The following was written by Jeff Kimble, P.I., owner of Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C. http://www.arizonalegaldocs.com/ and Arizona Private Investigations http://www.azprivateeye.com/. It is intended to provide general information regarding the business of private investigations and should not be considered legal advice.
The public perception of the private investigator is varied, both from the frequently exaggerated and inaccurate portrayals of "private eyes" in film and television and also from the simple fact that, compared to other occupations, a relatively small percentage of citizens require the services of a private investigator in the first place.
A simple yet precise definition of a private investigator is one who is employed to collect evidence or information. Once the drama, the mystique, and the ridiculous (just watch one episode of Magnum P.I. to get the wrong idea of the investigation business) are stripped from the Hollywood versions of the job description, a private investigator is essentially a gatherer of information. He or she—if ethical, professional, and experienced—knows how to retrieve this information legally, whether through research, observation, or technical means and then provides this information to his or her client for a fee.
Private investigators are hired by individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, and even by government entities. Cases range from industrial espionage to lost pets, from criminal investigations to pre-employment screenings and the types of P.I.'s and their specialties are as diverse as are the clients who hire them and the varied cases in which they are involved.
The first step toward determining whether a private investigator can help you is by clearly defining your reasons for hiring one in the first place. What do you want? Are you simply trying to discover the truth in a personal matter? Or are you planning to use evidence obtained from an investigation in court? Or both? These kinds of questions are important to ask yourself before you begin your search for a reputable investigator as they may affect the outcome of your case as well as its cost.
If you are considering litigation (going to court) you may want to hire an attorney before hiring a private investigator. The attorney should advise you as to whether your case requires the services of an investigator to be successful. There is no sense in making a financial investment in information that may ultimately not be useful or admissable in court.
If you are purely interested in "the truth" regarding a personal or business matter, then calling a P.I. directly may be your best option. A private investigator can be your confidential resource for what you cannot (or do not want to) ascertain on your own. He or she can be "your eyes" into matters the police may not be able to help you with and can effectively be your agent or representative in matters familial, civil, and/or private in nature.
Always keep in mind that different investigative agencies offer different services and those services can vary greatly in cost and scope. A large agency with hundreds of operatives may not be economically appropriate to help you find a long lost relative but may be perfect to handle a complicated case of corporate fraud. A small agency may be ideal to help you determine if your spouse is unfaithful but may be the completely wrong choice for the countersurveillance needs of a Fortune 500 Company. Investigate your investigator first. Research online, contact the Better Business Bureau, read client testimonials and thoroughly review the agency's licensing and qualifications. (See: Things You Should Know before Hiring a Private Eye in the May 2010 archive of this blog.)
Once you feel satisfied with your choice, meet the investigator(s) in person. How do you feel about him, her, or them? Do they handle themselves professionally? Do they appear trustworthy? What is your "gut reaction?" Do you feel comfortable with them in general? These are valid questions and often the best test when making the final determination. You could very well end up having a long and intimate business relationship with this person or persons and they may see your significant other, family, friends, business associates, and acquaintances at their best or worst. If you don't feel completely comfortable trusting him or her with your personal and/or business information, look elsewhere.
Once you have determined that you require the services of a private investigator and have made your choice from the many agencies available in your area, what are some of the specific services private investigators have to offer?
Our company, Arizona Private Investigations, a subdivision of Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C., offers the following:
Child Custody and Infidelity Investigations
Missing Persons /Skip Traces
Surveillance (physical, photographic, and GPS tracking)
Location and Recovery of Property (including replevins)
Threat Investigations
Criminal Investigations
Hiring a private investigator can be one of the most valuable and life changing choices you ever make. To further appreciate what a private investigator can do for you, contact Jeff Kimble at 480-318-9936, or visit the Arizona Private Investigations website at:
http://www.azprivateeye.com/
"The Truth will set you free..."
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Family Reunites After Woman's Disappearance Half a Century Ago
by Andrew Colgrove, WSAZ NEWS 3, September 15, 2011
If one of your family members disappeared, how long would you keep looking for them?
One family's persistence and unwillingness to give up hope finally paid off after their loved one vanished more than half a century ago.
Emma Dartey remembers the last day she ever saw her big sister Shelby.
"I remember her going up the street, taking the bicycle saying she was going to deliver the mail to somebody, and that's the last time I saw her," Emma said.
They say Shelby ran away on May 26, 1958 when she was 19 because she was in a bad marriage. She never came back.
"It was sad wondering if she was dead or if someone had hurt her," Emma said.
"It was hard,” Shelby’s other sister Linda Davis said. “I think she knew one day we'd find her. We never gave up."
The family, from Westwood, Kentucky, searched for decades with no success, but they recently hired a private investigator who was able to track Shelby down. She’s been working as a waitress in Phoenix, Arizona.
A few weeks ago, Linda flew out to see her at her restaurant.
"She didn't recognize me,” Linda said, “so she sat down at the table. She said, “Hun, I don't believe I know who you are,’ so I just got up and put my arms around her, told her I loved her, and I was her baby sister, and she broke down and cried."
Wednesday, for the first time in more than half a century, Shelby came home. She flew into the Tri-State Airport, where more than a dozen of her family members greeted her with kisses and hugs.
"I prayed every night that one of these days God would let me see them again,” Shelby said. "That empty feeling in my heart, it finally was filled."
Shelby says as the years passed, she wanted to return home, but was too afraid.
"When I left I was young,” she said. “I thought if I come back now, they have their own life, their own family, and they probably won't accept me, but I was wrong."
"I’m really happy to see her,” Emma said.
Now the family is adamant they won't let another half a century go by without being together again.
Shelby also had two children of her own here before she left. They were 3 and 2 years old at the time.
Her son is driving up from Alabama to reunite with her, and she'll be traveling to Georgia to see her daughter
If one of your family members disappeared, how long would you keep looking for them?
One family's persistence and unwillingness to give up hope finally paid off after their loved one vanished more than half a century ago.
Emma Dartey remembers the last day she ever saw her big sister Shelby.
"I remember her going up the street, taking the bicycle saying she was going to deliver the mail to somebody, and that's the last time I saw her," Emma said.
They say Shelby ran away on May 26, 1958 when she was 19 because she was in a bad marriage. She never came back.
"It was sad wondering if she was dead or if someone had hurt her," Emma said.
"It was hard,” Shelby’s other sister Linda Davis said. “I think she knew one day we'd find her. We never gave up."
The family, from Westwood, Kentucky, searched for decades with no success, but they recently hired a private investigator who was able to track Shelby down. She’s been working as a waitress in Phoenix, Arizona.
A few weeks ago, Linda flew out to see her at her restaurant.
"She didn't recognize me,” Linda said, “so she sat down at the table. She said, “Hun, I don't believe I know who you are,’ so I just got up and put my arms around her, told her I loved her, and I was her baby sister, and she broke down and cried."
Wednesday, for the first time in more than half a century, Shelby came home. She flew into the Tri-State Airport, where more than a dozen of her family members greeted her with kisses and hugs.
"I prayed every night that one of these days God would let me see them again,” Shelby said. "That empty feeling in my heart, it finally was filled."
Shelby says as the years passed, she wanted to return home, but was too afraid.
"When I left I was young,” she said. “I thought if I come back now, they have their own life, their own family, and they probably won't accept me, but I was wrong."
"I’m really happy to see her,” Emma said.
Now the family is adamant they won't let another half a century go by without being together again.
Shelby also had two children of her own here before she left. They were 3 and 2 years old at the time.
Her son is driving up from Alabama to reunite with her, and she'll be traveling to Georgia to see her daughter
Monday, September 19, 2011
Case May End Andrew Thomas' Career
by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Michael Kiefer - Sept. 13, 2011 12:00 AM - The Arizona Republic
Andrew Thomas wasn't there to hear it when the independent counsel for the State Bar of Arizona laid out a case against him that could end his legal career.
Thomas faces disbarment, but the former Maricopa County attorney did not attend Monday's opening statements in his disciplinary hearing at the Arizona Supreme Court.
His co-defendants and former deputies, Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander, sat silently in the front row of the gallery in a dark-paneled courtroom as other attorneys explained why they should or should not face sanctions for their investigations of or legal complaints against judges, county supervisors and others they believed engaged in "corruption."
"The evidence and testimony that we will present will establish a four-year period of prosecutorial abuse by Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon," said John Gleason, the attorney prosecuting the case. "Under the direction and supervision of Mr. Thomas, he and Ms. Aubuchon engaged in personal retribution against their enemies."
"If you crossed paths with the county attorney, Sheriff (Joe) Arpaio, or former (sheriff's) Chief Deputy David Hendershott, you should expect to be sued, criminally charged, or both, by the county attorney," Gleason said.
"The evidence will show that the primary purpose of the prosecutions was to punish those individuals with whom Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon disagreed."
A three-member panel will weigh evidence in the disciplinary hearing, which could stretch into November. The burden is on state Bar counsel to prove the allegations against the three attorneys. The panel must make a decision on their fate within 30 days of the last day of the hearing.
The three former prosecutors are charged with a total of 33 ethical violations stemming from actions against other county officials and judges between 2006 and 2010. Charges against them include conflicts of interest; filing criminal and civil cases to embarrass or burden rivals, or filing without probable cause or sufficient evidence; criminal conduct; and conduct involving dishonesty and fraud.
Among the allegations are that Thomas and Aubuchon filed bribery and obstruction charges against Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe without probable cause; that they pursued a grand-jury investigation of Donahoe, county supervisors and other officials despite conflicts of interest; and that they filed misdemeanor charges against Supervisor Don Stapley in 2008 despite the statute of limitations having lapsed.
Alexander's role is limited to joining Thomas and Aubuchon in what Gleason described as a "meritless and frivolous" federal-racketeering lawsuit against officials and judges.
The three also are accused of failing to cooperate with the Bar investigation, and instead attempting to delay and obstruct the extensive initial investigation conducted by Gleason and his team.
Gleason said he and his co-counsel, James Sudler, would prove their case with new testimony from judges, investigators with sheriff's and county attorney's offices, county supervisors, and others to show the depths of the unethical conduct. The disciplinary hearing will be the first time most of the witnesses will tell their stories under oath.
Gleason promised a glimpse into a "Bizarro World" of investigative techniques, where indictments were written before investigations began, and where tips came from newspaper articles, not shoe-leather detective work. Search warrants, he said, were drafted based on "creative writing . . . and a little fluff above, and a little fluff below."
But Thomas' lawyer, Don Wilson, said Thomas sincerely believed he was rooting out corruption at the highest levels of county government.
"He tried to investigate it, he tried to prosecute it," Wilson said, but, "he was stonewalled and stymied. He confronted bitter and powerful antagonists. He confronted a hostile judiciary."
