back they you you don't get it back if they don't show up. You can get them to give you some extra time if you talk to the judge. You say, hey, judge, I need 30 days. I can find this guy. He'll go, okay, not a problem.

Let you go find him. If you don't show up with him and put him back in custody, drop them off to jail, they're going to cash that check. Okay. And I'm proud to say I've never lost anybody. all right so um but i mean people are running though i've had them run from one side of the country to the other and i've ended up finding them so in fact if you want a quick story yeah i was that's what i'm hoping for i had a young man and it wasn't a big bond i think was a ten thousand dollar bond

and he took off to lake tahoe and of course i'm in mansfield And I searched and searched for this kid, and I couldn't find him anywhere. And that's when I always say a good repo man or a good bondsman knows how to improvise. So I did a lot of my own skip tracing, which basically is talking to people trying to find out where this guy is. So I called his mom, and I ran one of my favorite scams on her, and I said, I'm a buddy from high school. right back in the area loved to get together with Mike right and

she says oh well she goes that's wonderful she goes Mike moved out to Lake Tahoe and he's a ski instructor and I said oh okay oh that Mike yeah and so when I got out so you know after I checked a few things out

I could I had another girl that worked with me named Tracy, and she was an excellent skip tracer, and she ran a social security number and stuff and found out where he was working out there and stuff. So I had a pretty good idea where he was, and got on a plane, flew to Reno. From Reno, I grabbed a car and drove up to Lake Tahoe and found the trailer he was living in. It was a nice little trailer part. Of course, he wasn't home during the, you know, he wasn't home that day, and he wasn't a ski instructor. He had applied to be one, but he ended up being in construction out there because it was booming back

then. And I showed up in his trailer that night, knocked on the door, and two guys answered. They were sitting in there playing video games. And I said, hey, where's Mike at? And they said, oh, he's back in the bedroom sleeping. I said, well, let me go surprise him. So I walked back in there and so I walked back in and uh he's laying on a mattress on the floor uh no bed frame or anything like that and I gently stepped over his body and I got my 9 millimeter at and I started rubbing it against his nose and a all of a sudden he wakes up and his eyes got as big as dinner plates and he goes oh my god you came all this way for me and I go yeah and we're going back tomorrow. So that's how I found him. So what do you do? You cuff them and you stay the night

in a motel or something? It cuffed him to the bed frame and waited the next morning and he promised he was going to be a good guy on the plane. So we flew back to Mansfield and I dropped them off. Okay. So what do you get for that? Well, you own the place though. Well, yeah, but that comes out of my pocket. So instead of paying the the court, $10,000. I was out a couple of plane tickets. Yeah, yeah. And a few meals.

Right, right. Yeah, it's way better. Yeah. Okay. I was going to say, poor Mike, like, he's not, he's not living well. He's sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Like, when I was on the run, like, I wasn't living like, Matt. Like, you're not.

And he's using his own name. Like, he's an amateur. Yeah, it's crazy. It's craziness. So, I mean, can you? Are there any, any others that you tracked down? Like, how long did you do this? Probably, I wrote bonds for three and a half years, and I, I track people down for other bondsmen for a couple of years, too.

So, you know, five, six years. I did that. Right. Do you have anybody else that took off? Or? Yeah. I mean, I, I, I had a guy. I mean, not as far as going out to Reno, but I've had people go hide with other people

and hide with grandma and things like that. And then I also picked up people, like I said, I did a lot of work for other bondsmen. I would get calls from different states and say, listen, we think our guys in Ohio, can you find them for us? And I would track them down. Then I would load them up and take them halfway and meet in the middle, get paid. and then you know they take him from there right so i mean do these guys i mean you know mike went quietly do all of them just oh you got me no you'd be surprised most of them do uh and i was i think i was smart about it i i wasn't big on kicking indoors and and wrestling somebody

to the ground um which which i've done but very sparingly I would always do more of a stakeout kind of thing. And if I knew there was five of his buddies in the apartment with him, I wasn't going in there because it's going to be nothing but pure confrontation. Yeah, it could go bad. I would wait till I see the guy come out by himself, walk into his car, walk up behind him and say, hey, guess who I am? And usually they're so surprised, you know,

before they even have a chance to think I've got him in cuffs and we're on the way back to the jail. So, yeah, I haven't had, I really, you know, a lot of people always ask me what, what's more dangerous? And I said, repo in a car is more dangerous because I look at it this way, you know, a lot of these guys I'm getting out of jail and writing bonds for have been there before. Yeah. And they know the system. And they know that, okay, this guy's going to take me back. I'm going to make a phone call.

