The long road to restitution

Never judge a book by its cover.

Peyton Thomas had to learn that old lesson the hard way.

Thomas and his wife started their own business, Jubilee Builders, in 2000, and they did it without going into debt.

Looking for people they could trust, they turned to their son’s church daycare teacher, Courtney Breedlove, hiring her to help with finances and around the office.

“Things were going great, the business was growing, and this was a new thing for us,” Thomas said. “We’d never run a business before. We kind of wrapped our arms around her, brought her into our family, and she became part of the team. We treated her like a daughter and tried to help her out. Little did we know, the whole time she was stealing from us and had created this scheme that was pretty ingenious.”

Just three years after the business opened, Thomas was missing thousands of dollars, all stolen by Breedlove through a scheme that nearly forced Jubilee’s doors closed as quickly as they opened.

“She had a system where she was basically forging checks, getting counter checks from the bank and basically putting an amount on there that was made out to her,” Thomas said. “The stealing probably went on for a couple years. It was small at first, a little bit here and a little bit there, but she got bolder and bolder as time went on. It just got out of hand, and we caught her. The system she was using to do this was pretty dang conniving. You just wouldn’t expect your son’s church teacher to steal from you.”

Breedlove pleaded guilty to 12 counts of theft by deception in 2003 and served two years of a six-year sentence, according to Brian Corbett of the Department of Corrections.

“She was supposed to get out, go to work and start paying us back,” Thomas said. “It’s just been years ticking by and ‘This is gonna happen’ and ‘This special hearing’ and (so on), and we haven’t gotten it. She’s made no attempt. She quit a job because we were garnishing her wages. She’s made no attempt to pay us back and has no intentions to pay us back.”

Thomas, who is still waiting to collect about $82,000 in court-mandated restitution, is far from alone in his problems.

According to Houston County District Attorney Doug Valeska, Houston County is owed about $84 million in court fees, fines and victim restitution, though the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts says there’s no way of determining exactly how much of that money is collectible.

Spokesman Dean Hartzog said the AOC is currently working on a detailed report that would indicate how much collectible money is owed throughout the state in fines, court costs and restitution.

According to the Code of Alabama, the onus is on the district attorney’s office to collect the money.

Valeska, however, is among the most vocal public figures calling for the outstanding fees to be collected statewide.

“Tell me how many millions of dollars are owed to the state of Alabama by criminals who aren’t paying, and if we only collected 10 percent of that, we wouldn’t have proration, education wouldn’t be in the red, Medicaid and law enforcement would be taken care of,” he said.

Defense attorney Tom Brantley said it’s not so easy for some criminals to pay restitution.

“Obviously they may have become involuntarily unemployed or involuntarily underemployed. That’s the main reason they would not make their restitution payments,” Brantley said. “You’re going to have some defendants that, like society in general, just have bad attitudes about doing the right thing. That’s going to be a reason they don’t pay, but a lot of well-intending people out there are charged with reimbursing victims that just come upon hard times. And those are the ones that require the most attention from the court to make a fair and equitable decision as to whether they’re locked up or continue on some kind of payment plan.”

Valeska said he understands defendants who go to jail or die can’t pay their restitution, but the problem lies in those who simply refuse to do so.

“Those people should be held accountable, and they’re not,” he said. “It’s like a revolving door. Look at all the time and money spent on these people. If they’re doing life, they can’t pay. But how many are out on parole or work release and their condition is to pay and they don’t pay? If they’re paroled, we don’t know where they are paroled to, so how can we chase them to collect fines, court costs or restitution? If they’re paroled in Atmore, they don’t come back to Dothan, they go to Birmingham, so how am I gonna find them?”

Complicating matters, it’s the duty of the county clerk to notify the DA’s office when people are behind on their restitution.

“A report is given to the district attorney, the DA files a motion to show cause, and the defendant has to show a valid reason why they are late and why they should not be assessed an additional 30 percent of their fees or even incarcerated,” said Houston County Circuit Clerk Carla Woodall. “The judge can revoke probation.”

