Friday, September 24, 2010

Private Eye Accused of Planting Evidence in Oklahoma Moves to Arizona

Originally published in Victoria Advocate.com.

Nine years after a fatal shooting, a Texas private investigator nicknamed "The Rhino" reported to the slain woman's parents that he had found new evidence.

He told the parents he'd found an unfired .25-caliber bullet last year in the backyard of the crime scene. He told police the same thing.

In a report to the parents, James Leroy Richards promised to have the bullet checked for fingerprints. He wrote he firmly believes the bullet was from "the murder weapon."

Police allege he is a liar.

Richards, 58, goes professionally by the name Richard Lee James and also is a bounty hunter.

Richards was charged Sept. 9 with a misdemeanor - obstructing an officer in the performance of his official duties. Oklahoma County prosecutors say they are disappointed they couldn't charge him with a felony.

Midwest City police still are investigating the death of Nancy Probst. The partially nude woman was shot in the head inside her house on Nov. 16, 2000. She was 32. Her baby girl, in a nearby crib, was unharmed.

Prosecutors charged her husband, Matthew J. Probst, with first-degree murder but later dismissed the case because of insufficient evidence. Police said last year he has never been cleared as a suspect.

Richards told the victim's parents he dug up the bullet last year during a search of the backyard of the house where the victim lived. He reported it was "buried in the soil in the area where the storage shed used to be."

Police reported Richards had a long excuse for why he had not turned the bullet over to officials.

Police said the house's current tenant reported the investigator spent only a brief time in the backyard, never dug there and did not remove anything.

Midwest City Police Detective Lacky J. Harkins reported the homicide investigation was slowed and valuable time and resources were wasted "due to the lies" the private investigator told him and a police lieutenant.

The detective said Richards admitted in a phone conversation in March that he had lied about the discovery. Then, the detective reported, Richards at one point stated, "Let's just say it was planted." Finally, the detective reported, Richards admitted he had brought the bullet with him.

"He wanted me to just drop the whole incident. I told him I thought it was sorry of him to have taken the family's money and make this up. He agreed it was sorry," Harkins said.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said restitution will be sought from Richards if he is caught and convicted.

The victim's parents, Carl and Alberta Helmle, have hired several private investigators to look into their daughter's death. They paid Richards more than $5,000. They later fired him. They declined to comment.

Richards has lived in Texas, but he wrote on Twitter he was moving to Arizona. Because he faces only a misdemeanor, he will not be arrested in another state and extradited.

"But if he ever comes in the state of Oklahoma and he gets pulled over on a traffic ticket ... he can be held and we can go down and transport him up from whatever county he got arrested in," Prater said.

In an e-mail Saturday, Richards wrote he is being harassed by Midwest City police. He did not respond to a question about the charge.


"I've said it before and I'll say it again:  investigate your investigator first.  Get to know him or her, do a little research, and save yourself potential grief and wasted funds.  Please refer to my July 2010 article in this blog, 'How A Private Investigator Can Help You.' for more information."

Jeff Kimble, P.I. 

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Facebook Postings in Legal and Financial Arenas

Written by Phil Villarreal - September 8, 2010 - Arizona Daily Star
http://www.azstarnet.com/

Comments and pictures parents post on Facebook can come back to haunt them during custody battles, debt-collection efforts and job applications.

A compromising Facebook post "is like a smoking gun in that you can't destroy it," said attorney Shawn Kenney, the law department team leader at Thrush Law Group.

Kenney said he's seen custody cases hinge on arguments of parental incompetence stemming from Facebook posts. He recalled a case in which a father posted a picture of himself proudly displaying a 3-foot acrylic bong. In another case, Kenney said a mother wrote about how she'd been out with her girlfriends "getting trashed for the third time this week."

"When people put information on Facebook it may not be in their best interest and does come back to haunt them in ongoing litigation involving custody," Kenney said, adding he's also seen a mother call her young boy "my pimp" and a father post a picture of himself baring tattoos while posed with a butcher knife, joking that he was a killer.

Divorce attorney Robbie Lewis, who owns the Law Offices of Robert G. Lewis, P.C., has also seen Facebook rear its often-ugly head in custody battles.

"The whole face of discovery in divorce has really changed over the last few years," Lewis said. "I can't tell you how many times clients have found out about extramarital affairs through looking through their spouses' telephones in the middle of the night, or checking their spouses' e-mail or Facebook accounts."

Lewis said in the past, clients would hire private investigators to dig up dirt on spouses. Now the evidence can be found with a few mouse clicks.

"People put silly things on Facebook accounts - pictures of themselves or other people in bars doing inappropriate things" that end up presented at trial, Lewis said.

Attorney Grady Wade, who, along with his work in other legal fields, defends clients in debt-collection cases and sometimes collects debt for creditors, said while he doesn't personally use Facebook to investigate debtors, anything people post publicly on Facebook is fair game.

"If they put stuff up there, it's pretty much for public use," Wade said. "If they don't make the page private, then it's for public use and they don't have any expectation of privacy."

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which prohibits abusive behavior and restricts the methods collectors can use to locate debtors, doesn't prohibit using social networking sites.

Wade said third-party debt collectors aren't allowed to publicly shame debtors. For instance, a collector couldn't become a friend of a debtor under a false pretense and then post something on his wall about him owing money.

The restrictions don't apply to the creditors themselves, Wade said, adding that he'd advise clients to record any contact with a third-party collector.

Tucsonans applying for jobs at the University of Arizona, the region's second-largest employer, had best clean up their Facebook profiles.

UA human-resources manager Chris Wolf said managers dig up whatever information they can to vet job prospects, and Facebook is within limits.

"If a candidate regularly references violent behavior, then that may be a red flag," Wolf said. "It's more likely that a hiring manager will discover that someone references topics such as their political views - irrelevant when it comes to determining whether they can perform well, yet it may create an unintended bias."

No matter the context, Kenney said people should stop thinking of Facebook posts as semi-private announcements to close friends. He recalls a mentor's advice from decades ago, advising him to be careful about what he put in writing and says it applies to social networking sites:

"Never put anything on there you wouldn't want on a billboard on the highway," he said.