Stepson gets self arrested for Assault. Bond is set at $50K. After a week or two, we scrape up the $5,000 to get him out of the county jail. A week after that, the county drops charges. The bondsman gets to keep our $5,000.

I'm happy to be wrong, and of course I am not a lawyer, but there is something not quite right about arresting someone, extracting $5,000 for their release and then the charges are dropped (don't know why).

Seems like I should be able to get my $5,000 back from someone if there is no case to answer.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks.