Television bounty hunter Dog Chapman set free on bail in Hawaii

AP ^ | 9/16/06

[Hannibal Hamlin]

Television bounty hunter Dog Chapman set free on bail in Hawaii

By Associated Press

Saturday, September 16, 2006 - Updated: 12:08 PM EST

HONOLULU - TV reality star Duane “Dog” Chapman and two co-stars accused of illegal detention and conspiracy in the bounty hunters’ capture of a cosmetics company heir in Mexico posted bail and were released Friday.

Chapman was released on $300,000 bail after spending the night in a federal detention center and his co-stars on the popular A&E show “Dog The Bounty Hunter” were freed on $100,000 bail each.

Chapman, his son, Leland Chapman, and associate Timothy Chapman, no relation, were arrested Thursday on charges stemming from the capture of Max Factor heir Andrew Luster on June 18, 2003, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, officials said.

Chapman’s capture of Luster, who had fled the country during his trial on charges he raped three women, catapulted the 53-year-old bounty hunter to fame and led to the reality series on A&E. Luster is now serving a 124-year prison term.

Bounty hunting is considered a crime in Mexico, and charges have been pending against the three since local police in Mexico arrested them shortly after they roped in Luster. They posted bail but never returned for their court hearing in July 2003, officials said.

Chapman made the sign of the cross and mouthed “I love you” to his wife, who was sitting in the front row of the crowded courtroom.

The men are now required to wear electronic monitoring devices until they return to court for extradition hearings to face trial in Mexico. The judge said they were not flight risks.

Chapman and his tattooed crew were ordered to surrender their passports, to stay in Hawaii and not possess any firearms.

Defense attorney Brook Hart, who successfully argued during the 1-hour, 10-minute hearing that his clients have no reason to be locked up, called the devices “overkill” but did not object to their use.

“It’s ironic that the bounty hunter would go around with a bracelet while arresting people. But so be it,” he said. Reporters and fans packed the courtroom, and several supporters held signs outside the federal courthouse saying, “Let go our hero” and “In Dog we Trust.” A&E TV crews were filming the events for a future episode of Chapman’s show. “Our whole family likes Dog. He captures people who do wrong. Plus my older sister wants to marry Leland,” said 11-year-old Shannon McNamara, of Los Angeles, who was wearing a Bounty Hunter shirt.

Chapman’s son Leland, 29, and Timothy Chapman, 41, assist him in exploits chronicled for the TV show around the Hawaiian Islands. The show focuses on Chapman’s family as much as the bounty hunting, which generally involves tracking down bail jumpers, often creating emotional scenes with repentant captives.

A member of a biker gang as a young man, Chapman was convicted in 1977 of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison.

[Enterprise]

You are probably right. Dog has a lot of money, and he and his sons are worth a LOT more alive than dead. There are a LOT of people in the Mexican extortion system that will benefit economically from the incarceration of him and his sons. However, there is still the chance that he is a "dead man walking" if he is turned over to them.

[Bogtrotter52]

"Our prosecutors are crazy for pursuing this. Dog should be given a medal, not jail."

The reason they are going after him is entirely diplomatic. By getting the rapist he embarressed the Mexican Govt. The authorities here will do anything they must to placate Mexico and pretend that Mexico is not what it truly is.....just another "turd world" country with no law other than how much you can pay in bribes.

[Enterprise]

BTW - I think this whole matter speaks a bit to the corruption of the DOJ in this country that he was ever arrested and jailed at the request of Mexican officials.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

I paid for my own god damned retirement, thank you very much.

OOooh, someone is in a foul mood.

If you happen to be in that 3% (+or-) of politicians who are NOT actively on the take, then with all sincerity possible, you have my apology.

Beyond that, my statement stands.

Politicians all across the country have sold themselves at bargain basement prices and will do everything within their powers to guarantee the cash keeps flowing. If that means shipping an asset like Mr. Chapman south of the border where he can be treated worse than his nickname, whats one American citizen more or less if it keeps everyone friends and keeps the retirement well funded?

[Constantine XIII]

He caught a rapist. I say go to the wall for him.

