A Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by local bail bondsmen alleging that Sheriff Bill Brown and others hurt their business by preventing jail inmates from making free phone calls to the bond companies.
Judge Thomas Anderle, who hears civil cases in Santa Barbara, made a final ruling Tuesday sustaining a motion filed by the defendants that contended the lawsuit had no legal basis.
“No amendment can correct the numerous defects in the complaint,” Anderle wrote in his tentative ruling.
The suit, filed Jan. 7, named 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.
Along with money for damages and attorney fees, the plaintiffs were seeking an injunction to stop the defendants from keeping arrested people and inmates from contacting the bail bond companies.
In his ruling, Anderle denied the plaintiffs’ request to have attorney fees covered.
The lawsuit claimed 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.
Santa Barbara County attorneys claimed in their motion seeking to dismiss the suit, called a demurrer, that the only contract the plaintiffs are a party to 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.
Anderle wrote in his tentative ruling that nothing in that contract indicates that the county and Partners for a Safer America intended to benefit plaintiffs by ensuring them free phone calls from arrestees and inmates.
“The contract does not even reference the telephones in the county detention facilities,” he continued.
“There are no allegations in the complaint that the advertising signboards were not installed or that Sheriff Brown somehow interfered with the signboards.”
Chief Assistant County Counsel Steve Underwood said in an e-mail that the court’s ruling “pretty much says it all.”
“We, of course, are very pleased with the results and I am certain the Sheriff’s Department feels the same way,” he added.
Brown said he is pleased that the court recognized the plaintiffs’ allegations were meritless.
“They were pretty preposterous,” he added.
Brown acknowledged there has been some issues with the jail phones working properly, which he said the county is working on fixing through the vendor.
However, to claim that the county is trying to make money by messing with the phones is “ridiculous”, Brown said.
Corlatan, one of the plaintiffs, said he and the other bondsmen are “devastated” at the court’s decision.
“We do not understand why this has happened,” he said.
Corlatan said that along with advertising at the jail comes the assumption that the phones there work.
“I don’t know where we’re going to go from here. We’re just trying to bring awareness to this whole thing,” he said.
Joseph Dulles Allen, the attorney for the plaintiffs, could not be reached Tuesday.