The consequences, Wilson said, were that the county Board of Supervisors stripped Thomas of his civil litigation department and its budget, and interfered with his ability to hire special prosecutors to try the cases against them.
Thomas brought charges against Stapley in 2008, Wilson said, because of what he believed were improper dealings among Stapley, then-Presiding Superior Court Judge Barbara Mundell, and private attorney Tom Irvine, who represented both the county and the courts in planning a $340 million court-tower project in downtown Phoenix.
Aubuchon's attorney, Ed Moriarity, offered a summary of what he believes was a conspiracy among politicians and judges to bring his client to this point.
Presiding Disciplinary Judge William O'Neil has already ruled that the defendants cannot gather new evidence to try to prove that they were right in bringing cases against county officials. Still, Moriarity hinted that he would still try to prove that all of Aubuchon's actions were justified but were thwarted.
"Let's face it head-on: This is not a normal case . . . this is a political case. You will see the evidence and know what I mean by the time I am finished," he said.
Furthermore, Moriarity said, the press and even the Bar have distorted facts of the case for a "selective prosecution."
Alexander's lawyer, Scott Zwillinger, argued his client should not be part of the hearing. She was simply doing her job, he said, and was working at the direction of her boss.
She was drafted into the racketeering suit, he said, because Thomas told her it was a "crisis." Alexander's initial role in the racketeering suit was to research whether Aubuchon could sue the same people she was prosecuting criminally.
The answer was no, Zwillinger said, at which point Alexander was asked to take over the racketeering case, even against her better judgment.
Zwillinger questioned why Alexander was singled out for disciplinary proceedings when her supervisor and private attorneys from consulting law firms were not.
"Each of the charges brought against Rachel will fail," Zwillinger said. "Why is Rachel here? The answer is: she shouldn't be."
The hearing continues today with testimony scheduled from retired Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fields, former Deputy County Attorney Sally Wells and Irvine.
Andrew Thomas wasn't there to hear it when the independent counsel for the State Bar of Arizona laid out a case against him that could end his legal career.
Thomas faces disbarment, but the former Maricopa County attorney did not attend Monday's opening statements in his disciplinary hearing at the Arizona Supreme Court.
His co-defendants and former deputies, Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander, sat silently in the front row of the gallery in a dark-paneled courtroom as other attorneys explained why they should or should not face sanctions for their investigations of or legal complaints against judges, county supervisors and others they believed engaged in "corruption."
"The evidence and testimony that we will present will establish a four-year period of prosecutorial abuse by Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon," said John Gleason, the attorney prosecuting the case. "Under the direction and supervision of Mr. Thomas, he and Ms. Aubuchon engaged in personal retribution against their enemies."
"If you crossed paths with the county attorney, Sheriff (Joe) Arpaio, or former (sheriff's) Chief Deputy David Hendershott, you should expect to be sued, criminally charged, or both, by the county attorney," Gleason said.
"The evidence will show that the primary purpose of the prosecutions was to punish those individuals with whom Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon disagreed."
A three-member panel will weigh evidence in the disciplinary hearing, which could stretch into November. The burden is on state Bar counsel to prove the allegations against the three attorneys. The panel must make a decision on their fate within 30 days of the last day of the hearing.
The three former prosecutors are charged with a total of 33 ethical violations stemming from actions against other county officials and judges between 2006 and 2010. Charges against them include conflicts of interest; filing criminal and civil cases to embarrass or burden rivals, or filing without probable cause or sufficient evidence; criminal conduct; and conduct involving dishonesty and fraud.
Among the allegations are that Thomas and Aubuchon filed bribery and obstruction charges against Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe without probable cause; that they pursued a grand-jury investigation of Donahoe, county supervisors and other officials despite conflicts of interest; and that they filed misdemeanor charges against Supervisor Don Stapley in 2008 despite the statute of limitations having lapsed.
Alexander's role is limited to joining Thomas and Aubuchon in what Gleason described as a "meritless and frivolous" federal-racketeering lawsuit against officials and judges.
The three also are accused of failing to cooperate with the Bar investigation, and instead attempting to delay and obstruct the extensive initial investigation conducted by Gleason and his team.
Gleason said he and his co-counsel, James Sudler, would prove their case with new testimony from judges, investigators with sheriff's and county attorney's offices, county supervisors, and others to show the depths of the unethical conduct. The disciplinary hearing will be the first time most of the witnesses will tell their stories under oath.
Gleason promised a glimpse into a "Bizarro World" of investigative techniques, where indictments were written before investigations began, and where tips came from newspaper articles, not shoe-leather detective work. Search warrants, he said, were drafted based on "creative writing . . . and a little fluff above, and a little fluff below."
But Thomas' lawyer, Don Wilson, said Thomas sincerely believed he was rooting out corruption at the highest levels of county government.
"He tried to investigate it, he tried to prosecute it," Wilson said, but, "he was stonewalled and stymied. He confronted bitter and powerful antagonists. He confronted a hostile judiciary."
The consequences, Wilson said, were that the county Board of Supervisors stripped Thomas of his civil litigation department and its budget, and interfered with his ability to hire special prosecutors to try the cases against them.
Thomas brought charges against Stapley in 2008, Wilson said, because of what he believed were improper dealings among Stapley, then-Presiding Superior Court Judge Barbara Mundell, and private attorney Tom Irvine, who represented both the county and the courts in planning a $340 million court-tower project in downtown Phoenix.
Aubuchon's attorney, Ed Moriarity, offered a summary of what he believes was a conspiracy among politicians and judges to bring his client to this point.
Presiding Disciplinary Judge William O'Neil has already ruled that the defendants cannot gather new evidence to try to prove that they were right in bringing cases against county officials. Still, Moriarity hinted that he would still try to prove that all of Aubuchon's actions were justified but were thwarted.
"Let's face it head-on: This is not a normal case . . . this is a political case. You will see the evidence and know what I mean by the time I am finished," he said.
Furthermore, Moriarity said, the press and even the Bar have distorted facts of the case for a "selective prosecution."
Alexander's lawyer, Scott Zwillinger, argued his client should not be part of the hearing. She was simply doing her job, he said, and was working at the direction of her boss.
She was drafted into the racketeering suit, he said, because Thomas told her it was a "crisis." Alexander's initial role in the racketeering suit was to research whether Aubuchon could sue the same people she was prosecuting criminally.
The answer was no, Zwillinger said, at which point Alexander was asked to take over the racketeering case, even against her better judgment.
Zwillinger questioned why Alexander was singled out for disciplinary proceedings when her supervisor and private attorneys from consulting law firms were not.
"Each of the charges brought against Rachel will fail," Zwillinger said. "Why is Rachel here? The answer is: she shouldn't be."
The hearing continues today with testimony scheduled from retired Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fields, former Deputy County Attorney Sally Wells and Irvine.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Private Investigator Warns of More FLDS Abuses
By Mary Garrigan, Rapid City Journal, Posted Thursday, September 1, 2011
The recent convictions of polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs proves that South Dakota and Custer County law enforcement officials should do more to investigate a Jeffs-affiliated compound near Pringle, said an expert on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Sam Brower is a private investigator from Cedar City, Utah, who spent seven years investigating the FLDS after being hired by a FLDS member who was engaged in a dispute with the group. Brower provided law enforcement with information that helped a Texas jury convict Jeffs of the sexual assault of two underage girls, a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old whom he had taken as "spiritual brides." He has also written a book about Jeffs titled "Prophet's Prey," which hit bookstores Tuesday.
Brower is convinced that underage marriages also occur at the FLDS site near Pringle, though he said he has no evidence to prove it.
Custer County Sheriff Rick Wheeler was on the compound Aug. 4, the same day that a jury convicted Jeffs. He was at the 140-acre compound to accompany staff from the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. DENR was there to inspect a concrete batch plant and construction-related dirt runoff. The concrete is being used in the construction of two agricultural buildings.
Wheeler tries to visit the compound every week or so and usually accompanies government officials onto the property. He knows he doesn't see all of the compound's residents on his visits but said he has never seen any obviously pregnant underage girls. Wheeler didn't hear any conversation about Jeffs that day, nor find any evidence of child brides during any of his frequent visits.
"At this time, I don't," he said when asked if he has any evidence of child sexual abuse. "If we did, we'd act on it."
"The day that I was in there, there were women around, with kids, doing things. One thing I have noticed is that most of the women and guys that I see are fairly close to the same age," Wheeler said.
Brower was raised in the mainstream The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has no ties to the FLDS. He has been to the Pringle area three times in the course of his FLDS investigations, once with Jon Krakauer, the author of "Under the Banner of Heaven," a best-selling book that examines the ideologies of both mainstream and fundamentalist Mormons. Brower's book, however, deals mainly with activities at FLDS communities in Utah, Arizona and Texas.
Brower is familiar with the leadership in Pringle, however, and said he didn't see anyone from that compound in the San Angelo courtroom during Jeffs' trial. Jurors and spectators, including Brower, heard a tape recording of "a panting, pervert prophet raping a little girl," he said. That tape was confiscated by authorities the day the fugitive Jeffs was apprehended in 2006, but this trial was the first time it was used as evidence against him. Previously, a Utah judge sealed it as prejudicial and a federal judge said it was protected as "religious material."
"I hope ... that attorney generals in other states, including South Dakota, model their performance more after the attorney general in Texas than the one in Utah ... and don't let these atrocities continue," Brower said.
Among the mounds of evidence removed from the FLDS ranch in El Dorado, Texas, were diaries indicating that Jeffs has been at Pringle and directed its activities. Brower believes some of his estimated 80 wives may be living there now.
"I don't know that for a fact, but I think that's a good possibility that they are," Brower said. "It's a place of refuge for people in the hierarchy of the church. Only the most righteous are allowed to go there."
Meanwhile, the Texas verdict sends a clear message to FLDS leadership in Pringle and elsewhere, Brower said. "In the United States, we're not going to tolerate people raping little girls."
He warns South Dakotans that other jurisdictions that have taken a "hands-off" approach toward the FLDS have regretted it. "Everybody that believes it's easier just to look the other way has paid a price for it," he said.
Brower contends the FLDS is a "large criminal organization" that uses unfair labor practices to underbid legitimate existing businesses, particularly in the construction trades. His book recounts the plight of women who have left the FLDS, as well as "lost boys" -- young males with little education and no money -- who have been banished from their families and communities at the whim of church leadership.
Brower said South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley to take a "proactive" approach to the FLDS, even if no victims speak out.
"If I was there, I would be knocking on Marty Jackley's door, asking for an investigation; the law should follow them around," he said.
A spokeswoman for Jackley said her office wouldn't confirm or deny the existence of any investigation of the Pringle-area community.
