Houston FBI Raid: 62-year-old serving time for stuffing wife's body into a freezer tied to bail bond scheme
HOUSTON - Convicted murderer Curtis Holliday's case with AAble Bonding Company illustrates what was allegedly going on. Investigators say co-signers were getting paid to lie.
July 14, 2020, Holliday is charged with murdering his 29-year-old wife, Chi Le, and stuffing her remains in a commercial freezer.
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"He remained in custody for about 15 months, then all of a sudden, he somehow, magically gets out," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers.
In June 2022, the FBI raids AAble Bonding Company. The CEO, Sheba Muharib, was an agent for Financial Casualty Insurance.
Financial Casualty's attorney Ken W. Good says they started looking at large bond amount approvals, like Holliday's $300,000 bond.
"We started looking at indeminators and talking to them to verify the information that was given to us," said Good. "We had questions and started to get concerned that fraudulent information had been provided."
In August 2022, two months after the FBI raid at AAble Bonding Company, the insurance company filed an affidavit with the court.
It states, "we believe the defendant has filed fraudulent information in order to receive a bond. It has come to the attention of our insurance company that two of the defendants co-signers were paid in order to aid in the bonding process. We were unaware of these circumstances. We are asking to be removed from all liability."
The document states Sheba Muharib was paid a fee of $40,400.
Good says changes have been made to the large bond approval process.
"When you see somebody may have taken advantage of your systems that you have in place, you're always trying to improve them," said Good.
Last month, Curtis Holliday pled guilty to murder and was sentenced to 10 years.
"If he's convicted, he could actually be sentenced to a longer prison sentence for obtaining a fraudulent bond than he got for murder," said Kahan.