“F the Courts” and Free Repeat Rapists and Cop Killers: Hollywood-Funded Bail Funds Harming Public Safety and Destabilizing Criminal Justice

Bail funds are popping up all over the country in an attempt to upend the criminal justice system. In all but one state (New York), these bail funds go unregulated, unlicensed, and unchecked…posting cash bonds for defendants regardless of charge and under the premise of helping those who otherwise could not afford their bail…or so they say.

The apparent goal of bail funds is to destabilize the system of public safety and criminal justice in the United States of America. End the system. That is the goal. In fact, that is what they say their goal is: according to one fund they want to “abolish all pretrial detention,” meaning that no one is arrested or is held in jail until after trial.

In Boston, a rapist who was held in jail for two years, was bailed out by the Massachusetts Bail Fund, and then committed rape only three weeks later. He is accused of forcibly raping a woman who he held at knifepoint.

The Boston Police Commissioner didn’t mince words: “I hope they never get a wink of sleep — because this is absolutely ridiculous,” Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said in a phone interview with the Herald. “This could have been prevented.”

In Minneapolis, Fox 9 recently exposed that the Minnesota Freedom Fund has bailed out a variety of violent offenders including a person charged with shooting at the Minneapolis SWAT team for $75,000, a person accused of stabbing a friend to death for $100,000, and a person charged with rape and sexual assault for $350,000. “No questions asked” by the Fund according to the story.

In the wake of George Floyd, these so-called charitable or community bail funds have raised over $100 million since April, much of it from celebrities and others with the goal of bailing out “peaceful protestors.” The fact is…these funds are being used to bail out repeat rapists and those who shoot at law enforcement officers, in addition to the hordes of others who are repeat offenders being sprung from jail by these private and unregulated funds. In other words, Hollywood types thought they were helping the movement by posting bail for peaceful protestors with the donations they made, when in fact they are not. These include Steve Carrel, Seth Rogan, and Chrissy Tiegen to name a few who donated directly to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

For the Minnesota Freedom Fund, it conceded that, despite their haul of $35 million, that they helped only 12 protestors. TWELVE. Not exactly the jail break everyone was expecting. There is no information on what those bails were, but they were likely quite low. If that is any model for the nation, then we have to ask…where is the rest of the money going to go?

We now know where the big haul of cash from the Hollywood stars is going: toward bailing out repeat rapists, those who shoot at police officers, and those who commit highly violent crimes over and over and over again.

In response to allegations of bailing out such persons, Greg Lewin, Executive Director of the Minnesota Freedom Fund, who the Hollywood stars directly support and fund, said that they don’t even look at the charges in most cases. Not only are the funders and Board of Directors at the Freedom Fund not worrying about not getting a “wink of sleep,” to the contrary, they are publicly saying they don’t care what the charges are in the first place.

What the defendant is charged with: “It’s not the point,” says Lewin. In fact, the Fund “often” doesn’t even look at the charges at all. They may find out later. Lewin says the jailers always given them some lip about bailing out sex offenders, but that doesn’t faze Lewin or the Hollywood-bankrolled Minnesota Freedom Fund: “The point is the system we are fighting.”

So on a day when the Boston Herald runs an opinion piece entitled Bailing Out Repeat Offenders No Way to Help The Community, one might ask a simple question: can we trust people who don’t look at the charges, who are unregulated, who have a mountain of Hollywood money bilked off of stars, and have an intent to destroy the criminal justice system entirely in this country to simply rein themselves in? We wouldn’t think so. As the Suffolk County District Attorney put it, all of the bail reforms that have been implemented in Boston are not enough for reformers and will never be enough for the Fund because they “just don’t believe in jail.” They are indeed a leftist version of the tea party—ban everything, but have no solutions other than chaos. Chaos funded by Hollywood and as Greg Lewin put it…”F THE COURTS.”

Without oversight, Lewin and the nationwide network of bail funds will keep bailing out repeat rapists, those who fire guns on police, and those who stab their friend to death with a knife, and anyone else they want in the spirit of dismantling the system. They will all get out of jail free because Hollywood money is funding the release of these so-called “peaceful protestors.” Or, at least, that is the charitable purpose for which the funds were raised.

That said, will the 12 peaceful protestors in Minneapolis please come forward—we’ll write a check for the fistful of dollars it took to bail them out on their petty bails.

Today, $99 million remains from the Hollywood stars and starlets coffers to wreak havoc on public safety from coast-to-coast—repeat criminals will benefit from this bail lottery and victims will lose, sometimes with their lives in what is a cruel version of bail Russian roulette. A victim will wake up one morning to find out that someone walked into jail with a bag of cash, picked a random case number, and played the reverse bail lottery on that victim. And when the perpetrator later shows up at the door, they’ll have no warning it was coming. The Fund is not going to even bother looking at the charges, much less whether there is a victim involved or the criminal history of the defendant or what the defendant did in the first place. Because, as Mr. Lewin said, “THAT IS NOT THE POINT.”

It’s time for state and local governments to wake up and realize there is a need to regulate these funds and perhaps prohibit them. Maybe the Hollywood folks who bankrolled the Minnesota Freedom Fund should ask for their money back before the parade of repeat rapists and violent offenders begin to take to twitter to thank them for their thoughtful efforts to the “movement.”

The posting of bail by for-profit entities is regulated in all 50 states. Non-profit bail funds are today regulated in only 1 state—New York. If states do not act, thousands more dangerous felons will be bailed out in perpetuity with the remaining $99 million in free Hollywood funds that bail funders call an unlimited revolving door of cash. That is, until the entire system of justice simply collapses.

Experts and photo credit: Fox 9 KMSP Minnesota nonprofit with $35M bails out those accused of violent crimes

“F the Courts” and Free Repeat Rapists and Cop Killers: Hollywood-Funded Bail Funds Harming Public Safety and Destabilizing Criminal Justice