GOP Rep. Scott Fitzgerald Introduces Legislation To Charge Bail Funds As 'Insurance Fraud'

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]For what purpose does the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald seek recognition?

[00:00:06]Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1275, I call up bill HR 6260 and I ask for its immediate consideration in the house. Clerk report the title of the bill. Union calendar number 521, HR 6260, a bill to amend title 18, United States Code to prohibit fraud in connection with posting bail.

[00:00:27]Pursuant to House Resolution 1275, the amendment in the nature of substitute recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary Judicial Judiciary printed in the bill is adopted and the bill as amended is considered read. The bill is bill as amended shall be debated for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee of Judiciary of or their respective designee. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald and the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin each control 30 minutes. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on HR 6260.

[00:01:20]>> Without objection.

[00:01:22]I will yield myself as much time as I may consume. The gentleman is recognized.

[00:01:28]Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[00:01:30]I rise in support of HR 6260, the Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act.

[00:01:36]The bill defines the posting of cash bail by a corporate nonprofit or for-profit entity as engaged in the business of insurance subjecting them to federal insurance laws and our criminal fraud statute.

[00:01:53]The use of crowd sourcing for posting bail has long been scrutinized by the courts now and as a way to disguise the true source of the funds.

[00:02:05]Uh that's because if there is little or no relationship between the defendant and those supplying the money, the bail money provides no incentive to prevent or defend from simply fleeing the jurisdiction.

[00:02:20]This is especially true if the money does not have to be paid back.

[00:02:25]But while crowdsourcing funds is generally illegal, the use of charitable bail funds remains legal in most states.

[00:02:33]Charitable bail funds generally flew under the radar until 2020 when George Floyd the George Floyd riots caused revenues to balloon thanks to solicitations from celebrities and some politicians.

[00:02:48]Um what used to be kind of a small community-based organization that helped post bail for non-violent misdemeanors has grown into a multi-million dollar industry.

[00:03:01]For example, the Minnesota Freedom Fund saw revenues increase by 18,000% between 2019 and 2020.

[00:03:09]In a similar situation, the Bail Project saw its contributions triple in 2020 to nearly $42 million.

[00:03:17]Perhaps more alarming, uh what was intended to help bail out low-level non-violent protesters has instead been used to release violent felony offenders back into the streets with no or little oversight.

[00:03:31]And in 2021, for example, the Minnesota Freedom Fund released a domestic abuser back onto the street. Two weeks later, the man, George Howard, was charged with second-degree murder for a road rage incident.

[00:03:44]Michael De Witt of Louisville, Kentucky was bailed out by the Bail Project in February of 2021 after being arrested on multiple charges. Two months later he was arrested for murder.

[00:03:58]Sean Michael Tillman, 3 weeks after having bail paid by the Minnesota Freedom Fund, murdered a man at a light rail station in St. Paul and is now serving life sentence for that crime.

[00:04:12]So Mr. Speaker, the list kind of continues to go on and on and according to an investigation conducted by CNN in Hennepin County, Minnesota, the Minnesota Freedom Fund has bailed out at least 65 defendants who were waiting trial on felony charges involving violence, physical threats, or sex crimes.

[00:04:33]Similarly, in Indiana of the roughly 1,000 defendants released on bail supplied by The Bail Project between 2019 and 2021, 24% had previously been charged with a crime of violence and 35% were accused of felony charges and had a previous charge of at least one crime of violence.

[00:04:56]And because these funds are crowdsourced, there's no incentive for the defendants to show up for their court date.

[00:05:04]And guess what? Many of them don't.

[00:05:07]Again, according to the network CNN, nearly 42% of roughly 500 defendants bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund later failed to appear at one or more court hearings between 2021 and 2022.

[00:05:21]Commercial bail companies, by comparison, had a failure to appear rate of only 22%.

[00:05:27]So it's working in the private sector.

[00:05:30]And during that same period there are new numbers that demonstrate that this trend will continue.

[00:05:36]This is why many states have begun regulating the use of charitable bail funds.

[00:05:42]Georgia, for example, limits the amount of cash bonds a charitable bail fund can pay in a given year.

[00:05:50]Indiana prohibits the use of charitable bail funds for posting bail for violent felony offenders.

[00:05:57]And unfortunately, state-by-state patchwork is now developing and that will obviously not solve this problem.

[00:06:05]That's why we introduced the Keeping Violent Offenders Off the Streets Act.

[00:06:09]This bill makes a small, a very small but important change to our criminal code to define bail bonds as an insurance product. That's it.

[00:06:20]Thereby subjecting it to the same federal background check and regulatory requirements as those of for-profit bail agencies under the Federal Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1994.

[00:06:36]This change would also bring charitable bail funds under state insurance regulation giving states the ability to better scrutinize the use of these funds.

[00:06:45]Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. This bill does not outlaw the use of charitable bail funds, nor does it regulate the posting of cash bail by family and friends of the accused.

[00:06:56]This bill merely says that if you are operating as a non-for-profit with the purpose of posting cash bail you should be subjected to the same regulation and oversight requirements as those operating as a for-profit entity.

[00:07:12]This will bring needed oversight to organizations that for years have gone unregulated while ensuring accountability of these funds by subjecting them to federal insurance fraud statutes if they misappropriate funds or misrepresent the use of these funds in any financial reports.

[00:07:31]I urge all members to vote yes on the bill. I thank you and I reserve.