I'll use a different bail bondsman. They'll come get me out, and I'm out in 24 hours. Right. You take a person's car, how am I going to get to work? How am I going to get my kids of school? The neighbors are going to see. Right. I got to call mom and dad for money.

Yeah. I mean, it opens up a big can. And people get pissed when you take their car. Because they feel like they own it. Yeah. I feel like you're taking my stuff, not the fact that, no, I'm taking the bank stuff back. Like, you don't have the title of this car. Exactly.

You don't really, people realize, like, you don't really own your car. That's true. You have it registered in your name. And the bank can pick it up if you're a day late or you're three months late. And most of them do. They'll wait until about the third month and they know they're not getting paid. So that's when they usually pop you. All right.

Have you ever been shot at or? I have been shot. shot out once and I've probably had two or three times people putting a gun to my head but was this for repo or for this was for repoing now one of them was

completely innocent it was a semi that I was repowing and I soon as I walked to the guy's door I had a shotgun in my face but it's because it wasn't because I was there to pop his car it's because there was a lot of breakings in the area

they seen me outside walking around checking the place out looking for this truck. It looks suspicious. Yeah. So as soon as I walked up, I had the gun, right? I mean, I completely, and as a repo man, you're not allowed to carry a gun. Right. So some do, but you're not supposed to.

And then the only time I was ever shot at, and I won't take that back. I wasn't, I personally wasn't shot out my partner was. I recruited one of the kids off the basketball team to go. help me pick up a car. Old Trans Am. And the guy lived out in the middle of nowhere in a single wide trailer. Car's setting right out front. I had keys for it. Everybody at works for me wants to be the one that gets a car because it's something they're going to talk about the next 10 years of their life. So I gave him the keys. His name was Wes McQueen. Jump like a deer playing basketball, great guy.

And he went up, got in the car. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Neeson. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog. Chili Dog, not included.

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So we walked around the back of the car, and he was little fiberglass fins that you used to have on the firebirds and transits. am you could actually see the the shot marks from the he was that close it was close enough to put small dints in the back of the rubber and the fiberglass but wasn't close enough to break anything so we pulled in i said well what do you want to do i said we can call the cops when he and i said but if we do that they're going to take the car they're going to hold us you know impound it and all that stuff and i said and we ain't going to get paid Right. So he said, what do you want to do?

And Wes said, I'd rather have the money. So that was the only time I ever was fired at. Let's put it that way. Okay. Any, I mean, anything else happened or anything that strikes you as interesting? When I first started, I didn't have, like I said, I didn't have a tow truck, but I had a to towing company that would tow for me. And it was in Newark, Ohio, and his name was Yote.

We called him Yogi, big guy. And we were hooking up a car at an apartment complex. And just as we were getting it up in the air and starting to strap down the tires, about four or five guys pile out of this apartment and saying, well, you can't have the wheels, those are mine. And I put a air filter on there that's mine and all this kind of stuff. And I said, no, man, I said, if it's on the car, it goes with the car. And they started to come after us and Yogi picks up a J-hook, which is a big chain with a hook on the end of it looks like a J.

And he starts swinging this thing around his head. So while he's doing that, I'm strapping down the tires. And, you know, they never got close enough. But, but, but, but they wanted to. But, uh, that was, that's really about the only, the couple of times that I've ever really has in any danger at all, but, um, well, uh, so what, um, what, so what, what happened with, um, with your, well, first of all, when did you, you retired from doing this recently? No, I, I've been out of this, uh, since, oh gosh, uh, early, uh, uh, early.