"As with any matter, if we receive information regarding potential criminal activity, our policy is to investigate that information and see criminal prosecution if justified," Jackley said by email.
Brower said breaking the secrecy of the compound requires proactive investigation.
"It's much easier for people to look the other way. They don't want the headache, the hassle. It's the easiest thing to do," he said. "I know it's not easy. More than anybody, I know how hard it is to crack this religious facade. But human suffering is caused because of it."
Brower doesn't expect Jeffs' prison term to have much economic impact on Pringle, which is largely financed by church followers elsewhere, he said.
"They're completely supported by people in Shortcreek," he said. That community on the Utah/Arizona border is hailing Jeffs as a martyr for his religious beliefs, complete with a 38-foot-tall statue of the prophet that it had shipped from Texas to Shortcreek recently.
In it, Jeffs holds a Bible with one hand and a little girl by the other.
The recent convictions of polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs proves that South Dakota and Custer County law enforcement officials should do more to investigate a Jeffs-affiliated compound near Pringle, said an expert on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Sam Brower is a private investigator from Cedar City, Utah, who spent seven years investigating the FLDS after being hired by a FLDS member who was engaged in a dispute with the group. Brower provided law enforcement with information that helped a Texas jury convict Jeffs of the sexual assault of two underage girls, a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old whom he had taken as "spiritual brides." He has also written a book about Jeffs titled "Prophet's Prey," which hit bookstores Tuesday.
Brower is convinced that underage marriages also occur at the FLDS site near Pringle, though he said he has no evidence to prove it.
Custer County Sheriff Rick Wheeler was on the compound Aug. 4, the same day that a jury convicted Jeffs. He was at the 140-acre compound to accompany staff from the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. DENR was there to inspect a concrete batch plant and construction-related dirt runoff. The concrete is being used in the construction of two agricultural buildings.
Wheeler tries to visit the compound every week or so and usually accompanies government officials onto the property. He knows he doesn't see all of the compound's residents on his visits but said he has never seen any obviously pregnant underage girls. Wheeler didn't hear any conversation about Jeffs that day, nor find any evidence of child brides during any of his frequent visits.
"At this time, I don't," he said when asked if he has any evidence of child sexual abuse. "If we did, we'd act on it."
"The day that I was in there, there were women around, with kids, doing things. One thing I have noticed is that most of the women and guys that I see are fairly close to the same age," Wheeler said.
Brower was raised in the mainstream The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has no ties to the FLDS. He has been to the Pringle area three times in the course of his FLDS investigations, once with Jon Krakauer, the author of "Under the Banner of Heaven," a best-selling book that examines the ideologies of both mainstream and fundamentalist Mormons. Brower's book, however, deals mainly with activities at FLDS communities in Utah, Arizona and Texas.
Brower is familiar with the leadership in Pringle, however, and said he didn't see anyone from that compound in the San Angelo courtroom during Jeffs' trial. Jurors and spectators, including Brower, heard a tape recording of "a panting, pervert prophet raping a little girl," he said. That tape was confiscated by authorities the day the fugitive Jeffs was apprehended in 2006, but this trial was the first time it was used as evidence against him. Previously, a Utah judge sealed it as prejudicial and a federal judge said it was protected as "religious material."
"I hope ... that attorney generals in other states, including South Dakota, model their performance more after the attorney general in Texas than the one in Utah ... and don't let these atrocities continue," Brower said.
Among the mounds of evidence removed from the FLDS ranch in El Dorado, Texas, were diaries indicating that Jeffs has been at Pringle and directed its activities. Brower believes some of his estimated 80 wives may be living there now.
"I don't know that for a fact, but I think that's a good possibility that they are," Brower said. "It's a place of refuge for people in the hierarchy of the church. Only the most righteous are allowed to go there."
Meanwhile, the Texas verdict sends a clear message to FLDS leadership in Pringle and elsewhere, Brower said. "In the United States, we're not going to tolerate people raping little girls."
He warns South Dakotans that other jurisdictions that have taken a "hands-off" approach toward the FLDS have regretted it. "Everybody that believes it's easier just to look the other way has paid a price for it," he said.
Brower contends the FLDS is a "large criminal organization" that uses unfair labor practices to underbid legitimate existing businesses, particularly in the construction trades. His book recounts the plight of women who have left the FLDS, as well as "lost boys" -- young males with little education and no money -- who have been banished from their families and communities at the whim of church leadership.
Brower said South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley to take a "proactive" approach to the FLDS, even if no victims speak out.
"If I was there, I would be knocking on Marty Jackley's door, asking for an investigation; the law should follow them around," he said.
A spokeswoman for Jackley said her office wouldn't confirm or deny the existence of any investigation of the Pringle-area community.
"As with any matter, if we receive information regarding potential criminal activity, our policy is to investigate that information and see criminal prosecution if justified," Jackley said by email.
Brower said breaking the secrecy of the compound requires proactive investigation.
"It's much easier for people to look the other way. They don't want the headache, the hassle. It's the easiest thing to do," he said. "I know it's not easy. More than anybody, I know how hard it is to crack this religious facade. But human suffering is caused because of it."
Brower doesn't expect Jeffs' prison term to have much economic impact on Pringle, which is largely financed by church followers elsewhere, he said.
"They're completely supported by people in Shortcreek," he said. That community on the Utah/Arizona border is hailing Jeffs as a martyr for his religious beliefs, complete with a 38-foot-tall statue of the prophet that it had shipped from Texas to Shortcreek recently.
In it, Jeffs holds a Bible with one hand and a little girl by the other.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Justice Department
By Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press, August 5, 2011
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday (August 4, 2011) that federal officials who have been investigating racial profiling allegations against his office for more than two years have not informed him of any constitutional violations by his deputies.
The sheriff of Maricopa County, known for his immigration patrols and tough jail policies, said the Justice Department would have to take action to stop racial profiling if investigators had found violations.
"I am tired of this situation in the media, around the country and the world, talking about I'm under investigation for alleged racial profiling," the frustrated Arpaio said about the length of the investigation and the bad publicity.
"Let's get it over with and be fair and go public and say the sheriff is doing a good job on this matter," he said.
The Justice Department probe began in March 2009 amid allegations of discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and for having an English-only policy in his jails that discriminates against people with limited English skills.
Federal lawyers have provided few details of the probe, but Arpaio has said it is focused on his immigration sweeps.
During the patrols, deputies flood an area of a city-in some cases, heavily Latino areas-over several days to seek traffic violators and arrest others.
Critics say Arpaio's deputies target people for minor infractions based on their skin color so they can ask for proof of citizenship. Arpaio has repeatedly denied racial profiling allegations and said his officers handled the traffic stops properly.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Arpaio last year in a bid to get records and access to sheriff's employees and jail inmates as part of the civil rights investigation.
The lawsuit was dismissed Monday after Arpaio's office and the Justice Department reached an earlier settlement. The Department of Justice said the sheriff's office had cooperated since the lawsuit was filed by handing over records and giving access to employees and jails.
The federal agency released a written statement Thursday saying its investigation is continuing and Arpaio's office is cooperating.
Lydia Guzman, a board member of the Phoenix-based Hispanic civil rights group Somos America, said Arpaio is to blame for the length of the investigation because his earlier refusal to cooperate with investigators slowed the examination.
"If it was true that there was nothing on him, then why would he be afraid to turn over information?" Guzman said.
Arpaio doesn't expect the civil rights investigation to be resolved until after his 2012 re-election campaign.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday (August 4, 2011) that federal officials who have been investigating racial profiling allegations against his office for more than two years have not informed him of any constitutional violations by his deputies.
The sheriff of Maricopa County, known for his immigration patrols and tough jail policies, said the Justice Department would have to take action to stop racial profiling if investigators had found violations.
"I am tired of this situation in the media, around the country and the world, talking about I'm under investigation for alleged racial profiling," the frustrated Arpaio said about the length of the investigation and the bad publicity.
"Let's get it over with and be fair and go public and say the sheriff is doing a good job on this matter," he said.
The Justice Department probe began in March 2009 amid allegations of discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and for having an English-only policy in his jails that discriminates against people with limited English skills.
Federal lawyers have provided few details of the probe, but Arpaio has said it is focused on his immigration sweeps.
During the patrols, deputies flood an area of a city-in some cases, heavily Latino areas-over several days to seek traffic violators and arrest others.
Critics say Arpaio's deputies target people for minor infractions based on their skin color so they can ask for proof of citizenship. Arpaio has repeatedly denied racial profiling allegations and said his officers handled the traffic stops properly.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Arpaio last year in a bid to get records and access to sheriff's employees and jail inmates as part of the civil rights investigation.
The lawsuit was dismissed Monday after Arpaio's office and the Justice Department reached an earlier settlement. The Department of Justice said the sheriff's office had cooperated since the lawsuit was filed by handing over records and giving access to employees and jails.
The federal agency released a written statement Thursday saying its investigation is continuing and Arpaio's office is cooperating.
Lydia Guzman, a board member of the Phoenix-based Hispanic civil rights group Somos America, said Arpaio is to blame for the length of the investigation because his earlier refusal to cooperate with investigators slowed the examination.
"If it was true that there was nothing on him, then why would he be afraid to turn over information?" Guzman said.
Arpaio doesn't expect the civil rights investigation to be resolved until after his 2012 re-election campaign.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Ahwatukee Private Eye Focuses on Elder-Abuse Cases
by Cathryn Creno, Jul. 27, 2011, The Arizona Republic
Jacob Mueller quickly tired of his early retirement from police work.
In 2004, he left the Oxnard Police Department in California with enough benefits to provide a nice life in Prescott. But a retiree's life was not enough to occupy someone who once thrived on participating in car chases and underwater rescues and arresting gang members.
"I found myself slipping," Mueller said. "I needed something more challenging to do."
He opened a private investigations firm, but Mueller didn't find adultery investigations and other divorce-related work interesting.
"I sat in cars taking pictures of cheating spouses and people collecting alimony who said they weren't working but really were," he said. "I felt like there was something missing."
Through networking online, Mueller was hired by relatives of an elderly, disabled Prescott Valley resident to determine whether an employee hired to care for the person was stealing.
It turned out the family's suspicions were correct, and Mueller had found his niche.
"Families should not trust a $20 Internet background check when it comes to checking the backgrounds of the people caring for their loved ones," he said. "There really is no national criminal background check" that can be conducted for a few dollars online.
Mueller has since moved to Ahwatukee and turned the focus of his company, Global Eye Investigations, to investigating abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of the elderly.
He pointed out that such crimes don't just happen to older people who are isolated and unknown.
Mueller said he was particularly troubled earlier this year when, at age 90, legendary actor Mickey Rooney testified before a Senate committee about being the victim of abuse and exploitation by a family member.
