Bounty hunter Wayne Lozier Jr. uses a Taser on a woman he took into custody in 2019. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping after he flouted Missouri laws to apprehend a fugitive as an unregistered bounty hunter. He was only registered in Louisiana. (U.S. Department of Justice)
Had the bounty hunter paid the $150 registering fee and alerted authorities he was crossing state lines to apprehend a fugitive, he probably would still be chasing people who skipped bail.
Instead, he’ll spend the next decade behind bars.
A federal judge in the Eastern District of Missouri on Wednesday sentenced 45-year-old Wayne D. Lozier Jr. to 10 years in prison after a jury convicted him of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, prosecutors say.
According to a sentencing memorandum by prosecutors, Lozier, a licensed bail bondsman in Louisiana, traveled to the St. Louis area on May 9, 2019, to apprehend a woman who had missed a court date for misdemeanor charges in St. Tammany Parish. A bond company hired Lozier to retrieve the woman so it would not have to owe surety to the court.
The problem was Lozier was not registered as a bond agent in Missouri. In order to be registered Lozier had to pay a $150 filing fee to the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance. He also had to alert local law enforcement of his presence which he also allegedly did not do. Prosecutors say his “unlawful plan” began a few days earlier when he called the victim impersonating a law enforcement officer. He told her an arrest warrant could be recalled and a new court date could be scheduled — she just had to give him her address so he could send her the paperwork.
He and his partner, 56-year-old Jody L. Sullivan, drove to where the woman was staying in St. Peters, Missouri. They barged into the victim’s residence and hauled her away while she was barefoot and in her pajamas, the memo stated. A police officer with the St. Peters Police Department alerted Lozier he was acting unlawfully, but he ignored the warning and took the woman, prosecutors said.
Lozier “physically and verbally abused” the victim throughout their trip back to Louisiana. When the victim went to a convenience store clerk for help, Lozier allegedly tased her, pulled her by her hair and bound her legs before taking her back to his car. The entire ordeal was captured on his body camera.
“You have no rights,” Lozier said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I own you. No civil rights. You’re property.”
Lozier allegedly continued to threaten her, saying the next stop would be the hospital and she would never see her children again, the memo stated.
In a sentencing memo, his defense lawyer Tyler Morgan gave largely the same version of the events but painted the situation differently. He likened the incident to a paperwork oversight rather than a kidnapping. The lawyer also said St. Peters officers gave conflicting information about what Lozier was and was not allowed to do. Morgan argued the federal kidnapping statute is designed to punish violent criminals, not people doing their job.
“As made clear by the evidence in this case, Mr. Lozier is not the archetypal defendant that Congress contemplated when enacting the Federal Kidnapping Act. Because of this, Mr. Lozier believes that his incredibly unique status warrants an incredibly unique sentence,” Morgan wrote.
Morgan requested a two-year prison sentence while prosecutors requested between about 12-and-a-half to 15-and-a-half years.
Sullivan pleaded guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping charges and a judge sentenced her to five years probation.
“Wayne Lozier claimed he was just doing his job as a bounty hunter, but a jury convicted him of kidnapping. The evidence presented in trial proved he flagrantly ignored police warnings that he was violating the law and police commands to release his victim,” Special Agent in Charge Jay Greenberg of the FBI St. Louis Division said in a statement.
Authorities said they don’t buy Lozier’s argument that this was just a paperwork oversight.
“This sentence should reinforce that those who work in the fugitive recovery industry must comply with state and local laws and regulations and treat those they take into custody with decency,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Sayler A. Fleming. “They work in a dangerous industry, but that is not a license to go rogue.”
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