People Are Losing It Over Footage Showing Rudy Giuliani Walking Into A Bail Bond Joint After Being Arraigned

Jordan Lund@lemmy.one to politics @lemmy.world – 595 points –
Rudy Giuliani Spotted Going To Bail Bond Joint After Arraignment
uproxx.com

Not just ANY bail bond joint, "A 2nd Chance Bail Bonds" in Atlanta.

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People often say they're just waiting for him to flip on Trump. Giuliani is broke, Trump disdains him, etc...

The prosecutors aren't interested in what he has to say. There are better witnesses, more reliable witnesses who have corroborated all the facts already.

The prosecutors do not need this shell of a man to flip.

Yeah, but it'll still be fun to watch all the worms turn on each other.

If he flips it'll be hilarious watching him mouth vomit all the shit trump has told him.

This. Trump is the main culprit and threat, so he's priority.

But taking down a corrupt former mayor? That's a feather in anyone's cap too.

Plus, Rudy isn't exactly a credible witness. He's told so many lies, so many different versions of events, and he has proven he's willing to say anything to save his own skin. The defense would tear him apart on the stand.

The only way he gets a deal is if he can provide hard evidence the prosecution doesn't already have.

Totally agree.

BUT ... if he has hard evidence like documents, recordings, emails, txts, those might be worth something and will be harder for the defense to tear apart.

Yet still, I want to see Rudy behind bars so there's that too.

I expect the case is entirely airtight. They indicted a former president, and you don't do that if there's a chance you lose.

Oh I agree and am hopeful that's trye. And yet I don't think it's possible to have "too much" evidence against 45. To quote a wise woman, " ...I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

100% this. He'd be a laughable witness against drumpf and all drumpf's lawyers need to do is to cast reasonable bout in his testimony, There are a few obvious ones, like substance abuse, habitual lying, leaked tapes, financial embarrasment, etc. There's also always a chance he'd make the whole process a clown show by sprouting off random ramblings and conspiracy theories on the stand. Drumpf's attorneys could also easily push all the blame to Rudy by invoking the advice of counsel defence.

At this rate they don’t need anyone to “flip”. At the end of the day these morons got busted doing illegal shit and there is more than enough evidence that they don’t need someone else’s testimony. Flip or not then are fucked.

The guy who erased the footage already flipped...

He had a trump lawyer and said it was never erased. Then he switched to a public defender and recanted his statement that it wasn't erased.

Even if he didn't take a deal, that counts as "flipping"

All the lawyer had to do is be honest about what's going to happen in this prosecution, and how many years he would spend in federal prison in order to maintain the lie.

Was the footage actually erased? I thought that Trump’s crew asked him to erase it (but he either wasn’t able or willing to) but the actual issue was he initially lied to the Feds saying they never asked him to erase it. After getting a new attorney he’s recanted and told the feds that they did ask him to.

I never saw mention of the tapes actually being erased but maybe I just missed that detail? I assumed the Feds had the tapes.

I could be wrong. But my understanding is that the guy didn't have the ability to erase the security footage even if he wanted to. That was part of the whole discussion about "the boss" wanting the footage erased. The IT guy lied about even being asked at all when he had a Trump lawyer, then recanted that when he got his own public defender.

Yeah that was my understanding, too but I wasn’t sure if I was remembering correctly. :)

To quote Giuliani himself, He has insurance, and knows where the bodies are buried. There are likely extemporaneous contemporaneous notes of items of interest

Plus I have to imagine that lawyers such as Jack Smith and those on his team have a deep loathing for corrupt attorneys like Giuliani and would love to see him brought to justice.

Knowing how hard even with a ton of evidence it will be to convict Trump He may not even have been offered a deal. He's not a president but still a very high level political operative. He might be the biggest fish to fry.

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He deserves all the ridicule in the world for this, as well as anyone else involved in this scheme to overthrow a duly elected government. I will gleefully watch this trial and not feel bad about enjoying it whatsoever.

If he really has to use bonds man, things are not looking too good for him. At this point he has to consider whether cooperating is the better option or not, right?

It seems to me that this will escalate rather quickly between them.

Yeah, he's out of money. Trying to sell a house for 6.5 mil. Begging Trump for cash which isn't coming.

Only a matter of time...