"Elder abuse is a lot more hidden than you would think," he said. "The percentage of cases that are ever reported are very low compared with what is going on out there."
Last year, Arizona's Adult Protective Services investigated 6,488 reports of "vulnerable adult" mistreatment, and most of the reports were made by health or social-service workers, according to a report by the state Department of Economic Security.
Dana Young, owner of the Discovery Detective Group in Scottsdale and vice president of the Arizona Association of Private Investigators, said many private investigators, including those in her own group, take on elder-abuse cases. Three to 5 percent of the cases her company investigates annually are elder-abuse cases, she said.
But Young said it's rare for a company to specialize in elder-abuse cases.
"A lot of people don't have the money to hire private investigators," Young said.
All the more reason for elder abuse to be his specialty, said Mueller, who also said he is available to conduct no-cost workshops on recognizing and reporting abuse of the elderly.
In one recent case in Mesa, he said, a care-home owner became suspicious of the behavior of a worker. Mueller ran a background check and told the owner that the employee had served a five-year prison term for selling cocaine - something that was not disclosed on the job application.
He also said he recently looked into allegations of toxic mold and neglect of patients in a West Valley care home.
"I can't guarantee what I am going to find, but I guarantee people will sleep a little better having the information they are seeking," he said.
Jacob Mueller quickly tired of his early retirement from police work.
In 2004, he left the Oxnard Police Department in California with enough benefits to provide a nice life in Prescott. But a retiree's life was not enough to occupy someone who once thrived on participating in car chases and underwater rescues and arresting gang members.
"I found myself slipping," Mueller said. "I needed something more challenging to do."
He opened a private investigations firm, but Mueller didn't find adultery investigations and other divorce-related work interesting.
"I sat in cars taking pictures of cheating spouses and people collecting alimony who said they weren't working but really were," he said. "I felt like there was something missing."
Through networking online, Mueller was hired by relatives of an elderly, disabled Prescott Valley resident to determine whether an employee hired to care for the person was stealing.
It turned out the family's suspicions were correct, and Mueller had found his niche.
"Families should not trust a $20 Internet background check when it comes to checking the backgrounds of the people caring for their loved ones," he said. "There really is no national criminal background check" that can be conducted for a few dollars online.
Mueller has since moved to Ahwatukee and turned the focus of his company, Global Eye Investigations, to investigating abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of the elderly.
He pointed out that such crimes don't just happen to older people who are isolated and unknown.
Mueller said he was particularly troubled earlier this year when, at age 90, legendary actor Mickey Rooney testified before a Senate committee about being the victim of abuse and exploitation by a family member.
"Elder abuse is a lot more hidden than you would think," he said. "The percentage of cases that are ever reported are very low compared with what is going on out there."
Last year, Arizona's Adult Protective Services investigated 6,488 reports of "vulnerable adult" mistreatment, and most of the reports were made by health or social-service workers, according to a report by the state Department of Economic Security.
Dana Young, owner of the Discovery Detective Group in Scottsdale and vice president of the Arizona Association of Private Investigators, said many private investigators, including those in her own group, take on elder-abuse cases. Three to 5 percent of the cases her company investigates annually are elder-abuse cases, she said.
But Young said it's rare for a company to specialize in elder-abuse cases.
"A lot of people don't have the money to hire private investigators," Young said.
All the more reason for elder abuse to be his specialty, said Mueller, who also said he is available to conduct no-cost workshops on recognizing and reporting abuse of the elderly.
In one recent case in Mesa, he said, a care-home owner became suspicious of the behavior of a worker. Mueller ran a background check and told the owner that the employee had served a five-year prison term for selling cocaine - something that was not disclosed on the job application.
He also said he recently looked into allegations of toxic mold and neglect of patients in a West Valley care home.
"I can't guarantee what I am going to find, but I guarantee people will sleep a little better having the information they are seeking," he said.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Arizona Department of Public Safety Computers Hacked Again
by Catherine Holland, Phoenix News, June 29, 2011
The Department of Public Safety has confirmed that more information has been leaked in what appears to be a second hack attack, and this time it's personal.
The information reportedly includes personal details about several officers, including DPS spokesman Capt. Stephen Harrison. Among other things, the data dump allegedly contains names, addresses, Social Security numbers, online dating account details, voicemails, chat logs and even “seductive girlfriend pictures," all of which belong to about a dozen Arizona DPS officers.
The hackers reportedly also targeted Harrison’s personal Hotmail, Facebook and Match.com accounts.
Last week, Harrison told 3TV that extra security precautions were being put in place to prevent future attacks.
"We have a very thorough computer forensics division, and will likely request the help of our federal counterparts. We have fortified our network and it is secure. We are confident we will get the people responsible and prosecute them fully," Harrison said.
According to Gizmodo.com, all of this new information was posted to a popular pirating website by a hacker dubbed only as "Anonymous" who teamed up with a group called LulzSec for "Operation Anti-Security."
"In this second bulletin, we're dumping booty pirated from a dozen Arizona police officer's personal email accounts looking specifically for humiliating dirt," wrote Anonymous in "Communique Dos."
"The same fate will meet anyone else who tries to paint us as terrorists in an Orwellian attempt to pass more pro-censorship or racial-profiling police state laws," the post continued.
Last week, LulzSec hacked into DPS computer systems and released emails, passwords and other potentially sensitive information in a similar manner. More than 700 documents were stolen, but the information was mostly official in nature.
With a motto of “Laughing at Security,” LulzSec claimed the hack attack was payback for SB 1070, Arizona's controversial new anti illegal-immigration law.
LulzSec has since disbanded, existing for less than two months. During that time, however, they say they hacked a variety of organizations, including PBS, Fox News, Sony, the U.S. Senate, the CIA and several gaming companies. On June 26, the six-member group released a statement in which they said their website was being taken down. The group said its "50 days of lulz" statement would be its final release.
While the group's dissolution was somewhat of a surprise, members said the decision had nothing to do with pressure from federal authorities or rival hackers.
"The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us," said one LulzSec member in an interview with The Associated Press
Like last week's incident, this new attack on Arizona's DPS appears to be politically motivated.
The Department of Public Safety has confirmed that more information has been leaked in what appears to be a second hack attack, and this time it's personal.
The information reportedly includes personal details about several officers, including DPS spokesman Capt. Stephen Harrison. Among other things, the data dump allegedly contains names, addresses, Social Security numbers, online dating account details, voicemails, chat logs and even “seductive girlfriend pictures," all of which belong to about a dozen Arizona DPS officers.
The hackers reportedly also targeted Harrison’s personal Hotmail, Facebook and Match.com accounts.
Last week, Harrison told 3TV that extra security precautions were being put in place to prevent future attacks.
"We have a very thorough computer forensics division, and will likely request the help of our federal counterparts. We have fortified our network and it is secure. We are confident we will get the people responsible and prosecute them fully," Harrison said.
According to Gizmodo.com, all of this new information was posted to a popular pirating website by a hacker dubbed only as "Anonymous" who teamed up with a group called LulzSec for "Operation Anti-Security."
"In this second bulletin, we're dumping booty pirated from a dozen Arizona police officer's personal email accounts looking specifically for humiliating dirt," wrote Anonymous in "Communique Dos."
"The same fate will meet anyone else who tries to paint us as terrorists in an Orwellian attempt to pass more pro-censorship or racial-profiling police state laws," the post continued.
Last week, LulzSec hacked into DPS computer systems and released emails, passwords and other potentially sensitive information in a similar manner. More than 700 documents were stolen, but the information was mostly official in nature.
With a motto of “Laughing at Security,” LulzSec claimed the hack attack was payback for SB 1070, Arizona's controversial new anti illegal-immigration law.
LulzSec has since disbanded, existing for less than two months. During that time, however, they say they hacked a variety of organizations, including PBS, Fox News, Sony, the U.S. Senate, the CIA and several gaming companies. On June 26, the six-member group released a statement in which they said their website was being taken down. The group said its "50 days of lulz" statement would be its final release.
While the group's dissolution was somewhat of a surprise, members said the decision had nothing to do with pressure from federal authorities or rival hackers.
"The press are getting bored of us, and we're getting bored of us," said one LulzSec member in an interview with The Associated Press
Like last week's incident, this new attack on Arizona's DPS appears to be politically motivated.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Texas Detective Cracks Murder Case
by Deanna Boyd, Star Telegram, June 28, 2011
Seven times, fingerprints found on duct tape that had been wrapped around Sandra Martin's body were submitted into a fingerprint database with hopes of identifying the Fort Worth woman's killer.
Seven times, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, yielded no match.
But in 2009, after the latest negative result and more than 22 years after Martin's slaying, then-cold case Detective Jose Hernandez had an idea.
Recalling his first homicide case, Hernandez said investigators were successful in finding a database match only after someone sent the prints directly to the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Austin.
So Hernandez decided to hand-deliver photographs of the prints himself.
"I decided on this case, why not?" Hernandez testified Tuesday. "Just take it to Austin, to the same laboratory, and see if there's any success."
Weeks later, he received word of a match and a name -- Jay Thayer Williams -- a Dallas Realtor now standing trial in a capital murder case in connection with Martin's Sept. 22, 1986, slaying.
Williams, now 66, is accused of fatally shooting Martin, 27, while in the course of attempting to sexually assault the mother of two inside her southwest Fort Worth home. Martin's two children, then ages 2 and 5, were at home when their mother was killed.
Because prosecutors Kevin Rousseau and Tamla Ray are not seeking the death penalty in the case, if convicted, Williams would automatically be sentenced to life in prison.
In cross-examination, defense attorney Jim Shaw questioned Hernandez on how prints that had recently been deemed not of "AFIS quality" by the Police Department's fingerprint "guru" -- and that had been entered into the AFIS system seven times without success-- could suddenly yield a match.
"The AFIS process involves different stages, different people who enter the information into the system," Hernandez answered.
"If the system is not entered in a precise manner, there could be difficulty in making an identity."
Shaw suggested that the AFIS process is "subjective" and that the fingerprints had been manipulated.
The trial is scheduled to continue today.
Seven times, fingerprints found on duct tape that had been wrapped around Sandra Martin's body were submitted into a fingerprint database with hopes of identifying the Fort Worth woman's killer.
Seven times, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, yielded no match.
But in 2009, after the latest negative result and more than 22 years after Martin's slaying, then-cold case Detective Jose Hernandez had an idea.
Recalling his first homicide case, Hernandez said investigators were successful in finding a database match only after someone sent the prints directly to the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Austin.
So Hernandez decided to hand-deliver photographs of the prints himself.
"I decided on this case, why not?" Hernandez testified Tuesday. "Just take it to Austin, to the same laboratory, and see if there's any success."
