Barrack spent three nights in jail as his bail package was negotiated—he was released after putting up his house, $5 million in cash and units in DigitalBridge Group Inc., the successor to his Colony Capital Inc. Barrack’s ex-wife, son and former business partner also chipped in their properties as security.
Milton secured his $100 million bail with two properties valued at $40 million. Milton may live in one of them, a 2,700-acre Utah ranch, as he awaits trial on charges that he misled investors about the company.
Both men have pleaded not guilty.
The vast majority of people who are arrested and charged can’t afford to purchase their release and sit in jail for no reason at profound human and economic costs even if the bond is set in the hundreds, or thousands of dollars, said Sandra Mayson, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. While wealthier clients can reclaim any cash forked over for bail, an indigent person is often paying a bail bondsmen for the money they need to get out of jail.
Such inequity has spurred a nationwide movement to ban cash bail.
The movement got a spur from California’s highest state court, which said in March that judges must weigh the defendant’s ability to pay.
“The common practice of conditioning freedom solely on whether an arrestee can afford bail is unconstitutional,” the judges said in a unanimous opinion, based on the case of a 66-year-old Black man in San Francisco who was charged with robbing a 79-year-old victim of $7 and a bottle of cologne. The bail for the defendant was initially set at $600,000, although a judge later reduced it to $350,000.
Even with a bondsman who would only charge 10% to post the full bail amount, a public defender in the case noted the defendant was too poor to make the reduced bail.
“Mr. Barrack’s high-profile case only underscores what the vast majority of people who experience the U.S. criminal legal system know all too well: there is one system of justice for the rich and another for the poor,” said Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute of Justice.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.