Justice Department

Problems in Collecting Forfeited Corporate Surety Bail Bonds Gao ID: GGD-87-114BR September 22, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Department of Justice's collection of forfeited corporate surety bail bonds in four districts to determine the: (1) number of defendants released on bond prior to trial; (2) number of defendants who failed to appear in court; (3) dollar amount of forfeited bonds; and (4) reasons why the funds remained uncollected.

GAO found that: (1) of the 1,386 cases reviewed, 91 defendants were released on corporate surety bail bonds; (2) 21 defendants failed to appear in court; (3) two of the four districts had bail bonds totalling $442,000; (4) although one of the districts collected 100 percent of the funds owed, the other district collected only 9.7 percent of the funds, leaving $342,500 in uncollected funds; and (5) most of the funds remained uncollected because U.S. attorneys failed to initiate collection actions because of heavy case loads.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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