They Call It a "$5,000 Bond." The Word "Cash" Makes It a $50,000 One.

They will tell you it is a "$5,000 bond" — like that is nothing. But they leave out the one word that does all the work: cash.

It is a $5,000 CASH bond. A cash bond is not the roughly 10% a bondsman takes on an ordinary bail bond. A cash bond means the entire amount, in cash, up front before you walk out the door. Out of my own pocket, a $5,000 cash bond is the equivalent of a roughly $50,000 bail bond — on a misdemeanor.

Setting it as cash instead of surety, on a misdemeanor, is not about flight risk. It is a way to keep a man locked up and financially squeezed. I challenged these conditions as unconstitutional. I told the court, on the record, that they violate my rights and make it impossible for me to work and pay my bills. I was questioned without ever being read my Miranda rights, and I am defending myself pro se because I have not been able to retain counsel.

And if they got the easy part wrong…

Look at that coverage again. They could not even get the bond right — something as simple and on-the-record as a number off a jail document. They printed "$5,000" and left out that it was set as cash, the one detail that changes what it actually means.

So ask yourself the obvious question. If the reporting cannot get a number off a public record correct, why would you trust the same coverage to tell you how a gun was "grabbed" or not grabbed in a parking lot — a disputed fact that a jury is supposed to decide under oath, not a headline written in a day?

That is the real danger of this kind of press. A headline reaches thousands of people — any one of whom could end up in a jury box — long before a single piece of evidence is tested in a courtroom. By the time the facts are actually examined, the story has already been written in the public's mind. I am not asking anyone to take my word over theirs. I am asking you to wait for the record, because the record is the only thing tested under oath — and it is the only protection I have left.