Bounty hunter criminally charged after searching local woman’s home
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. May 30 2021 A bounty hunter is facing criminal charges after searching a local woman’s home last month.
On April 21st, Tarrant resident , Claudette Reese, said three bounty hunters invaded and ransacked her home while looking for her son.
“I was scared,” Reese said while fighting back tears. “I complied with them. I let them in and I let them search my house. They went through all my things.”
Reese said she was home alone when two bounty hunters, wearing guns and bullet proof vests, came knocking at her door.
The bounty hunters were looking for her son for failing to appear in court. She was a co-signer on his bond. Reese said she told the men her son wasn’t home and she didn’t know where he was, but she let them inside to check. One man closed the door behind him.
“I said ‘I’m feeling afraid,’” Reese said. “I just let y’all in my house. We are standing in the middle of my living room, two men, and you haven’t shown me no warrant, no identification, anything.”
Reese said their badges left her under the impression they were U.S. Marshalls.
The hunters didn’t find anything, but said they would come back because Reese wouldn’t share information on her son’s child’s mother.
“I said ‘I’m not giving you that information about her,’ so it kind of agitated them that I said I’m not giving them that information,” Reese said.
Reese said three bounty hunters showed up the next day and she refused to let them inside.
“He said ‘oh you are letting us in or we are going to break the door down’,” she said.
Reese said she called Tarrant police, but they told her she had to let the men inside again.
“They started going through my drawers and pulling out everything in my drawers,” she said. “They took everything out of the cabinets. They went through my mail.”
Reese said the men were laying on her couch, going through her purse, cussing at her, and refusing to let her leave. She said one man sneezed on her.
“He said ‘I feel a sneeze coming on, I’ve got to get this Covid out of me’ and he sneezed,” Reese said.
After four hours of begging, Reese said the bounty hunters finally left on the second day.
“I said ‘would y’all just leave, my chest is hurting. I said I’m tired. I’ve been at work all day. I said I just want to go to bed,” Reese said.
Reese said she was too scare to sleep at her home that night and went to her daughters. The next day, she found her home ransacked and broken into.
“My house was torn up,” she said. “Mail everywhere. They went through my work bag. My underwear was thrown everywhere.”
Reese said the men haven’t come back again, but she is now in therapy to deal with the trauma. She said one man told her if she moved, they would find her.
“I don’t feel safe at all,” she said. “I can’t sleep. I had not did anything to them but complied with them and they still tortured me.”
There is a warrant out for the bounty hunter, John Hester.
He is being charged with first-degree criminal mischief.
WBRC