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Prosecution doesn't need him. Rudy has lied and contradicted himself so often you simply couldn't put him on the stand. His testimony would be impeached within minutes. So his only value would be if he could provide background information that wasn't available through other means. Well they have all of his electronic devices (18 from his apartment alone!), all of his texts and emails, what else can he offer?

At this point he has to consider whether cooperating is the better option or not, right?

That would be the smart option, not the Republican one.

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Uh-oh. He isn't rich anymore. According to Trump, that means he's automatically a loser. Guess he won't be getting any support from the orange guy anymore, not that he was getting much.

While it doesn't automatically mean that Giuliani sees the money, Trump is apparently having a fundraiser dinner for him. So maybe he does have something on Trump, still.

I like to play a game where I think of the worst thing Trump could do, and it’s most often correct. Call it Covfefe’s Razor. Trump will pocket 100% of the proceeds and use some fraction of it to extort him to keep him in line, the rest will go to Trump’s legal defense including any lawyers fixing things for Trump by ‘representing’ Rudy.

It's not a bad heuristic to predict Trump. From staring directly at a solar eclipse to continuing to defame a person immediately after losing a defamation case about that person, Trump will always seemingly take the worst possible action in any given scenario.

Trump will always seemingly take the worst possible action in any given scenario.

This is completely incorrect. Trump doesn't do that.

Take the worst possible option that any reasonable person could take in any given situation. Now think of how an unreasonable person could take that option and add "Wile E. Coyote" levels of incompetence to it. THAT is the option that Trump always chooses.

Who is going to buy tickets to this? Who the hell has a vested interest in keeping this sack of shit out of prison?

  1. Grifters who think their turn on top is just around the corner
  2. MAGA cultists who have managed to not spend every last dime they had
  3. Foreign powers looking to fan the flames of this dumpster fire

I think (and am deeply saddened by it) that many people would go just for the proximity to Trump, not because they care one way or the other about Giuliani.

As someone not from America, and having never gone to jail, what is this?

Someone has already explained the mechanics of bail to you but from a cultural perspective it's important to note that someone going to one of these storefront bail bondsmen is interpreted as a sign that you are

  1. in an awful lot of trouble

  2. probably a person to avoid because your problems will have a tendency to become my problems

  3. broke enough that you're willing to pay punitive interest in order to stay out of jail

Normally I'd be all on my soapbox about how the bail system essentially means that poor people get punished more for the same crimes and shit like that but this guy really is an absolute monster. Back in the 90s everyone loved him for "cleaning up New York City" using the twin powers of aggressively racist policing and violence against homeless people. After 9/11 they all but made him a saint, started calling him "America's Mayor" and shit like that, but those of us who had been paying attention knew that he was a shit leader and a shit person who was benefiting from the fact that we needed someone to rally behind after the tragedy that was the 9/11 attacks. Watching him be exposed for the grifter and criminal that he always was has been cathartic for a lot of people.

To expand on why this isn't a good look - bail bondsmen typically charge a non-refundable 10% of bail. So if you're a former mayor who shit on your own legacy by trying to overthrow the government and your bail is set at $150,000 that means you're paying a bail bondsman $15,000 that you won't get back ever. That $15,000 is a fee that they apply in case they need to hire a bounty hunter to drag your delinquent ass to court.

A person usually tries pretty hard to raise bail without paying a bondsman because they don't want to lose that 10%. So this is basically the equivalent of Giuliani going to a Payday Loans lender to get an advance on his paycheck at a predatory rate.

Yeah just thought the pay day loans comparison from another comment.

So so you get your bond back normally if you don't break the terms of the bond? And this way they lose that deposit but they may only have 15k not 150k.

Yeah normally you get the full amount of bail back from the court. The 10% fee is what a bondsman charges as interest / risk of your fleeing.

Yeah, The problem isn't the bondsman. A 10% fee to front $100k that could go poof if the perp decides to flee is reasonable, imo. The problem is cash bail in the first place. The only time it should be used is if there's a reasonable risk of the person fleeing. Instead we use it for each and every criminal regardless, just to fuck them over.

I'm not going to flee the country cause I got busted with a little weed but they'll still stick you with a $5000 bond. Not to mention people that are wrongly arrested and charged. They have to come up with a ton of money, pay a bondsman, or sit in jail. All because some asshole cop decided to wrongly arrest you.

Ah thanks. So this is like a pay day loan lender but for bail bonds?

Yeah, more or less. You only go to them when your other option is to sit in jail while you lose your job, car and house awaiting the opportunity to prove your innocence.