Weeks later, he received word of a match and a name -- Jay Thayer Williams -- a Dallas Realtor now standing trial in a capital murder case in connection with Martin's Sept. 22, 1986, slaying.
Williams, now 66, is accused of fatally shooting Martin, 27, while in the course of attempting to sexually assault the mother of two inside her southwest Fort Worth home. Martin's two children, then ages 2 and 5, were at home when their mother was killed.
Because prosecutors Kevin Rousseau and Tamla Ray are not seeking the death penalty in the case, if convicted, Williams would automatically be sentenced to life in prison.
In cross-examination, defense attorney Jim Shaw questioned Hernandez on how prints that had recently been deemed not of "AFIS quality" by the Police Department's fingerprint "guru" -- and that had been entered into the AFIS system seven times without success-- could suddenly yield a match.
"The AFIS process involves different stages, different people who enter the information into the system," Hernandez answered.
"If the system is not entered in a precise manner, there could be difficulty in making an identity."
Shaw suggested that the AFIS process is "subjective" and that the fingerprints had been manipulated.
The trial is scheduled to continue today.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Private Investigator Finds Homeless Man and Heir to Fortune
Written by Amy Joi O'Donoghue, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
A combination of old-fashion private eye pavement pounding and media attention has helped to locate a homeless man who unknowingly inherited a significant sum of money.
David Lundberg, a private investigator and founder of UtahDetective.com, was retained by the family of Max Melitzer after the wanderer inherited a chunk of change that could give him safe haven for the rest of his life.
Melitzer's family lost contact with him in September of 2010 and had to hire the services of an investigator to track him down after he came into his inheritance.
Melitzer has been on the streets for years, floating between Salt Lake City and Ogden and becoming somewhat of a fixture among social service providers such as the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake City.
It was there that Lundberg talked with the mission's house manager, Don Hill, and the quest to locate Melitzer took a turn for the positive.
Hill said Melitzer frequently stays at the mission when he is not venturing north to Ogden.
Based on a tip from a KSL listener, Lundberg said Saturday he found Melitzer at Salt Lake's Pioneer Park, where the homeless man was pushing a large grocery cart stuffed with his personal belongings.
Lundberg got on the phone, called Melitzer's relatives in New York and handed the phone to the man.
"I think he was happy to be finally able to connect with his family in New York."
Lundberg said the man has had a rough stretch of bad luck recently.
"He was beat up. His money was taken. His watch was taken. He's been in kind of a surly element the last couple of years."
Lundberg found Melitzer a safe place to stay until his family arrives midweek from New York.
"I want to make sure we get him back to New York, hopefully with his family. Get him in a situation where he has a decent place to live, food, pay his medical costs. He can get on with his life and enjoy himself for a change."
A combination of old-fashion private eye pavement pounding and media attention has helped to locate a homeless man who unknowingly inherited a significant sum of money.
David Lundberg, a private investigator and founder of UtahDetective.com, was retained by the family of Max Melitzer after the wanderer inherited a chunk of change that could give him safe haven for the rest of his life.
Melitzer's family lost contact with him in September of 2010 and had to hire the services of an investigator to track him down after he came into his inheritance.
Melitzer has been on the streets for years, floating between Salt Lake City and Ogden and becoming somewhat of a fixture among social service providers such as the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake City.
It was there that Lundberg talked with the mission's house manager, Don Hill, and the quest to locate Melitzer took a turn for the positive.
Hill said Melitzer frequently stays at the mission when he is not venturing north to Ogden.
Based on a tip from a KSL listener, Lundberg said Saturday he found Melitzer at Salt Lake's Pioneer Park, where the homeless man was pushing a large grocery cart stuffed with his personal belongings.
Lundberg got on the phone, called Melitzer's relatives in New York and handed the phone to the man.
"I think he was happy to be finally able to connect with his family in New York."
Lundberg said the man has had a rough stretch of bad luck recently.
"He was beat up. His money was taken. His watch was taken. He's been in kind of a surly element the last couple of years."
Lundberg found Melitzer a safe place to stay until his family arrives midweek from New York.
"I want to make sure we get him back to New York, hopefully with his family. Get him in a situation where he has a decent place to live, food, pay his medical costs. He can get on with his life and enjoy himself for a change."
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Case of The Skeleton Left On The Porch
by Kirk Mitchell of The Denver Post, 5/8/2011
The skeleton of a woman last seen staying in an apartment with Jon Harrington was stuffed in a Rubbermaid container sealed with duct tape.
The container was found among belongings he left on the back porch of an Aurora home in 2005. He told police the box in which Carolyn Jansen's bones were found was his, though he said he hadn't seen her since 2002 and didn't know what happened to her.
But while Harrington was briefly arrested for investigation of murder, he has never been charged with the crime — and denies any role in her death. Jansen's murder officially remains unsolved — if it was a murder at all.
The case has exposed a deep disagreement among Arapahoe prosecutors, Aurora police and the county's coroner. The coroner said he believes Jansen's death was murder and police officers think there is enough evidence to make a case against Harrington.
But Arapahoe prosecutors say there is a chance Jansen died accidentally, perhaps during a drunken fall. They offer no hypothesis for how her bones came to be sealed in Harrington's Rubbermaid box.
"It's pretty doggone suspicious, but maybe he's covering up for a friend," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Daniel Plattner. "A gut hunch that he's probably the guy is not enough to try him on. You have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
His position on the case aggravates the Arapahoe coroner, who has declared the cause of death a homicide, not an accident.
"I never knew it was the DA's job to determine cause and manner of death. The idea about this being possibly an accidental fall — I suppose there is a remote possibility of that," Dr. Michael Dobersen said. "The only problem is . . . why does she disappear in this suspicious manner?"
Aurora police determined that substantial circumstantial evidence pointed to Harrington, Detective Shannon Youngquist-Lucy said.
"We felt it was strong enough to make an arrest," Sgt. Scott Pendleton said.
But Aurora police also never searched the apartment where the alleged killing took place, which was in Adams County, not Arapahoe County where the murder charge was filed. Even though Jansen's body was not found until three years after she disappeared, a search of the apartment where she lived with Harrington may still have yielded evidence.
"I am very surprised they did not do a crime-scene investigation," former FBI profiler Pete Klismet said. Aurora Police Department officials declined to say why the apartment was not searched.
Harrington, now working out of a temporary labor company in east Denver, said recently that he doesn't really recall what happened to Jansen.
"I don't remember that much," Harrington said. "She just didn't show up some day. I never saw her again."
That Harrington is free is agonizing to a woman who searched for years for her birth mother, only to learn she was kept in a box like a forgotten souvenir.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out he was concealing this body for a reason," said Victoria Baker of Racine, Ohio.
Baker, who is legally blind, has no memory of her birth mother. Jansen signed papers she thought would get Baker subsidized medical care, only to learn they were adoption papers, Baker said.
When Baker turned 31, she hired an Arizona private investigator
to find her mother. That was in 2001, the same year Jansen began working with Harrington at a Waffle House near 33rd Avenue and Peoria Street.
Richard Johnson, who was a friend of Harrington's, helped Jansen move her furniture into Harrington's apartment in late 2001. Harrington said they roomed together to save expenses, not because they had a relationship.
In February 2002, Jansen quit her Waffle House job when she was moved to an overnight shift. Harrington told Johnson that Jansen stole his rent money and left. He asked if he could store his things at Johnson's house after getting evicted, Johnson said.
Johnson said he helped Harrington move, but noticed that lots of Jansen's possessions, including her furniture, were still in Harrington's apartment despite his declaration that she had moved out.
Johnson recalled helping Harrington carry a large, heavy white Rubbermaid container sealed with duct tape through the apartment window. Harrington said he had work boots and quilts in the container.
They moved Harrington's things to Johnson's back porch, stacking boxes on his plastic container. Harrington later moved into Johnson's house with the agreement he perform home-health duties for his elderly mother, Bernice, and him. Johnson suffers from multiple sclerosis.
About 18 months after Harrington moved in with the Johnsons, he vanished one day in 2004. Aurora police arrested Harrington on suspicion of theft and forgery in June 2004. Johnson said he began noticing a foul odor coming from the back of his house but assumed it was caused by cats.
On June 28, 2005, when he was moving Harrington's things into a locked storage shed, he lifted the boxes off the Rubbermaid container and there was an overpowering smell. The lid was cracked. A blanket inside the container was teeming with insects. He saw a skeletonized foot and long brown hair.
"As soon as I saw the hair, the reaction in my mind was: 'Oh, my God, it's Carolyn,' " Johnson said. He called police.
Dobersen's autopsy determined Jansen died of a "blunt impact injury to the head." She had a 1 3/4-inch crack on her forehead over her left eye.
"This is about as suspicious as it gets," Dobersen said. He said it would require considerable force to cause a crack in the skull like Jansen sustained, making it unlikely that it was an accident.
Over the years, DA Plattner said Aurora police presented the case twice for charges and both times the most senior prosecutors reached the same conclusion. He said he not only has a right but a responsibility to disagree with the coroner or police on charging decisions when warranted.
"No matter how much our hearts go out to the victims we can't sacrifice our ethics," Plattner said.
Plattner's decision not to file also mentioned that if Jansen was murdered, it happened in Adams County. Harrington's apartment was a half block inside Adams County. He said he could have still filed the case in Arapahoe County, where the body was found, if evidence justified that, but, in his view, it didn't.
When contacted recently on Colfax Avenue, Harrington said about a week after Jansen left his house, someone from work told him they saw her at a bar. It was an alibi similar to one he had given to police.
He said he had his own theories about who put Jansen in the container, but he would keep them to himself. It wasn't him. Although he told police the container would have his fingerprints on it because it was his, he told a reporter that police never showed him the container, so he isn't sure.
Baker, who found her mother too late, said she hoped the investigation would continue.
"It's quite a twisted tale," Baker said. "I don't know why there is a lack of interest in this case."
The skeleton of a woman last seen staying in an apartment with Jon Harrington was stuffed in a Rubbermaid container sealed with duct tape.
The container was found among belongings he left on the back porch of an Aurora home in 2005. He told police the box in which Carolyn Jansen's bones were found was his, though he said he hadn't seen her since 2002 and didn't know what happened to her.
But while Harrington was briefly arrested for investigation of murder, he has never been charged with the crime — and denies any role in her death. Jansen's murder officially remains unsolved — if it was a murder at all.
The case has exposed a deep disagreement among Arapahoe prosecutors, Aurora police and the county's coroner. The coroner said he believes Jansen's death was murder and police officers think there is enough evidence to make a case against Harrington.
But Arapahoe prosecutors say there is a chance Jansen died accidentally, perhaps during a drunken fall. They offer no hypothesis for how her bones came to be sealed in Harrington's Rubbermaid box.