Unfortunately, Woodall said, a number of factors make it difficult for victims to receive their restitution.

“It’s difficulty finding people, difficulty knowing when inmates are released from prison and a backlog of cases,” she said. “When you do show cause somebody and add that 30 percent, it complicates things. If they owed $100,000, that’s $30,000 (extra). It has priority status, which means the show cause 30 percent goes ahead of restitution. Every payment that person makes goes to a show cause fee. We’re very cautious about people that have high amount of restitution to victims because show cause fees are collected ahead of restitution fees.”

Jail overcrowding could become a problem if the county pursues defendants who legitimately can’t make their payments.

“There’s a difference between inability to pay and not wanting to pay,” Woodall said. “There are some cases that are just not collectible, and we certainly don’t want to then incarcerate the person and the county be responsible for medical bills and taking care of a person in jail. You’ve got to be careful not to overcrowd your jail with people because they wrote a bad check as opposed to rapists, murderers and sex offender s you can’t put in jail because it’s overcrowded.”

When the criminal is imprisoned, it makes keeping track of them even more difficult, according to Valeska and Woodall.

“The department of corrections does not notify the court system when the defendant is released,” Woodall said. “I have talked to Montgomery for two or three years begging for communication with the department of corrections. Just because the judge sentences someone to 10 years doesn’t mean they serve 10 years. That defendant is classified based on background and behavior in the facility. They get credit for good time served. They then determine the end of sentence date. We don’t know that classification.”

Steve Wilkerson, a DeFuniak Springs, Fla., resident, was assaulted at a Dothan bar in 2001 and nearly lost both his eyes.

His assailant is still in prison, eligible for release in October, and Wilkerson is owed $80,000 to cover his extensive medical costs.

“He’s been in jail six years now, and they let him do double time, so every year he gets counts for two,” Wilkerson said. “I don’t care about the time anymore. What’s really important is the money. I haven’t seen a dime. I was always taught there are laws to protect us, but that’s not the case. Who’s going to force this guy to work off his debt?”

Brandi Cole, who works with victims through the district attorney’s office, said her phone rings constantly about the issue of restitution.

“At least every week there would be probably seven people that call us,” she said. “It depends on the case, because if you have a case where the defendant’s in prison, they’re not going to be given restitution until they get to a work facility or work camp or they get out. At that point, they come out and if nobody actually told them their time served didn’t pay for their restitution, which it doesn’t, they never know it. Then you’re 11 years out from the crime that actually took place, the victim is thinking they’re going to get restitution, the defendant doesn’t have a clue, leaves the state, we can’t find him and it’s never collected.”

Thomas managed to overcome the significant financial loss.

Jubilee Builders is still active and profitable, and Thomas has managed to avoid going into debt.

“We’ve found success in spite of it all,” Thomas said. “We’re thankful for the homes we’re able to build. We run a debt-free operation, work and home. That’s the only reason were still in business, we don’t have any debt. If we relied on credit, no way we’d have been able to make it after (the theft).”

Edwin Tinsley, a building consultant who has worked for Jubilee Builders for about four years, said he’s amazed the company survived the financial loss so early in its existence.

Still, Thomas longs for the day when he’ll finally be repaid for what was taken from him.

“The judge looked her in the eye and said he’s gonna put her back in jail if she doesn’t start trying, but that was this past summer and nothing’s happened,” Thomas said. “I want to rely on the system to help, but the system is not doing anything to help. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope, but we’re not giving up. Just a little payment would make us feel there’s some sort of fairness to it all.”

While the court system and DA’s office pointed to communication flaws as an issue, both said they understand victims’ frustrations.

“It sounds like a bunch of excuses,” Woodall said. “That is certainly not the case. We are doing all we possibly can, and we do have victims’ and court system’s best interests at heart. We’re interested in collecting money for victims and our own court systems. The more we collect, the more job security we have. It’s in our best interests to help. At times our hands are tied. We do care. A victim is not ever 100 percent whole again. A guilty verdict does help a victim, but their pocket book is still hurting. We need to do everything we can to fill that pocketbook and make them compensated for what they lost financially.”