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Basically, if you are deemed not a risk to the community/flight risk(all arguable in this case but they did set them bail amounts), the courts give you a sum based on your accused offense you can pay to get out of jail till the trial date. If you show up to trial you get the bail amounts back, if you don't you get a warrant and the courts keep your money. Where bail "bonds" come into play, is they are companies acting as pseudo banks who will lend you money to make bail with interest obviously. It's very predatory because the only people who generally have to use these are poor people and the states don't care about poor criminals enough to make it not so predatory.

I haven’t seen bonds work like that (but I don’t doubt some do). The way they work around me is:

  1. You get a bond for $2000

  2. You go to a bail bondsman and give them the paperwork

  3. You pay 15% of your bond to them ($300 in this case)

  4. That’s it. They keep your $300 and they post your $2000 bail. You don’t get your $300 back when you go to court. But you also don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter and you don’t get additional charges for skipping as long as you show up for your court date.

edit: my brain stopped working on point 4 as pointed out by @Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world

But you also don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter and you don’t get additional charges for skipping your court date.

Oh you absolutely do get hunted down by a bounty hunter and get additional charges for skipping your court date. Bail Bondsmen don't take kindly to losing money because you skipped bail. If you could avoid additional charges and getting hunted down, everybody would just run to their local bail bondsman, drop 10%, and then just skip town.

Sorry, that was worded very poorly on my part. I don't even know what I was trying to say there but it should be "as long as you show up for your court date." I think I forgot what I was typing out halfway through that sentence, hahaha.

Edit: I just figured out what happened. That was meant to be a continuation from the first sentence, not a separate thought. Rearranged and commas added for clarity: You don’t get your $300 back, you don’t get hunted down by a bounty hunter, and you don’t get additional charges for skipping out when you show up on your court date(s).

Great post and explanation.

Worth also noting the amount varies for state/federal/immigration-related bonds (generally increasing from 10/15/20%). This can vary by state law, too.

It can also vary depending on the size of the bond. A $200,000 bond may have a higher percentage than a $2,000.

Getting in lots of trouble is much more expensive than getting into little bits of trouble, in one of the few progressively-structured aspects of our criminal justice system.

Also worth noting it's probably only progressively-structured because the constitution requires it, via the 8th amendment.

Cheers, definitely predatory. Not a good look for him then.

If you have a lot of money/property you put that up for 100% of the bail amount, which you get back if you show up to court.

If you don't have enough money/property, you go to a bondsman, pay the 10% and they put up the other 90%. You never get your 10% back even if you show in court.

So if you're gonna run, you just pay the 10%, which over the decades resulted in bail amounts 10x higher than they should be.

It's basically a "poor tax" that Rudy apparently has to pay.

So the bail bondsman isn't going to come after you to get back the 90% he lost when you didn't show up for court?

The system was created when you could just move a state over and start a new life.

The bondsman can still send someone after you, but these days it's more likely they wait for the cops to find you and then sue you.

But I'm pretty sure most don't have any money at that point anyways, there's no financial incentive to spend money looking, it's just a "cost of doing business" at this point when someone runs.

But say the bondsman put up for your bail, and collected 10,000 from you plus whatever fees. If you don't go back to court that bail bondsman is out $90,000. It seems like it would be worth tracking you down to bring you in so that he could get his 90,000 back

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He's no dummy. He doesn't want to forfeit his own money if he decides to skip out...

I mean it is a big deal, oddly though I don't feel all that satisfied I'm just trusting that the professionals are handling it and I trust that the right outcome will eventually prevail

I don't think anybody's losing it over Giuliani getting what he deserves

Wait... do we not get to see the mugshots?

Magnificent. The photographer really needs to figure out exposure settings.

I dunno, you see the industrial cameras the DMV and cops use? May not be that fancy.

Yeah, I thought my humor was obvious

I thought it was funny. Though, it's kinda funnier that everyone is having so much trouble understanding that.

Sometimes a joke doesn't work for everyone, but hey at least there's comedy in misunderstanding.

I was under the impression that smiling was not allowed for a mugshot. I guess i was wrong.

What do they do if you refuse to stop smiling? Do they punch you until you stop?

They have a chart to check your financial assets against your skin tone to see how much physical violence is encouraged.

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One of his co-defendants is a bail bondsman - no need to leave the intake area to find one!