In less than a week, Trump ally Tom Barrack was freed for $250 million and Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton was released for $100 million — two of the highest U.S. bail amounts in recent years.
The bail amounts highlight a little understood part of the criminal justice system, where deals are often made behind closed doors, and what critics say is a system that traps the poor.
“The bonds required for Barrack and Milton are unusually high because both defendants are unusually wealthy,” Darryl Brown, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, wrote in an email. “The purpose of the bond is to ensure that the defendant returns to court and doesn’t flee the country. The bond amount has to be high enough that a defendant isn’t willing to walk away from it.”
While two back-to-back nine-figure bail packages are unusual, enormous bonds aren’t a new phenomenon. The highest U.S. bail is believed to be $3 billion, set in 2003 by a Texas judge for real estate heir Robert Durst, after he already jumped bail once. An appeals court later slashed the amount to $450,000. Galleon Group LLC’s Raj Rajaratnam was freed on $100 million bail in 2009 and junk bond king Michael Milken faced a quarter-billion-dollar demand in 1989. Bernie Madoff’s bail was set at $10 million and he struggled to meet it, unable to find four people to co-sign for him.