They are the few, the rich, the seriously indicted. And they don’t get out of jail free.
By posting a total of $6 million to secure his release from Rikers, Dominique Strauss-Kahn joins the rarified world of multi-millionaire felony indemnitors.
Seldom do America’s bails go so high, say experts — and those rare examples include some of the country’s most notorious big-bucks baddies.
In New York State, Bernard Madoff and Tyco embezzler Dennis Kozlowski handed authorities $10 million cash each to secure their pre-disposition freedom.
Strauss-Kahn yesterday posted $1 million cash plus a $5 million bond secured by his wealthy wife’s cash.
“His is one of the largest commercial bails ever in state history,” said celebrity bondsman Ira Judelson, who handled the bond.
Strauss-Kahn’s bond is backed by cash put up by his wife, Anne Sinclair — money that falls somewhat short of the total $5 million. Judelson said that he has no worries that the disgraced international banker will welch on the loot.
Judelson wouldn’t say how much the wife is paying him in fees. But bail bondsmen typically charge around five or six percent fees to write million-dollar bonds — meaning Sinclaire could be out as much as a quarter million dollars just to pay for the bond to be written.
That’s on top of what prosecutors estimated will be the family’s $200,000 a month cost of security monitoring during his home confinement.
“This to me is a very compfortable bond because of the security that’s set up,” said Judelson, who has handled the bonds for such big names as Lil Wayne and Plaxico Burress.
“I’m not worried one bit about securing his return to court.”
Wherever he winds up serving his confinement, Strauss-Kahn will be monitored by armed guards from the Stroz Friedberg security firm — the same outfit that monitored Madoff’s home confinement.
“Very few people can make a bail that high,” said Judelson, who nearly handled the absolute bail record-holder: the whopping total $33 bond requested in Brooklyn two years ago of Michail Sorodsky, a phony doctor accused of committing sexual abuses against anesthetized patients.
Sorodsky ultimately couldn’t foot the bill.