2000s I worked for a company called Skipco up around the Cleveland area for a little while and and then we my wife and I opened up a towing business okay and we we ran a towing business for several years in the Mansfield area okay when you did the skip tracing did you ever use like didn't aren't there's there are systems right like Alexis oh yes it's it's it's amazing Yeah, what you can find out, even if you, I mean, just running a social security number is going to tell you where a person works and their credit rating. And I mean, and then you can find out, like you said, through LexisNexis or a couple other different sites, who their relatives are.

I mean, a whole chain of people. Yeah, where they've ever lived. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's scary how much you can find out for a few dollars. Yeah. Well, I mean, when you grab these guys, did any of these guys ever, did they ever have fake IDs on them or? Because you have to recognize the guy. Yeah.

And I always took a picture as soon as I bailed somebody out. You know, those old instomatic cameras. Yeah, yeah. I would. Like the Polaroid. Polaroid camera, yep. And I, every person I'd take a picture as soon as I walked out of jail. So, you know, when.

when you're picking up for somebody for somebody else, that can be a problem. And I had one girl lie to me for a while. And I bet I spent two hours in her apartment questioner just to make sure I had the right person because I wasn't leaving unless I knew I had the right person because then you get a whole other can of worms. Right. So are you allowed, I have a question is, are you allowed to like, if you know the person's inside, yes.

Like I saw you walk. I know it's you. I saw you walk in. I'm 100% sure it's you. and they close the door and lock the door. Are you allowed to go in? Yeah, it matters what state you're in. And I know things have changed a little bit since I've done it.

But as long as I knew that that person was in there and I had an address on a piece of paper that that person wrote saying, when somebody gets out of jail, I say you need to give me several references, where you lay your own. head at night. Right. So I wouldn't make them write down several different addresses. So I had the ability to go in after them. Like in Ohio, if I had a reasonable suspicion that person was in there, I could go in there. Now I think you have to have of, you know, that person had to write a physical address down when you bonded him out of jail where he's going to be and and they let's put it this way if if if if I knew you were hiding in an apartment complex I can't go through that

apartment complex and kick every door down right because I know because I seen you walk in the building I've got to know what apartment you're in but if I know what apartment you're in I've got the right to go in there and get you because basically when it when you write a bond that person is giving up his rights right so i mean i don't need a search warrant i don't have to have police back up but they will back you up on a bond if you need them but as long as long as i know that you're in there i'm probably going to come in after you right so so i mean has that happened? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that happened a couple different times. Were you ever concerned that? Yes. And the first time I did it, I got called down to the police department. And I always,

my boss always gave me a, it was a three-fold pamphlet of everything a bondsman is legally allowed to do with the codes and everything written on it. So when I got, you know, they, they called me one day and I said, we heard you kicked in an apartment door. And I said, yeah, I did. And, you know, well, what gives you the right to do that? And I just hand them that paper. And they'd read it over and go, okay, you're good to go. So because a lot, believe it or not, a lot of the police officer have no idea what a

bondsman is loud or not allowed to do. Right. So. Well, I mean, have you ever grabbed anybody and they had like a fake ID or something or? Just, just one girl. And it was, uh, like I said, I, after I questioned her for a, you know, a while and things weren't adding up. Oh, she had, she had a fake?

Yeah. She just gave you, uh, I thought she just gave you a, um, uh, just gave you the wrong name. She actually had an ID. Yeah, yeah, she had an ID. And, uh, I was with a, uh, one of my partners, his name was Kevin. And, and, and he, uh, he, he actually saw through it first. And then we talked about it. And I go, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

And when we got her down, it was who she said she was. So she finally gave it up when the police. down at the station so um so what about the uh the uh the uh story about the the kid oh yeah yeah yeah uh well you know how you go to the department of motor vehicles and you wait in line i've been many many time exactly and i hated to go there and thank god they can let you send them a check now but but but I'm sorry. I had a repo and the lady works for a department of motor vehicles. And I said, ha ha, revenge time.