"It's pretty doggone suspicious, but maybe he's covering up for a friend," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Daniel Plattner. "A gut hunch that he's probably the guy is not enough to try him on. You have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
His position on the case aggravates the Arapahoe coroner, who has declared the cause of death a homicide, not an accident.
"I never knew it was the DA's job to determine cause and manner of death. The idea about this being possibly an accidental fall — I suppose there is a remote possibility of that," Dr. Michael Dobersen said. "The only problem is . . . why does she disappear in this suspicious manner?"
Aurora police determined that substantial circumstantial evidence pointed to Harrington, Detective Shannon Youngquist-Lucy said.
"We felt it was strong enough to make an arrest," Sgt. Scott Pendleton said.
But Aurora police also never searched the apartment where the alleged killing took place, which was in Adams County, not Arapahoe County where the murder charge was filed. Even though Jansen's body was not found until three years after she disappeared, a search of the apartment where she lived with Harrington may still have yielded evidence.
"I am very surprised they did not do a crime-scene investigation," former FBI profiler Pete Klismet said. Aurora Police Department officials declined to say why the apartment was not searched.
Harrington, now working out of a temporary labor company in east Denver, said recently that he doesn't really recall what happened to Jansen.
"I don't remember that much," Harrington said. "She just didn't show up some day. I never saw her again."
That Harrington is free is agonizing to a woman who searched for years for her birth mother, only to learn she was kept in a box like a forgotten souvenir.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out he was concealing this body for a reason," said Victoria Baker of Racine, Ohio.
Baker, who is legally blind, has no memory of her birth mother. Jansen signed papers she thought would get Baker subsidized medical care, only to learn they were adoption papers, Baker said.
When Baker turned 31, she hired an Arizona private investigator
to find her mother. That was in 2001, the same year Jansen began working with Harrington at a Waffle House near 33rd Avenue and Peoria Street.
Richard Johnson, who was a friend of Harrington's, helped Jansen move her furniture into Harrington's apartment in late 2001. Harrington said they roomed together to save expenses, not because they had a relationship.
In February 2002, Jansen quit her Waffle House job when she was moved to an overnight shift. Harrington told Johnson that Jansen stole his rent money and left. He asked if he could store his things at Johnson's house after getting evicted, Johnson said.
Johnson said he helped Harrington move, but noticed that lots of Jansen's possessions, including her furniture, were still in Harrington's apartment despite his declaration that she had moved out.
Johnson recalled helping Harrington carry a large, heavy white Rubbermaid container sealed with duct tape through the apartment window. Harrington said he had work boots and quilts in the container.
They moved Harrington's things to Johnson's back porch, stacking boxes on his plastic container. Harrington later moved into Johnson's house with the agreement he perform home-health duties for his elderly mother, Bernice, and him. Johnson suffers from multiple sclerosis.
About 18 months after Harrington moved in with the Johnsons, he vanished one day in 2004. Aurora police arrested Harrington on suspicion of theft and forgery in June 2004. Johnson said he began noticing a foul odor coming from the back of his house but assumed it was caused by cats.
On June 28, 2005, when he was moving Harrington's things into a locked storage shed, he lifted the boxes off the Rubbermaid container and there was an overpowering smell. The lid was cracked. A blanket inside the container was teeming with insects. He saw a skeletonized foot and long brown hair.
"As soon as I saw the hair, the reaction in my mind was: 'Oh, my God, it's Carolyn,' " Johnson said. He called police.
Dobersen's autopsy determined Jansen died of a "blunt impact injury to the head." She had a 1 3/4-inch crack on her forehead over her left eye.
"This is about as suspicious as it gets," Dobersen said. He said it would require considerable force to cause a crack in the skull like Jansen sustained, making it unlikely that it was an accident.
Over the years, DA Plattner said Aurora police presented the case twice for charges and both times the most senior prosecutors reached the same conclusion. He said he not only has a right but a responsibility to disagree with the coroner or police on charging decisions when warranted.
"No matter how much our hearts go out to the victims we can't sacrifice our ethics," Plattner said.
Plattner's decision not to file also mentioned that if Jansen was murdered, it happened in Adams County. Harrington's apartment was a half block inside Adams County. He said he could have still filed the case in Arapahoe County, where the body was found, if evidence justified that, but, in his view, it didn't.
When contacted recently on Colfax Avenue, Harrington said about a week after Jansen left his house, someone from work told him they saw her at a bar. It was an alibi similar to one he had given to police.
He said he had his own theories about who put Jansen in the container, but he would keep them to himself. It wasn't him. Although he told police the container would have his fingerprints on it because it was his, he told a reporter that police never showed him the container, so he isn't sure.
Baker, who found her mother too late, said she hoped the investigation would continue.
"It's quite a twisted tale," Baker said. "I don't know why there is a lack of interest in this case."
Friday, May 13, 2011
How a Private Investigator Can Help You
The following was written by Jeff Kimble, P.I., owner of Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C. http://www.arizonalegaldocs.com/. It is intended to provide general information regarding the business of private investigations and should not be considered legal advice.
The public perception of the private investigator is varied and nebulous, both from the frequently exaggerated and inaccurate portrayals of "private eyes" in film and television, and also from the simple fact that, compared to other occupations, a relatively small percentage of citizens run across or require the services of a private investigator in the first place.
A simple yet precise definition of a private investigator is one who is employed to collect information. Once the drama, the mystique, and the ridiculous (just watch one episode of Magnum P.I. to get the wrong idea of the investigation business) are stripped from the fictitious versions of the job description, a private investigator is essentially a collector of information. He or she—if ethical, professional, and experienced—knows how to retrieve this information legally, whether through research, observation, or technical means, and then provides this information to his or her client for a fee.
Private investigators are hired by individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, and even by government entities. Cases range from industrial espionage to lost pets, from criminal investigations to pre-employment screenings, and the types of P.I.'s and their specialties are as diverse as are the clients who hire them and the varied cases they present.
The first step toward determining whether a private investigator can help you is by clearly defining your reasons for hiring one in the first place. What do you want? Are you simply trying to find out the truth in a personal matter? Or are you planning to use the information you obtain from the investigation in court? Or both? These kinds of questions are important to ask yourself before you begin your search for a reputable investigator, as they may affect the outcome of your case, as well as its cost.
If you are considering litigation (going to court) you may want to hire an attorney before hiring a private investigator. The attorney should advise you as to whether your case requires the services of an investigator to be successful. There is no sense in making a financial investment in information that may ultimately not be useful or admissable in court.
If you are purely interested in "the truth" regarding a matter, then calling a P.I. directly may be your best option. A private investigator can be your confidential resource for what you cannot (or do not want to) ascertain on your own. He or she can be "your eyes" into matters the police may not be able to help you with, and can effectively be your agent or representative in matters familial, civil, and/or personal in nature.
Always keep in mind that different investigative agencies offer different services, and those services can vary greatly in cost and scope. A large agency with hundreds of operatives may not be economically appropriate to help you find a long lost relative, but may be perfect to handle a complicated case of corporate fraud. A small agency may be ideal to help you determine if your spouse is unfaithful, but may be the completely wrong choice for the countersurveillance needs of a Fortune 500 Company. Investigate your investigator first. Research online, contact the Better Business Bureau, read client testimonials, and thoroughly review the agency's licensing and qualifications. (See: Things You Should Know before Hiring a Private Eye in the May 2010 archive of this blog.)
Once you feel satisfied with your choice, meet the investigator(s) in person. How do you feel about him, her, or them? Do they handle themselves professionally? Do they appear trustworthy? What is your "gut reaction"? Do you feel comfortable with them in general? These are valid questions, and often the best test when making the final determination. You could very well end up having a long and intimate business relationship with this person or persons, and they may see your significant other, family, friends, business associates, and acquaintances at their best or worst. If you don't feel completely comfortable trusting him or her with your personal and/or business information—look elsewhere.
Once you have determined that you require the services of a private investigator and have made your choice from the many agencies available, what are some of the specific services private investigators have to offer?
My company, Arizona Private Investigations, a subdivision of Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C., offers the following:
Child Custody and Infidelity Investigations
Pre-Employment Screening
Criminal History Reports
Individual Background Profiles
Adult and Youth Caregiver Abuse/Neglect Investigations
Teen Whereabouts/Lifestyle Investigations
Premarital Screening
Tenant Screening
Missing Persons /Skip Traces
Witness Location
Witness Interviews (statements and affidavits)
Police Interviews
Expert Witness Research and Interviews
Evidence Collection
Surveillance (physical, photographic, and GPS tracking)
Testimony/Deposition
Location and Recovery of Property (including replevins)
Threat Investigations
Criminal Investigations
Hiring a private investigator can be one of the most valuable and life changing choices you ever make. To further appreciate what a private investigator can do for you, contact Jeff Kimble at 480-318-9936, or visit the Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C. website at:
http://www.azprivateeye.com
"The Truth will set you free..."
The public perception of the private investigator is varied and nebulous, both from the frequently exaggerated and inaccurate portrayals of "private eyes" in film and television, and also from the simple fact that, compared to other occupations, a relatively small percentage of citizens run across or require the services of a private investigator in the first place.
A simple yet precise definition of a private investigator is one who is employed to collect information. Once the drama, the mystique, and the ridiculous (just watch one episode of Magnum P.I. to get the wrong idea of the investigation business) are stripped from the fictitious versions of the job description, a private investigator is essentially a collector of information. He or she—if ethical, professional, and experienced—knows how to retrieve this information legally, whether through research, observation, or technical means, and then provides this information to his or her client for a fee.
Private investigators are hired by individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, and even by government entities. Cases range from industrial espionage to lost pets, from criminal investigations to pre-employment screenings, and the types of P.I.'s and their specialties are as diverse as are the clients who hire them and the varied cases they present.
The first step toward determining whether a private investigator can help you is by clearly defining your reasons for hiring one in the first place. What do you want? Are you simply trying to find out the truth in a personal matter? Or are you planning to use the information you obtain from the investigation in court? Or both? These kinds of questions are important to ask yourself before you begin your search for a reputable investigator, as they may affect the outcome of your case, as well as its cost.
If you are considering litigation (going to court) you may want to hire an attorney before hiring a private investigator. The attorney should advise you as to whether your case requires the services of an investigator to be successful. There is no sense in making a financial investment in information that may ultimately not be useful or admissable in court.
If you are purely interested in "the truth" regarding a matter, then calling a P.I. directly may be your best option. A private investigator can be your confidential resource for what you cannot (or do not want to) ascertain on your own. He or she can be "your eyes" into matters the police may not be able to help you with, and can effectively be your agent or representative in matters familial, civil, and/or personal in nature.
