‘I own you’: Bounty hunter who apprehended fugitive will spend a decade in prison because he failed to properly register

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.

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