Right. So I went to her place and the car was sitting there and I backed up to it and had it up in the air. A lot of times I go up and knock on the door and say, listen, I'm repoing your car. It's up in the air. If you want to come out and clean your stuff out of it, you can do that. And of course, they're giving you every sob story in the world. you know I'll make my payment tomorrow or can I pay you or well I mailed it or you know you get every excuse in the world and I said you know I'm sorry I've got to take your car and uh as I was doing that

I seen a little boy come out she must not been about three years old and he's listening to everything the conversation between my mom or his his mom and me and uh I was around the back of the car taking the plates off because they always give the person their plates back and uh all of a sudden i see i feel somebody pulling on my uh my coat i said what i look around and there he is and he's standing right beside me and he holds his piggy bank up oh and he said will this pay for my mom's car I felt like the biggest heel in the world when that happened. But yeah, every once in a while you get a story like that, and it just kills you.

I think that night I just said, you know, screw this. I'm going home, going to bed. But I wrote in the book, I hope that kid turned into something and can buy his mom a new car because he definitely, he definitely, he definitely. would have done that when he was three, you know, so. I, um, I'm sorry, when you, it's when you said the checks in the mail or that they've mailed it or, I had a, a mortgage broker.

We used to play pranks on each other all the time. And one of my other mortgage brokers was doing a loan for a guy that had tow truck company. And my other mortgage broker had been, he'd been there a month or two. and he actually after a couple weeks came up to me and said I hate to mention say this but you know I got these two loans that are closing and I'm like right right he said my car payments way behind and he said it's a buy here pay here a lot I was just like wow and you know like how bad is it it's um and he was like yeah they're going to take my car

he said so is there any way you could give me some money up front I was like what do you how much you need I don't know what it was like two payments behind they were like 300, 400, 400 bucks a piece. I was giving like 800 bucks or whatever. Well, so he said, okay, cool. So he took the money. Well, like the following day or the day after, I remembered like the guy,

the customer that had the tow truck company showed up to sign some paperwork. And I went, whoa. I said, hey, so I told the broker, come here. I said, listen, I told him about what had happened with this guy. The guy's name was John Sloan, actually. So I told him, John Sloan is behind his car payment. he's afraid they're going to show up and take his car and he goes okay i said so i need you to get

your customer to back up to the back up to the um his car and take it and so like go to put it on so his customer comes in and he goes okay what do you want me to do i said what's to back up you know it had the thing that went you know and went under like it yeah he didn't have to get out to pick it up exactly yeah i said start that hole he's up he's okay look i'm not going to pick it up like i'm going to get down there and i'm going to jiggle it and make it look like it. He said, but I'm not going to actually touch the car. And I said, okay, that's fine. I said, it's going to make the beep of noise when you back up, though. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, no, it'll, it'll be a show. And I said, okay. So John Sloan, his desk was just like it, he faced like

inward. And the back of his, of his desk was a glass, was all glass to the parking lot. Right. And there was, and there were blinds, many blinds behind him. So he, he's sitting there on the phone and like so we're all kind of outside like we've told everybody he has no clue so there's like 10 of us now a couple guys inside three or four or five of us standing outside a couple guys at the window and all of a sudden we start hearing that beep and so he's on the phone with with somebody's like or some customer or something he's like yeah uh-huh no no yeah he's like yeah yeah well this is what happens and then he's like yeah i don't know i don't know somebody's car's getting towed or something And I don't know, yeah, I don't know, they're backing up a, I don't know what the noise is.

Yeah, yeah, because it's, it's, it's, um, he goes, hold, hold, hold on. And, you know, does the blind, you know, and he goes, I gotta go, and hangs out there, runs over the guy. And he's like, and he was, Sloan was a big guy. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, hey, wait a minute, wait, minute, where. And the guy's like, yo, man, they didn't get your payment. No, I popped. I did. I dropped it off yesterday. I went yesterday. He's like, bro, I got, you're on the order.

