Former Salinas health club gym owner Terry Fasy out on bail

Terry Fasy, jailed on Tuesday for allegedly failing to repay victims in a Salinas gym membership scam, took an early-morning flyer and bailed out of jail Wednesday morning in possible violation of a court order, said the District Attorney’s office.

Fasy, the former owner of Terry’s Total Fitness, bailed out of jail at 2 a.m. Wednesday — one day after he was sent to jail, said officials at the Monterey County Jail and the District Attorney’s Office.

“He made bail in violation of a court order and we are looking at that,” said deputy district attorney John Hubanks on Wednesday.

“Somebody bailed him out for 25 grand.”

That amount represents 10 percent of the $250,000 bail set by a Superior Court Judge Julie Culver on Tuesday when she ordered Fasy jailed pending a Dec. 15 court hearing. The district attorney alleges Fasy did not make a restitution payment to victims scammed in fitness center membership dues dating from 2005.

Fasy faces up to three years in prison on the original felony conviction if the court finds he violated probation, the DA said in a Tuesday news report.

The December hearing is to determine if Fasy purposefully failed to make required victim restitution payments, the news report said.

“He got out at two o’clock this morning,” said a jail official, in response to a reporter’s inquiry.

“Things are in motion to get him back in custody,” Hubanks said Wednesday morning. It’s unknown who bailed Fasy out, said Hubanks.

Later Wednesday, Hubanks said there would be another hearing this morning at the court’s request to address the issue of bail.

“Apparently there was some ambiguity to the order,” he said.

Fasy got entangled with the criminal justice system in 2005 after he referred more than 4,000 Salinas-area gym members to an out-of-state collection agency.

He made false reports to a collection company, said Hubanks. “They [his clients] were threatened by the collection company with getting negative credit reports,” he said.

In 2006 the district attorney filed multiple criminal felony theft charges and in 2009 Fasy pleaded guilty to a single count. He received felony probation and was ordered to make annual payments of $24,000 toward his $170,000 restitution order, according to the news release.

Of 4,000 clients Fasy referred to the collection agency, 535, who allegedly owed Fasy between $25 and $5,000, “decided to pay rather then contest the debt,” said Hubanks. Some had signed up under a one-year promotional offer that morphed in multi-year deals, he said.

“They [the clients] were threatened with getting a negative credit report,” said Hubanks. “The people [victims during the investigation] we focused on were the people who paid money to the collection agency who legally didn’t owe any.”

During the investigation the D.A. “concluded that most, if not all, of those accounts were either not delinquent or, in many cases, not based on a legitimate contract,” the release states.

According to the release: The D.A.’s Consumer Protection Unit filed a civil action to stop the attempts at collection. Later a civil court appointed a receiver for Fasy’s gym.

In July of this year he failed to make his annual payment saying he didn’t have the money. Fasy was given the court opportunity to prove his insolvency and provide financial records but didn’t, said the D.A.

When the bail had been set at $250,000, a condition was that Fasy would disclose where the bail funds came from. That is expected to be a topic of today’s hearing.

California Secretary of State records show Fasy still has an active corporation on file named Terry’s Total Fitness with a Stockton address. That matter is under investigation, said Hubanks.

Attempts to reach a person listed on the secretary of state website as being the “Agent for Service of Process” for the business at a Sacramento address were unsuccessful.

Anyone with information about Fasy or his businesses is asked to call the Monterey County District Attorney’s Consumer Protection Unit at 831-647-7705.