[Howard Jarvis Admirer]

I agree, and apparently so does Tom Tancredo. There is a previous post of a letter by Tancredo on the bizarre actions of Attorney General Gonzalez in the Department of Justice on turning Dog over to the Mexican government. Tancredo wanted to know which Administration wanted Dog processed - ours or the one in Mexico City.

BTW, all American Bounty hunters take notice. If you are overseas and happen to spot Osama Bin Ladin - DO NOT ARREST him! If you do, you are liable to end up like Dog. The Beaurocratic States (aka U.S.) Government will roll over on you (the U.S. citizen) and return you to (Pakistan / Syria / Iran) to face kidnapping charges. Attorney General Gonzalez will make sure you face Islamic justice(?), just as Dog now awaits Mexican justice(?).

[DoughtyOne]

...felons go to Mexico all the time and Mexico doesn't send them back here. WTF is going on?

It's politicians doing what politicians do. It's called pandering to those who are paying for your retirement.

It's politicians doing what politicians do. It's called pandering to those who are paying for your retirement.

Please help me out here. Are you a politician or did you take this personally for some other reason?

Just about all of us retirees on this forum have financed most if not all of our retirement ourselves and many more have paid far more into Social Security than we will ever live long enough to get back.I think the post referred to the huge retirement packages politicians receive, and not the rest of us who pay our own bills.


I'm not perfect so I may have misinterpreted what was written.  You can decide for yourself.  Here was my take on it.

The first poster wrote, "What the ---- is going on?".  This followed his/her observation that the U.S. jumps thorugh hoops to fulfill Mexico's demands when Mexico very seldom lift's a finger to fulfill our requests."  In response the second poster stated what I thought was an attempt to say that Mexico is sending it's nationals northward to shore up our Social Security system, and we don't want to offend them.

I am a very staunch supporter of getting our borders under control.  I do not want to see between 20 and 30 million Mexican nationals in the U.S. naturalized, so that they can then bring in five family members under chain immigration rules.  I take massive offense to the idea that our nation couldn't survive without these people, or that our Social Security system would colapse without them.

Note the second poster said, "...who are paying for your retirement."  Okay, who is paying for the retirement of those officials?  You and I are, and it's obvious they aren't pandering to us, are they.

No, I believe the post either meant that the illegal flow mustn't be cut off and or that the Social Security system would fail, if we offended Mexico.

Is Mexico paying for our officials retirements?  Well, at least not that we know of.

Thanks for asking.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

No, I believe the post either meant that the illegal flow mustn't be cut off and or that the Social Security system would fail, if we offended Mexico.

Um, No. That's not what I meant.


is Mexico paying for our officials retirements?

MUCH closer to the mark. It's just the officials aren't exactly declaring it on their W-2 forms. If you get my meaning.

[racing fan]

I like Bush especially in the last press news conference, but what is up with his cabinet? Condi wanted a ceasefire and got it, Rummy's Defense Department not firing on Taliban, and now Attorney General Gonzalez doing this. Time for a reorganization of the cabinet.

[DoughtyOne]

I don't happen to believe that 97% of the politicans in Washington, D. C. are on the take, although I'm not opposed to the idea that some of them are. I will admit that their votes cast an ominous cloud over their actions. I don't happen to think that the retirements of our elected officials in Washington are as dependent on Mexico's good will as you do. Beyond that, you and I probably agree on a lot more than we disagree.

Your post seemed to imply that "our" retirements depend on the flow of illegal aliens across our borders and I stridently object to that.

Who pays the retirements of our elected officials? You and I do. Are they pandering to us? Hell no. Who pays our retirements? Well, in some quarters it's becoming accepted that the Mexicans are and we better be careful. I'm not buying that for a second. That's why I responded as I did.

[DoughtyOne]

Then explain to the forum how Mexico pays the retirements of our elected officials. I'm all ears.

[PVT4evr]

Actually, it was the 4th ID that caught Hussein.