today I got to take the car man I don't know what to tell you and the guy's actually doing the lever and just making it go yeah right he's just making it noise it's not doing anything Sloan is like I don't know I gave him the money I swear by I got the money I give it to the guy I got a receipt it's somewhere I mean it's in my house if you can just wait I can get my wife to take a picture of the receipt or or give him in the receipt she can he's like man it's got to go it's got to go and the guy's kind of laugh as far as it's kind of laughing right and then we're so he keeps looking up at us doesn't realize like everybody's outside right like he and he told me later he said you know what

the whole problem was he said I was actually sitting there thinking like I know I paid he said you know you gave me the money I went down there and paid the next day he said he said so I know I'm getting the car back he said but I was like this is so humiliating oh it's embarrassing these guys are they're going to tow my car and I just started working here and all these guys are you know he's like it was horrible and I mean but at this point we're bawling laughing We're all just done. And he's like, that's when he finally realized, like, something's wrong. Why are these guys laughing?

Nobody's this much of a jerk. That there's like six, seven people at this point who are laughing. Anyway, so he was like, what then? And the guy was like, yeah, man, they're just messing with you, bro. I'm not taking your car. He was like, man, you guys, he started yelling at us and screaming. And he was laughing. Anyway, so that's what, that just makes me think when you're, beep, beep, beep.

Oh, yeah. It was a good, good time. Yeah. only because he didn't get his car towed like you would not have if they'd really take it his car he would have been upset oh yeah are we and you get all kinds of excuses i mean it's it's it's crazy it's you know like i said i put the check in the mail or uh you know i got i've got to buy groceries or you know everything's an excuse and and you know the funny thing was you would not believe the amount of doctors that i've repoed

Oh, yeah. Just because they make so much money, they don't even think of worry about paying their bills. Some of the worst, by the way, one of the worst credits I've ever seen was from a doctor and lawyers, doctors and lawyers. And yeah, horrible, months behind. And one of the guys when he came in, I remember asking him like, or you're like, you make good money. Like you're behind, you've got three, you've got a 90-day late. You've got three 30-day late on your credit cards. He's like, well, I mean, yeah, but he said it's not a lot of money.

I'm like, that's the problem. It's like 50 bucks, $40, $60. He's like, yeah, well, I wait till it adds up to something. And I'm like, this is before credit. You know, people didn't weren't quite as credit savvy as they are now. Right. Like, it doesn't matter if it's 50 cents. You have to write the check for 50 cents.

And he was like, what was it matter? I wait till it adds up. I mean, I was like, geez. I mean, so I've had some of them, it's old. almost like, like, you almost have to make an effort to be this bad at your credit. Oh, yeah. So, and you'd be surprised how many blame is on their wife. Yeah.

Well, she must not have paid it or it didn't come out of my bank account. I'm like, no, come on, man. But, yeah. Oh, God. Um, so you took the little, the little kid's mom's car. I mean, did you feel bad? Oh, I've felt horrible. Absolutely horrible.

But it had to go. And my thing was, I'm getting back at the DMV, but yeah, that didn't work. Man, I've sat in so many DMVs, too. Oh, and they're so rude. Like, 90% of them just, they hate your guts. It's like, why did you take this job? If you really hate people, the way you clearly hate people, like, why did you take this job? So what ultimately, what ended up happening with, you had a partner.

Yes. right in the business right yeah i i i after i started repolling i uh i got my they were looking for somebody up in the mansfield area at that that that sorry at that time i lived in newark and uh so i called my buddy todd duffner and he lived he still lived in mansfield and i said hey i got a really good job for you and i he went out with me on a couple of repos he goes yeah i can do this so todd and me repoed all over the state. And he ended up also doing bail bonds with me. And he actually took over my bail bonds business when I bought the towing business. And we worked together so well. And I mean, there was nights we could pick up together, you know.

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We'd pick up seven, eight cars a night, and those were great paydays when we were doing that. And one day Todd walked into my office and he put his arm on my desk. And he goes, look at this. And I could see all the muscles in his arm just twitching. And he goes, I'm not trying to do this. It's just happening. And Todd was a big fisherman, a hunter. And he was, I mean, a great day for Todd is when he's in the woods.

