From Staff Reports
A State Line woman accustomed to getting others out of jail is facing legal troubles of her own stemming from her work as a bail bondsman.
Sharon K. Tatum Bell, 55, of Tatum Estates, was arrested Friday afternoon by officers with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and charged with two counts of insurance fraud and one count of false pretense. Bell was indicted by a Greene County Grand Jury recently on the charges.
Bell, who was named in the indictment as Sharon Kay Tatum, is accused of filing fraudulent documents related to two bonds she wrote for separate defendants in 2017. Specifically, she is accused of fraudulently writing and filing a $10,000 bond with Bankers Insurance and falsely advising The Hampton Company National Surety LLC that the bond was written for $1,000.
She is also accused of filing a $100,000 bond, also with Bankers Insurance, and falsely notifying officials in the county that the bond was for $10,000. Bell allegedly did so when she was not allowed to write a bond over $50,000 and falsified documents to represent to The Hampton Company that the bond amount was just $10,000.
The false pretense charge also stems from the $100,000 bond, where she was paid by the defendant’s family an amount believed to be $2,700.
Bell remained in custody in the Greene County Jail on Tuesday under $15,000 bonds for each of the three charges. Officials in Washington County, Ala. have also placed a hold on her for violating the terms of a bond after she was arrested in Jan. 2016, along with 22 others, in connection to a raid on an alleged dog fighting operation.