[Enterprise]

I'm not necessarily a Dog fan, but let's look at the scale here. If a Mexican National committed a burglary, an auto theft, or a forgery, and fled back to Mexico, I doubt that the US would waste the time and effort to get him back. All Dog did was to apprehend a felon that was wanted in the United States. Luster was then taken into custody by the Mexican authorities, and THEN returned to the United States. Luster was not even a MEXICAN citizen. So, why is the US GOVERNMENT wasting the resources to extradite someone who apprehended an AMERICAN fugitive in a foreign country? There was no theft or fraud, and no violent assault. Sure, it was against "Mexican law" but the scale of the violation does not warrant intervention by the US Government!

[Dr.Zoidberg]

I understand, I wasn't as concise as I should have been and as I have been told, that leads to confusion.

Do I think most Pols are on the take. Yes. Otherwise, there's little excuse for their betrayal of our laws. All of them? Maybe not, but a VERY significant number.

Do I think the arrest of "Dog" was motivated by politicians who are currently in mexico's pocket. Yes.

Do I think the average citizen of the U. S. needs mexico (and the torrent of illegals flooding across the border to suck at the teat of American government largess) to retire. Not no, but Hell No.

[Risha]

That quashes your arguement that everything in Mexico is more corrupt than the US.

Senor, the Mexican "Justice" system is far more corrupt then the United States.

You've eaten to many tequila worms amigo.

[SALChamps03]

We must remember that bounty hunters are not law officers. There have been horror stories where these cop wannabes break into people's houses illegaly. One shows up at my door and he enters my home at his own risk.

[DoughtyOne]

You explained what you meant and it's pointless to dispute your clarification, so I appologize.

Beyond that, it's also pointless to dispute that our government is currently in the pocket of big business. Whether direct payments are taking place or not, and I tend to disagree that they are on a large scale, some people do retire to private sector jobs that are unseemly in light of their former reponsibilities. On the other hand, some people are just full of it, and haven't a clue what they are doing with regard to our nation's future.

I tend to beleive there is a lot more of the latter than we care to admit. People are absolute fools. They learn nothing from history and think the same tactics of the past that failed miserably, will somehow turn out better this time around. Wrong!

Sorry to have given you such a hard time. I should have asked fore clarification and then discussed the matter with you.

Later...

[Howard Jarvis Admirer]

I agree - it does not warrant intervention by the US government - but Attorney General Gonzalez does not agree. But as other posters have commented, Dog cut down the money (mordida) tree by arresting moneybags Luster. Now the Mexican officials who were looking to extract mucho bucks from Luster want Dog back. Why? If Dog was poor, they wouldn't want him back. When Dog returns from Mexico (and after paying mucho $ mordida) he will be poorer.

A saying among Mexican politicians is: "A politician who is poor is a poor politician". Dog (and his relatives) will soon be contributing some much needed retirement cash to Mexican Federales and politicians, curtesy of Attorney General Gonzalez.

[Enterprise]

I've been trying to put a term to some of the nonsense that has been perpetrated in the name of "justice" in our judicial system. The terms that seem to fit are depravity, debauchery, and obscenity. President Clinton has an incident that fit these terms, and it was the Elian Gonzalez incident. Turning that little boy over to Castro was an act of depravity, debauchery, and obscenity. It was not justice. And that is how I would label this dog incident, it is one of depravity, debauchery and obscenity. It defies any reasoned description of "justice."

If the justice systems of Mexico and the United States were truly equal, I might look at this and be less apprehensive. But I know that any comparison of the two systems is like comparing a doctor in America who tries to treat AIDS with medicines with a witch doctor in Africa who advises his patients to have sex with virgins as a cure for AIDS.

This type of incident gives me great angst about our system. To the prosecutors, government officials, and judicial officials who have aided and abetted the prosecutions and/or persecutions of people like Limbaugh, Gonzales, Libby, DeLay, or Chapman I have a name for you too. You are not wise and learned men of the law, you are Princes of Debauchery. And damn all you worthless scum to hell.

[Howard Jarvis Admirer]

Well, the good news for Dog is that after he leaves prison in Mexico he will feel great. As Demaris points out in his book, anyone released from a Mexican hellhole rejoices and feels like he is in Heaven, which he is compared to where he just left. Besides, if you complain and make trouble, who knows when you will fall into the hands of the Mexican Federales again, yes?