And he went to the doctor and the doctor said, we probably got a tick bite. Sometimes if you get a tick bike, that's what happened. He goes, but I'm going to run some tests. So he, you know, a few days later, he came back in and he said, I've got Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS. And he had just got married. He had just had his first kid. And that was Todd's... I'm sorry.

That was fine. How old was he? Excuse me. I think he was in his 40s at the time. And he, I mean, he just, he, that was his dream. To have a family.

and in a very short time he was gone and excuse me it was tough and he's one of the reasons I live in Florida right now excuse me

is because I knew you know when that happened life's short and and I told my wife I said as soon as their girls

get out of college I go we're moving and I said I want to move to Florida want to retire want to take it easy and I said we got enough money to do it

and that's what we did but but I think of him every day and you talk about him in the book? Yeah. One of the last chapters in the book's about Todd.

Okay. Super guy. Super guy. Great family. Grew up with him. We're in track together. Played ball together. It's been...

We graduated in 1979, and I think we still both hold track records at the school we graduated from. I mean, he, he, he, boy could run. Boy could he run. And I got a great story about him. He was, we were out repo and I think we were looking for an S-10 pickup. And, uh, he went up to check the VIN number of a car out in the middle of nowhere on a farm. And, uh, he went up, checked the VIN number.

And all of a sudden I hear all these dogs barking. And I've got my beams on my truck down real low, just the running lights on. And all of a sudden I see Todd running right across the front of my truck and three dogs after him, all weiner dogs. But it was so dark, he couldn't tell. So I see him running down the road like all hell. And these three dogs just chasing him. Three dogs that's chasing them down. And so I start up the truck and I turn, you know,

I'm going down the road and pretty soon he's running up beside the truck and I grab him. I go, they're weiner dogs, man, they're weiner dogs. So we turn around and head back and I said, he goes, oh, that's not the right, it wasn't the right VIN number on that truck. But I see all these dogs in unison following each other just wobbling back to the barn.

Oh, my God, it was hilarious. But, yeah, he, uh, they got a lot of great memories of Todd. Well, that's good. Yeah. That's good. How long have you been in Florida? Uh, we've been down here a little over three years now, you know. Okay.

All right. No. No, what's the tart? What's that? I had this one guy. We, uh, Todd me knocked on the door. and he wasn't where he's supposed to be, so that was strike one.

And then we... Todd wasn't where he was supposed to? No, the guy to skip bail wasn't where he was supposed to be. Okay. Or it wasn't living where he was supposed to be. So I found a girlfriend's address, went to her house and knocked on her door,

and she said, no, I haven't seen him. I said, no, he's in here. I know he's in here. I said, we've got to come in. She goes, well, you need a search warrant. And I go, no. I said, I don't need a search warrant. So we pushed through her, and Todd went upstairs, and I searched the first floor, and Todd comes down, he goes, man, she's right.

Yeah, that guy's not here. And I go, I know he's here. And I go, did you check the attic? And Todd goes, no, I didn't check the attic. So we go upstairs, and behind the dresser, there's an attic access. You know, it's not a, there's actually a room in the attic, but on the sides, There's, you know, four or five feet there that there's an access door to. So I get my maglake flashlight out and I move the dresser and we, I'm peeking down through both sides of the eaves.

And they had cellulose insulation blown in, which is that newspaper, dirty kind of insulation. And at the end of the attic, I see this lump, you know, like a big mound. And I go, man, that don't look right. so I take a and I don't want to crawl in this 105 degree attic you know and so I take a battery out of my flashlight and I gave it a toss down there and whack I hit that thing a little big lump and all of a sudden that guy jumps up he was up there completely covered in insulation hiding from us and it was over a stupid $5,000 bond which he's going to get 30 days and go home I was just something ridiculous and so on the way out of the attic he's crawling through trying to hit every two by four beam and all of a sudden his leg goes through the ceiling of the you know the bedroom down below so now they got a big hole in their their bedroom ceiling and he crawls out and I'm not kidding you this guy was I called it tard and feathered because he is completely

