Norfolk’s newest council member, a bail bondsman, rose from the city’s poorest neighborhoods

The newest member of Norfolk City Council is a bail bondsman who grew up in the city’s poorest neighborhoods and ran on a platform of combating rising violent crime.

John “JP’' Paige, a 52-year-old married father of two grown sons, was elected to replace retiring Paul Riddick as the representative for the Ward 4 district, which encompasses the south and east ends of the city as well as the St. Paul’s housing properties. His top priority during his campaign was to find a solution for the rapid spike in gun violence over the past two years.

As a bondsman, Paige said he sees firsthand the ripple effects of the city’s violent crime. But he’s also been on the other side the system, as someone who ran into trouble with the law as a teenager.

“I’m not who I used to be,” Paige said. “I tell young people, ‘Yesterday will not determine your tomorrow.’”

Paige grew up in the Huntersville, Norview and Ballantine neighborhoods, raised by a single mother. He struggled in school, attending three high schools in two years — Norview, Maury and Norfolk Catholic — before dropping out after 10th grade.

“I couldn’t identify with the information that was being taught. They gave us history, and nobody in that history looked like me,” Paige said.

A year later, at age 17, he was arrested, and spent several months in the Tidewater Juvenile Detention Center. He declined to disclose what he was convicted of, but said if he’d been arrested a year later and charged as an adult, he would have spent “a long time” in prison. And some of his friends later ended up there.

After that experience, Paige said he decided to change his life.

Paige joined the Air Force reserve after his release and spent time on active duty during the buildup to the Gulf War. He was honorably discharged in the early 1990s. Shortly after, he enrolled at Norfolk State University and worked his way through school as a night auditor at a Best Western hotel. After getting a bachelor’s degree at NSU, he earned a master’s degree from Troy University in Alabama, taking his courses at Air Force bases in Virginia.

In 2003, after working in a series of office jobs, he joined his uncle’s bail-bonding business. The job gave him the freedom to speak like he “would talk to somebody in the streets” — a welcome change from the succession of jobs he’d previously held, he said.

“I get to get paid,” Paige said, “and I get to be me.”

He threw himself into the job, working grueling hours, often being called to the jail in the middle of the night. In the bail-bonding business, you’re always on call, he said.

“I would be the first one in that courthouse every morning, and I would be the last one to leave the magistrate every night. The mentality I had is that no one is going to outwork me,” said Paige, who lives near Norfolk State University.

Paige’s commitment to his work was evident during his post-election interview with The Virginian-Pilot. He changed the location of the interview at the last minute after receiving a call from someone trying to get a family member out of the Norfolk City Jail.

“Meet me there. You’ll see where I work,” Paige told The Pilot.

The lobby of the hulking, yellow brick building in downtown Norfolk is his de facto office. He knows the guards, he knows inmates and he knows many of the families who pay him to get their loved ones out of jail.

Paige, a towering figure at 6-foot-4 who played basketball during his brief time in high school, is friendly and charismatic. During a 45-minute interview in the jail lobby, he made small talk and cracked jokes with the employees in the magistrates office and just about anyone else who came through the front door.

After bailing out one person, he picked up another bond in the middle of the interview — someone trying to get a friend out of jail.

Paige even has his own catchphrase: “Need to be free? Call JP,” he tells customers.

The office he’ll soon occupy at City Hall is right across from the jail.

Paige said he never thought he would run for council. He credits Riddick, a longtime friend, with pushing him.

For the last four elections, Paige was a volunteer on Riddick’s reelection campaigns. He drove Riddick around to polling stations on Election Days. When Riddick announced he was retiring, Paige sought his blessing to run for his seat first, and Riddick gave him his full support.

“It was almost like he was preparing me to run,” Paige said.

Paige raised $56,000 during his campaign — about seven times more than his closest competitor — and received contributions from several well-known local political figures, including former Mayor Paul Fraim, former councilman Andy Protogyrou and local activist Michael Muhammad.

On Election Day, Paige said he fell asleep after a long day at the polls. “I crashed,” he said. When his wife woke him up around 9 p.m. he said he had already been declared the likely winner, and ran out the door to his election night party at The Ultra Lounge in Military Circle.

When he received a call from The Pilot a few minutes later, he answered the phone the way he always does when he sees an unknown number: “Bail bondsman.”

Daniel Berti, daniel.berti@virginiamedia.com