Always keep in mind that different investigative agencies offer different services, and those services can vary greatly in cost and scope. A large agency with hundreds of operatives may not be economically appropriate to help you find a long lost relative, but may be perfect to handle a complicated case of corporate fraud. A small agency may be ideal to help you determine if your spouse is unfaithful, but may be the completely wrong choice for the countersurveillance needs of a Fortune 500 Company. Investigate your investigator first. Research online, contact the Better Business Bureau, read client testimonials, and thoroughly review the agency's licensing and qualifications. (See: Things You Should Know before Hiring a Private Eye in the May 2010 archive of this blog.)
Once you feel satisfied with your choice, meet the investigator(s) in person. How do you feel about him, her, or them? Do they handle themselves professionally? Do they appear trustworthy? What is your "gut reaction"? Do you feel comfortable with them in general? These are valid questions, and often the best test when making the final determination. You could very well end up having a long and intimate business relationship with this person or persons, and they may see your significant other, family, friends, business associates, and acquaintances at their best or worst. If you don't feel completely comfortable trusting him or her with your personal and/or business information—look elsewhere.
Once you have determined that you require the services of a private investigator and have made your choice from the many agencies available, what are some of the specific services private investigators have to offer?
My company, Arizona Private Investigations, a subdivision of Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C., offers the following:
Child Custody and Infidelity Investigations
Pre-Employment Screening
Criminal History Reports
Individual Background Profiles
Adult and Youth Caregiver Abuse/Neglect Investigations
Teen Whereabouts/Lifestyle Investigations
Premarital Screening
Tenant Screening
Missing Persons /Skip Traces
Witness Location
Witness Interviews (statements and affidavits)
Police Interviews
Expert Witness Research and Interviews
Evidence Collection
Surveillance (physical, photographic, and GPS tracking)
Testimony/Deposition
Location and Recovery of Property (including replevins)
Threat Investigations
Criminal Investigations
Hiring a private investigator can be one of the most valuable and life changing choices you ever make. To further appreciate what a private investigator can do for you, contact Jeff Kimble at 480-318-9936, or visit the Arizona Legal Document Services, L.L.C. website at:
http://www.azprivateeye.com
"The Truth will set you free..."
Friday, April 22, 2011
Private Investigator Conducts Internal Investigation of Arpaio's Billing Records
by Ray Stern, Phoenix New Times, April 21, 2011
Sheriff Joe Arpaio faced 5 1/2 hours of questioning in January as part of an investigation into a memo written by one of his top deputies that alleged corruption by his command staff.
The Arizona Republic dug up billing records that provide evidence of what had long been speculated: That the so-called Toughest Sheriff in America had to submit to an interrogation over the crimes and unprofessional behavior alleged against some of his closest aides.
Local private investigator Keith Sobraske conducted the internal investigation of Arpaio's men for Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who'd been asked to conduct it by Arpaio. Trusting the math of Repub veterans Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and JJ Hensley, the billings add up to $86,300 in total cost to Maricopa County taxpayers. It's one of Arpaio's less expensive messes, though the political cost can't be calculated until a few more factors are known -- such as whether any of this will lead to criminal charges.
As the billing records for January show, Arpaio was scheduled to be interviewed from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on January 12. With no reference to the need for rescheduling or any other preparation for another interview, it seems safe to assume the interview took place.
Arpaio on Wednesday declined to characterize the nature of his conversation with investigators.
"I'm not going to get into whether I was a witness," Arpaio said. "We have met quite frequently to discuss the investigation."Arpaio holds an advantage over the public, for the time being. He's so far refusing to release any portion of the 1,022-page investigative report by Sobraske, which he's had in his possession since last week.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio faced 5 1/2 hours of questioning in January as part of an investigation into a memo written by one of his top deputies that alleged corruption by his command staff.
The Arizona Republic dug up billing records that provide evidence of what had long been speculated: That the so-called Toughest Sheriff in America had to submit to an interrogation over the crimes and unprofessional behavior alleged against some of his closest aides.
Local private investigator Keith Sobraske conducted the internal investigation of Arpaio's men for Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who'd been asked to conduct it by Arpaio. Trusting the math of Repub veterans Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and JJ Hensley, the billings add up to $86,300 in total cost to Maricopa County taxpayers. It's one of Arpaio's less expensive messes, though the political cost can't be calculated until a few more factors are known -- such as whether any of this will lead to criminal charges.
As the billing records for January show, Arpaio was scheduled to be interviewed from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on January 12. With no reference to the need for rescheduling or any other preparation for another interview, it seems safe to assume the interview took place.
Arpaio on Wednesday declined to characterize the nature of his conversation with investigators.
"I'm not going to get into whether I was a witness," Arpaio said. "We have met quite frequently to discuss the investigation."Arpaio holds an advantage over the public, for the time being. He's so far refusing to release any portion of the 1,022-page investigative report by Sobraske, which he's had in his possession since last week.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
CIA's Brain Drain: Some Top Officials Have Moved to Private Sector
Written by Julie Tate, Tuesday, April 12, 2011, Washington Post
In the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, private intelligence firms and security consultants have peeled away veterans from the top reaches of the CIA, hiring scores of longtime officers in large part to gain access to the burgeoning world of intelligence contracting.
At least 91 of the agency’s upper-level managers have left for the private sector in the past 10 years, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. Several of the top positions have turned over multiple times in that period: In addition to three directors, the CIA has lost four of its deputy directors for operations, three directors of its counterterrorism center and all five of the division chiefs who were in place the day of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In many quarters in Washington, government officials decamp for the private sector as a matter of course. Defense consultancies routinely hire generals retiring from the Pentagon; the city’s lobbying firms are stacked with former members of Congress and administration officials.
But the wave of departures from the CIA has marked an end to a decades-old culture of discretion and restraint in which retired officers, by and large, did not join contractors that perform intelligence work for the government. It has also raised questions about the impact of the losses incurred by the agency. Veteran officers leave with a wealth of institutional knowledge, extensive personal contacts and an understanding of world affairs afforded only to those working at the nation’s preeminent repository of intelligence.
Among the CIA’s losses to the private sector have been top subject-matter experts including Stephen Kappes, who served as the agency’s top spy in Moscow and who helped negotiate Libya’s disarmament in 2003; Henry Crumpton, who was one of the CIA’s first officers in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks; and Cofer Black, the director of the agency’s counterterrorism center on Sept. 11.
The exodus into the private sector has been driven by an explosion in intelligence contracting. As part of its Top Secret America investigation, The Post estimated that of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. Thirty percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies is made up of contractors. Those contractors perform a wide range of tasks, among them assessing security risks, analyzing intelligence and providing “risk mitigation” services in foreign countries.
“Since 9/11, the demographics of the agency have been out of whack. A number of people left the agency earlier than you would think, and you had a large influx of younger people,” said Robert Grenier, a 27-year agency veteran who is now chairman of ERG Partners, a boutique investment bank specializing in the intelligence industry. “The average experience of an officer now is much lower than it has been traditionally, and that has its effects on the agency.”
For private firms seeking to tap into the lucrative industry of intelligence contracting, the value of having agency officers on the payroll is hard to overstate. And although the agency pays its top managers large salaries — the most senior officers make nearly $180,000 a year — private firms are generally able to offer more.
This report is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former CIA officials. The Post compiled its list of more than 90 upper-level managers by identifying agency personnel who left for the private sector after serving as directors, deputy directors or chiefs of the CIA’s various divisions, as well as other members of the leadership of the Directorate of Operations, now known as the National Clandestine Service.
CIA spokesman George Little said that “any suggestion that there isn’t world-class, senior expertise at the CIA is flat wrong.”
“Retirement is a fact of professional life,” Little said, “and the CIA has created strong mechanisms to assist our officers as they explore opportunities after retirement and to retain their knowledge before they go.”
The bulk of the agency’s losses to the private sector came roughly from 2002 through 2007, as business with intelligence contractors spiked. In fiscal 2010, a senior U.S. official said, attrition rates at the CIA were at an all-time low.
Some of the officials quoted for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities involved in discussing the agency’s inner workings. Few of them cited problems at the agency as their reason for leaving. Rather, they said, the choice was often financially driven.
One former senior official who had worked in government service for more than 25 years said he looked at the opportunities for advancement at the agency on the one hand and at the looming costs of college tuition for his children on the other. He chose the private sector. “It was a practical matter,” he said.
Years of intelligence reforms found the CIA unprepared for the events that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. From 1990 through 1996, Congress had slashed the intelligence community’s budget every year, and from 1996 through 2000, it effectively left the budget flat.
Suddenly, with a demand for better intelligence, the agency needed more bodies. It needed people to deploy to Afghanistan. It needed top-level linguists. It needed interrogators. Insiders and outsiders quickly concluded that the CIA needed contractors.
Richard “Hollis” Helms, a longtime overseas officer and former head of the agency’s European division, founded Abraxas Corp. in the days after the attacks. Helms identified the areas in which the agency needed the most help and began aggressively recruiting current and former intelligence professionals.
Those professionals included mid-level analysts from the Directorate of Intelligence. But they also included top brass such as Rod Smith, a former chief of the agency’s Special Activities Division, and Fred Turco, one of the original architects of the CIA’s counterterrorism center and the former chief of external operations. Meredith Woodruff, one of the agency’s most senior female operatives, signed on to Abraxas in 2006.
“Hollis is brilliant; he realized there was a huge market out there to exploit. He printed money for a while — hired tons of CIA staffers and doubled their salary. He was the first agency guy to figure it all out,” said one former chief of station, the term for the top CIA officer at a U.S. embassy. “You would see people leave the CIA on a Friday and come back on Monday in the same job but working for Abraxas.” Barry McManus, an agency veteran, was among those who saw the promise of Abraxas.
McManus had worked for the CIA his entire career, with the exception of a few years on the D.C. police force. He started out as a bodyguard for CIA Director William J. Casey, then climbed through the ranks, eventually doing work in more than 130 countries. By 1993, he had become the CIA’s chief operations polygraph examiner and interrogator, responsible for interviewing high-level terrorism suspects and others in the process of interrogation.
But when he turned 50 in 2003 and found himself eligible for retirement, McManus said, he realized he wanted to do something else.
Now, as vice president of training and education at Abraxas, he spends much of his time training others in the law enforcement and intelligence world. Among his contracts is one with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which hired him to lead a four-day class that covers an introduction to terrorism.
According to government contracting documents, in a separate four-day period in 2006, McManus made nearly $40,000 for leading a seminar for immigration officers in “detecting deception and eliciting responses.” A year later, he secured a $238,000 contract to perform guest lectures. Pretty soon, more contracts began rolling in.
McManus said he is well compensated for his work at Abraxas. One of his first big purchases in post-agency life: a black Maserati GranTurismo, which retails for $160,000.
