Robin Ebersohl knew she had a loud muffler. She couldn’t afford to get it fixed. When she saw a police car, she thought she’d chance it and drive by.
It was a mistake bigger than she could have imagined.
She thought she might get a ticket. Instead, she got three days in jail and her father lost $500 in bail money.
Ebersohl, of Livingston in Madison County, wasn’t accused of a crime. She was arrested on a court order issued at the behest of a creditor trying to collect less than $1,000 she owned in medical bills.
Ebersohl, 51, was trapped in the 21st century version of debtor’s prison.
“It was awful. You get deloused. They do this in front of the guard. It was very embarrassing. It was very degrading,” she said. “I’d never been arrested before, never been in any kind of trouble.”
The term “debtors prison” summons up images of Dickensian England and Colonial America. As a formal matter, most states did away with debtors prisons in the early 1800s, along with the whipping post.
But lots of people still go to jail over unpaid debts in America - including Missouri and Illinois. Here’s how it happens:
A creditor goes to court and gets a judgment for an unpaid debt. The debtor is then summoned to court to be questioned by the creditor, who wants to know about assets that could be seized. It’s called a “pay or appear” hearing in Illinois.
If the debtor doesn’t show up, the creditor asks the judge for an arrest order. In Illinois, that’s called a “body attachment.”
Creditors and their lawyers say it’s necessary tool to make sure that debtors obey the courts.
“If we can’t enforce our contracts, and use the law to do that, what will we become?” asked William Asa, a creditors attorney in Metro East.
Consumer advocates say its used unfairly to squeeze money out of jailed defendants and coerce others with the threat of imprisonment.
Police generally don’t go hunting for debtors. But if they’re stopped for a traffic violation or some other reason, the warrant shows up on computer records and off to jail the debtor goes.
Creditors like body attachments because they make money on them, as Ebersohl can testify. She sat in jail until her father’s pension check arrived, and he paid her $500 bail.
Then the court released the bail to her creditor, the Credit Bureau of Macoupin County. Her father was out the money.
“It’s considered the property of the defendant,” says Brent Cain, who represented the Credit Bureau. After all, the Credit Bureau had a judgement against Ebersohl and thus could take her property.
That’s common practice, says Beverly Yang, attorney at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance, which provides free legal representation for the poor.
“This process is THE method of collection,” she said.
Arrests of debtors are common today in Southern Illinois, according to Yang. She said Madison County courts issued 65 such arrest orders from April to December of last year. Ebersohl’s arrest was in October 2007 on an order issued in Macoupin County.
Missouri courts are issuing arrest orders for debtors, too, said Rob Swearingen, attorney for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. So-called “capias” warrents are issued “over and over again” in St business cards. Louis city, he said, although he said he is just beginning to study the issue and doesn’t know how common it is in the state.
The idea of jailing debtors is drawing criticism in Illinois. The state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation is holding hearings on the practice around the state, including one last Monday in Alton.
The department, which regulates lenders, revoked the license of a Easy Money Express, a Carbondale loan company in 2010 for obtaining arrest orders for debtors. The lender got its license back after agreeing to stop the practice.
Yang complains that defendants often don’t know they’ve been summoned to court until they are thrown in jail. Notices of “appear or pay” hearing come by regular mail, she said If the debtor has moved, or didn’t see the letter, they don’t know to appear.
That’s what Ebersohl says happened to her.
Ebersohl was truck driver in 2002, when she came down with cancer. She conquered that, but the ordeal aggravated her diabetes, and she could no longer drive a truck.
She lost her health insurance, along with her job, but her medical bills kept piling up. Eventually, she qualified for disability benefits.
Her creditors sued, got a judgment against her, and began summoning her to “pay or appear” hearings every few months. That’s also a common practice, says Yang, who considers it harassment.
Ebersohl says she went to court every time she got a notice. But says she was never knew about the hearing that caused her arrest. “If I’d got the notice, I would have went,” she said.
Sharon, who identified herself as manager at the Credit Bureau of Macoupin County, declined comment on Ebersohl’s particular case. But she said the agency takes a slow, phased approach to collections.
Before filing suit, the collection agency spends three months trying through letters and phone calls to persuade a debtor to pay, always politely, she said.
“Sometimes people get pretty violent. I’ve been threatened a few times, even today,” said Sharon, who declined to give her last name. “We try to be really nice.”
The agency files suit only if the debtor is making no effort to pay or stay in contact.
“A warrant is issued only when they are in contempt of court - when they refuse to show up or follow the judge’s order,” she said.
Rather than by mail, all their legal papers are delivered by off-duty policemen, she said.
Swearingen says his debtor clients in Missouri often never learn they’ve been sued until after they’re facing a wage garnishment. Missouri law doesn’t allow legal papers to be served by mail in most cases. But it does allow service to someone at the same address. Especially if the defendant has moved, he may never see the papers.
Yang is pressing for changes in Illinois forbidding serving papers by mail, or by summoning people to “pay or appear” hearings over and over again. In some counties, debtors must appear every month, she says. One hearing should be enough.
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