Attorneys for Santa Barbara County have filed a motion attempting to dismiss a lawsuit filed by local bail bondsmen alleging that Sheriff Bill Brown and others prevented jail inmates from making free phone calls to the bond companies and subsequently hurting their business.

The demurrer motion, which contends there is no legal basis for the lawsuit, was filed

March 11, and a hearing on the pleading is scheduled for Tuesday in Santa Barbara County Su perior Court in Santa Barbara.

The suit, filed Jan. 7, names as defendants Brown, sheriff’s Lt. Mark Mahurin, and Securus Technologies and Evercom Systems, corporations that provide the jail phone system. Mahurin is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the county jail’s phone system, according to the document.

The plaintiffs are David Corlatan, Brian Gooch, John Vasquez, Tim Romero, Kirt Moore, Francisco Mejia and David Brattain, all of whom are bail bondsmen in the county, and several specifically in Santa Maria and Lompoc.

They are seeking an injunction to stop the defendants from keeping arrestees and inmates from contacting the plaintiffs, along with money for damages and attorney fees.

The suit claims that in May 2007, Brown entered into an agreement with Securus and Evercom that allowed for Brown to monitor, control, record, terminate and block phone calls made from county jail and related detention and holding facilities by arrestees and inmates.

Under the agreement, Evercom paid the Sheriff’s Department a “signing bonus” of $80,000 in addition to giving it 51 percent of revenues from collect calls made from the jail, as well as calls made with prepaid calling cards and debit account calls, according to the filing.

The plaintiffs allege that Mahurin willingly aided Brown in blocking or restricting free phone calls from the jail, three of which new arrestees are entitled to, and dissuaded arrestees from requesting the service of the plaintiffs.

Mahurin acted with the knowledge that the goal was to increase the commissions the department received under the agreement with Evercom, and to increase the jail inmate population to improve Brown’s chances of gaining the funds needed to construct a new jail, the plaintiffs allege.

Brown and Mahurin prevented a number of free calls from being made to the bail bondsmen starting around May 2007 and continuing to the present, according to the suit. Free calls are allegedly blocked, dropped or otherwise terminated.

County Counsel Dennis Marshall and other attorneys with the office claim in their demurrer that the allegations contained in plaintiffs’ complaint are “a scattered attempt to hold the county liable for an unsubstantiated decline in business,” and that the plaintiffs fail to cite any actions by the county defendants that constitute a legal duty or a breach of duty to the plaintiffs.

The only contract that the plaintiffs are a party in is one between them and an organization called Partners for a Safer America, in which they pay the group to be placed on advertisements displayed in the Santa Barbara County Jail and the Santa Maria jail, according to the county.

Partners for a Safer America in turn has a contract with the county that allows them, for a fee, to have the advertising in the jails, the defendants said.

The plaintiffs cannot claim that the contract promised that arrestees could make free telephone calls to them, according to the demurrer.

“The contract does not contain any such promise, and does not even reference the telephones in the county detention facilities.”

The attorneys contend that no changes to the complaint filed by the bail bondsmen could correct “the numerous defects raised in this demurrer.”