covered in this stuff and we get we get him outside and he goes man he goes don't take me to jail like this goes let me hose off so so he stood there as we're hoes them off. He's completely soaked head to toe. We got all the stuff off of them, put him in a car, take him down to the Mansfield City jail, and the jailer comes out to take him back to the cell, and he's just looking at this dude going, and then he looks at us, and he's just shaking us and said, you know, that's what happens. But yeah, that was another good one. Yeah, and the book, like you said, it's full of, it's full of great stories like that. You know, it's a, it's a good read. I think people will like it. Right. Um, so you would mention one of the things you said people

ask you about like, is it like the, you know, is doing it like, um, what was it? You would, we mentioned was it, oh, what, dog the bounty hunter? Oh. I actually was going to mention that when we were talking earlier. Yeah. Before we sat down, I was going to say, well, there's a lot of things. shows on TV. I know there was a couple of repo shows on TV that were completely fake and they try to pass stuff off as reality. And Dog is, you know, I'm, I'm sure he does a good job and everything, but, you know, people, I see him on the news a lot and people interviewing him and stuff. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I did this for several years. and I rarely had people skip bond on me.

And when you write a bond, you look at the person, you look at his credit, you look at his family, you look at, is he going to stick around? And there's different things you have to check off of a list

to make sure this guy is going to show up for court. And my thing with that, that show is if you can't tell somebody that's going to show up for court and you're just going to sit there and write bond after bond after bond and you have so many bonds out there and so many people you're chasing down that they can make a TV show are you are you a really a good bondsman yeah so that that's my big thing with him I'm thinking you know if you can go on TV and have a show every week of several people you're chasing

down was he chasing all of are these all his people or are that he chasing other guys also I think he I think he does chase other guys bonds too but then again he's in Hawaii most of the time so

it's not like it's not a huge community exactly so and and there trust me there's bondsmen out there that will write anything that comes along But do you really want to spend all your time out chasing people when you could be writing more bonds, making more money? I mean, you do if you have a TV show. Well, I mean, that's true.

But take nothing away from the guy. But I let's see, I just wouldn't call him a top tier bonds. Yeah. And then when he gets involved in like that girl that went missing in the down here. Well, it's, you know, it's entertainment. I mean, he's a character. Yeah. And I understand marketing, but when you're crouching down but the side of a fire pit

and looking at the ashes and rubbing them between your fingers and going, ah, he was here. Come on, man. I mean, people, don't be so gullible. He's checking the dirt footprint. It's him. He's wearing someone else's shoes. They're two sizes too big. It's definitely Bobby.

Yeah, he, he's definitely out there. always love at the end of the show where he he tries to like lecture them and try to get their life right and tells them about himself and tells them about how he changed his life and how he just like stop it bro yeah it's nobody it's in one ear at the next yeah yeah um it's it's funny because you know uh when i was locked up i read and i don't know if you know who this is uh you've heard stepany plum stepney no so they're i want to say it's Stephanie Plum. Janet Ivanovich writes about her and she, she's a bounty hunter. There's been a movie about her. She was a bounty hunter. There's a bunch of book. There's got to, there has to be

14, well, there may be 30 books now. I read probably 13 or 14 of them. Oh, now that you said that, I think I do remember that. As a series of like paperbacks or something she put out. She's a klutz. She's a klutz that ends up a bounty hunter because it's good money. she's constantly for getting her gun she's being shot at she keeps getting you know beat up like people are chasing her she's chasing them she's it but it they're actually hilarious bro like right i mean you you know it's ridiculous i know it's ridiculous but the characters in it the the funniest thing about the characters in it are the fact that these are real people like these are all bit you can tell like that there is a some nut job out there like this is you're dealing

the kind of people you have to deal with in that industry right you're arresting the same people over oh yes have you how many have you arrested people over over yeah two three different times on several different people and and they i mean it's like they've got their my phone number tattooed on their arm i mean they just know call tom we'll get it he'll get us out and and they show up for court so i'm not you know of course that's great i mean um i yeah i have you ever uh have you ever uh have you ever chased down the same uh person has that same person run twice or if they run once you don't every oh no they run once. I don't, I don't, I won't rewrite that bond. Don't call me again. No, no, let somebody else deal

with that. Do you ever go after them? Like, if, so you put up a $10,000 bond and you're saying that it's $1,000, cost them $1,000 to get the bond. Right. You're getting $500. Then they take off. So now they take off and you have to chase them and it costs you $1,200 to catch up with them. Do you turn around and bill them? Like, do you say, hey, or you're saying you're not going to get that money anyway. I don't bill them, but on some bonds, I always took some collateral. Right. I've had motorcycles. I've had cars. I even had a hot wheel collection that I walked into the guy's house and he had him under glass on his wall. And I knew in my head, he values that. Yes. Yeah. He'll come back for that. Yeah. So I'm taking that with me. So, you know, think.

There's ways, you know, there's ways to make sure people show up for court. Right. So, but yeah, and like said, I've, I've been blessed as far as people showing up. I haven't had a ton. I'm sure my, the book, I've got two to three times of many repo stories as I do bond stories. Right. Because I was smart at writing bond. And I still made a decent living at it.

What about, do you ever take a, uh, do you ever place a lien on anybody's house oh yeah yeah i had i had one guy uh the police he was laundering money and he had over a million dollars in foil wrapped and wrapped up in his freezer and and the feds yeah the feds busted him and uh and he owned his own home he owned a vending machine business uh and i i would write a mortgage on his house or a lien put a lien right right right some time of lien and that's another story when I first started working there at Mansfield my I would walk to go down to the clerk of courts or the recorder's office and I would you know stand there and everybody knew I was the bondsman So the bondsman.

Nobody wanted to help the bondsman. So I would stand there and I'd wait in line and, you know, trying to get somebody to help me because they had to file this or file that. And I wasn't getting much cooperation. And one day I walked in and I held up a $50 bill and I said, if anybody will help me, I'll give you $50 right now. And then come to find out, they found. out that I was dating my current wife, Melanie, and I would walk in and as soon as they knew

I was dating her, because everybody and she was a legal secretary in town, everybody knew Melanie. So when I walked in, then all the girls at the clerks off would be running right up, oh, what can we help you with, Tom? I said, well, I guess it's who you know. You got to stay in her good graces. Exactly. Exactly. Things don't go, well, Melanie, you never get helped again.

The 50's not even going to help. That's true. Oh, there's that, Tom. Oh, yeah. Okay. So did you, have you, you never foreclosed on anybody's house? No, never had to. So what if they didn't own the house?

Well, they had a mortgage. Well, we made sure that there was enough equity in that house. Yeah, yeah. And I've heard stories of bondsmen and big cities. zoning four or five restaurants and things like that just because they've had a foreclose on people and stuff so but no headache here so that's good okay anything uh can anything else you want to talk about yeah do you want to plug the book yeah uh asphalt hunter it's on uh amazon barns and noble uh a lot of other different sites and uh give it a

stories of a of a bounty hunter slash repo man and I guarantee you every story in there is gospel I like asphalt hunters that's a good title spent a lot of time on the road looking for people and cars that's for sure um I have one more question are you allowed to carry a weapon yeah yeah if when you're like a concealed weapons yeah because in florida it's concealed you have to have it concealed in I know other states like I remember being in Tennessee I would see guys with the gun like you couldn't carry you couldn't get a concealed weapons license what you had in Tennessee was right you had a carry permit and you had to be able to see the gun yeah in Ohio at the time there wasn't a when I first started there wasn't a concealed carry law but they there was a specific thing in the law that said if you were in a dangerous position if you're carrying large sums of money like to a bank or something like that

they gave you like a waiver on that so I never had a problem with I'd walk in the police part with the gun as long as I put in the locker when I back to talk somebody I was good so no problem. Okay. All right, I got nothing else.

All right. I sure appreciate it. Sure. Asphalt hunters. So we're going to have the link in the description for Amazon and I think that's that's pretty much it cool all right if you like the video do me a favor and hit the like button subscribe to the channel leave a comment in the comment section

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