Helms, Abraxas’s founder, declined to be interviewed. In 2009, the privately held firm had an estimated 470 employees and annual revenue of $90 million. Late last year, Cubic, another defense contractor, acquired Abraxas for $124 million.
Many former CIA officers say they are surprised at their worth in the private sector. Some are surprised the private sector wants them at all.
At a 2009 conference hosted by the Digital Government Institute, John Sano, former deputy director of the National Clandestine Service and now a director of business development at Cisco, cracked a joke about his background.
“Let me tell you about my technological expertise: I have none,” Sano told conference attendees at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington. “I just figured out how the spring on this pen works. That is the limit to my expertise.”
If he didn’t bring technical expertise to Cisco, Sano, a 28-year veteran of the agency, did bring something else: the ability to help the firm navigate the sometimes mystifying layers of bureaucracy in Washington.
The same can be said of countless other CIA veterans. A top-level official with experience at the agency might know the right people on the right committees or be able to help identify federal employees who play a key role in awarding a lucrative intelligence contract. They also know how the intelligence world works.
“If you worked on the seventh floor of the agency, you have a view of everything that’s going on in the world from Marrakesh to Bangladesh,” one former operations officer said. “That knowledge is invaluable to companies working internationally.”
Outside the intelligence world, corporations have found reasons to turn to CIA veterans in the post-9/11 era. Many former officers now head security for multinational firms. Among others, Robert Dannenberg, a former Central Eurasia division chief, left the CIA to run BP’s international security affairs division and now is the director for global security at Goldman Sachs.
When Mel Gamble, a 40-year veteran of the agency, retired in 2008, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He was retiring as the chief of recruitment for the National Clandestine Service, after serving in jobs that included being operations officer and eventually a chief of station in Africa.
In the old days, through the 1990s, there had been an “unwritten rule,” Gamble recalled: “You would retire and go away. Go raise tulips or dogs.”
But some officials with the agency now have concluded that their retirement income is not enough, and they don’t want to stay at the agency working as “instructors or doing task-specific duties,” Gamble said.
“I didn’t just want to go back to the agency [as a contractor] as so many people do,” said Gamble, who ultimately settled on a position at Electronic Warfare Associates, a defense contractor based in Herndon that advertises services including network penetration testing and computer forensics analysis.
“They knew the ins and outs of how to deal with [the Defense Department], but they didn’t understand other agencies at all and how they were structured,” said Gamble, who has since left EWA for another company. “I tell them, you need to talk to people at this level, or it’s actually this person at the National Security Council who would make a decision on this project.”
At the agency, some say the wave of departures has led to a sense of unease. In 2009, after a double agent blew himself up at a CIA base in Afghanistan, killing seven of the agency’s officers, many former officials suggested that the tragedy might have been prevented had the CIA retained more senior personnel at the outpost.
Some officials questioned why the agency had given one of the top assignments there to an officer who had never served in a war zone. Other former officials raised concerns about how intelligence assets were being handled in the field.
“The tradecraft that was developed over many years is passe,” a recently retired senior intelligence official said at the time. “Now it’s a military tempo, where you don’t have time for validating and vetting sources. . . . All that seems to have gone by the board. It shows there are not a lot of people with a great deal of experience in this field.”
Only a year before the bombing, the agency had instituted a new program to mitigate the loss of institutional memory. The program required officers heading out the door to train their successors or participate in oral histories about their own careers. Some officers even make manuals describing specialized work. At times, though, a transfer of knowledge has not been enough.
In 2010, after the CIA lost Michael Sulick, the head of its clandestine service, to retirement, it chose not to replace him from within its current ranks. Rather, the agency tapped John D. Bennett, a CIA veteran who had served as station chief in Pakistan and who had retired only two months before.
As far back as 1989, the agency established a retirement program to help former employees adjust to life outside the bubble of the agency. The program, now three months long, teaches agency officials about their benefits and financial management skills. But these days, it also functions as a recruitment space.
When the retirement program was conceived, fewer than 20 firms came to speak to the retiring classes about opportunities in the workforce outside the agency. Today, 40 to 50 companies vie to attend an agency-sponsored job fair held 10 times a year at the CIA’s retirement center in Reston. Major contractors — including SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton and CACI — are regular participants.
One agency participant who interviewed with top defense contractors described the conversations as an exercise in figuring out whom he knew in the intelligence world.
“With a couple of firms, it was sort of a blatant, how-can-we-exploit-your-Rolodex conversation,” said one former intelligence officer. The chief executive of the company he ended up working for told him: “We want to know how the intelligence world works and how we can provide services to them.”
At the agency, Director Leon Panetta has helped slow the exit of talent. But this year he has seen his top three leaders leave the agency. Collectively, they represented more than 75 years of institutional knowledge and operations talent. One former official said the loss of so many insiders has taken a toll on those connected to the agency.
“Honestly, it’s painful to see, and it’s not in the national interest to see so many men and women at the peak of their experience walk out of the agency at the age of 52 or 53,” the former official said. “The agency would be well served to implement stronger incentives to encourage people to stay.”
Bob Wallace, a 32-year agency veteran who now runs Artemus Consulting Group in Herndon, suggested that the departures from the agency reflect more than the draw of a big salary outside government. Rather, he said, some veterans who have risen to the management level are leaving for a much more mundane reason: bureaucracy.
“People tire of meetings,” Wallace said. “Eventually, they decide they want to jump to the private sector so they can be back on the street again — doing what they love.”
In the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, private intelligence firms and security consultants have peeled away veterans from the top reaches of the CIA, hiring scores of longtime officers in large part to gain access to the burgeoning world of intelligence contracting.
At least 91 of the agency’s upper-level managers have left for the private sector in the past 10 years, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. Several of the top positions have turned over multiple times in that period: In addition to three directors, the CIA has lost four of its deputy directors for operations, three directors of its counterterrorism center and all five of the division chiefs who were in place the day of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In many quarters in Washington, government officials decamp for the private sector as a matter of course. Defense consultancies routinely hire generals retiring from the Pentagon; the city’s lobbying firms are stacked with former members of Congress and administration officials.
But the wave of departures from the CIA has marked an end to a decades-old culture of discretion and restraint in which retired officers, by and large, did not join contractors that perform intelligence work for the government. It has also raised questions about the impact of the losses incurred by the agency. Veteran officers leave with a wealth of institutional knowledge, extensive personal contacts and an understanding of world affairs afforded only to those working at the nation’s preeminent repository of intelligence.
Among the CIA’s losses to the private sector have been top subject-matter experts including Stephen Kappes, who served as the agency’s top spy in Moscow and who helped negotiate Libya’s disarmament in 2003; Henry Crumpton, who was one of the CIA’s first officers in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks; and Cofer Black, the director of the agency’s counterterrorism center on Sept. 11.
The exodus into the private sector has been driven by an explosion in intelligence contracting. As part of its Top Secret America investigation, The Post estimated that of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. Thirty percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies is made up of contractors. Those contractors perform a wide range of tasks, among them assessing security risks, analyzing intelligence and providing “risk mitigation” services in foreign countries.
“Since 9/11, the demographics of the agency have been out of whack. A number of people left the agency earlier than you would think, and you had a large influx of younger people,” said Robert Grenier, a 27-year agency veteran who is now chairman of ERG Partners, a boutique investment bank specializing in the intelligence industry. “The average experience of an officer now is much lower than it has been traditionally, and that has its effects on the agency.”
For private firms seeking to tap into the lucrative industry of intelligence contracting, the value of having agency officers on the payroll is hard to overstate. And although the agency pays its top managers large salaries — the most senior officers make nearly $180,000 a year — private firms are generally able to offer more.
This report is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former CIA officials. The Post compiled its list of more than 90 upper-level managers by identifying agency personnel who left for the private sector after serving as directors, deputy directors or chiefs of the CIA’s various divisions, as well as other members of the leadership of the Directorate of Operations, now known as the National Clandestine Service.
CIA spokesman George Little said that “any suggestion that there isn’t world-class, senior expertise at the CIA is flat wrong.”
“Retirement is a fact of professional life,” Little said, “and the CIA has created strong mechanisms to assist our officers as they explore opportunities after retirement and to retain their knowledge before they go.”
The bulk of the agency’s losses to the private sector came roughly from 2002 through 2007, as business with intelligence contractors spiked. In fiscal 2010, a senior U.S. official said, attrition rates at the CIA were at an all-time low.
Some of the officials quoted for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities involved in discussing the agency’s inner workings. Few of them cited problems at the agency as their reason for leaving. Rather, they said, the choice was often financially driven.
One former senior official who had worked in government service for more than 25 years said he looked at the opportunities for advancement at the agency on the one hand and at the looming costs of college tuition for his children on the other. He chose the private sector. “It was a practical matter,” he said.
Years of intelligence reforms found the CIA unprepared for the events that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. From 1990 through 1996, Congress had slashed the intelligence community’s budget every year, and from 1996 through 2000, it effectively left the budget flat.
Suddenly, with a demand for better intelligence, the agency needed more bodies. It needed people to deploy to Afghanistan. It needed top-level linguists. It needed interrogators. Insiders and outsiders quickly concluded that the CIA needed contractors.
Richard “Hollis” Helms, a longtime overseas officer and former head of the agency’s European division, founded Abraxas Corp. in the days after the attacks. Helms identified the areas in which the agency needed the most help and began aggressively recruiting current and former intelligence professionals.
Those professionals included mid-level analysts from the Directorate of Intelligence. But they also included top brass such as Rod Smith, a former chief of the agency’s Special Activities Division, and Fred Turco, one of the original architects of the CIA’s counterterrorism center and the former chief of external operations. Meredith Woodruff, one of the agency’s most senior female operatives, signed on to Abraxas in 2006.
“Hollis is brilliant; he realized there was a huge market out there to exploit. He printed money for a while — hired tons of CIA staffers and doubled their salary. He was the first agency guy to figure it all out,” said one former chief of station, the term for the top CIA officer at a U.S. embassy. “You would see people leave the CIA on a Friday and come back on Monday in the same job but working for Abraxas.” Barry McManus, an agency veteran, was among those who saw the promise of Abraxas.
McManus had worked for the CIA his entire career, with the exception of a few years on the D.C. police force. He started out as a bodyguard for CIA Director William J. Casey, then climbed through the ranks, eventually doing work in more than 130 countries. By 1993, he had become the CIA’s chief operations polygraph examiner and interrogator, responsible for interviewing high-level terrorism suspects and others in the process of interrogation.
But when he turned 50 in 2003 and found himself eligible for retirement, McManus said, he realized he wanted to do something else.
Now, as vice president of training and education at Abraxas, he spends much of his time training others in the law enforcement and intelligence world. Among his contracts is one with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which hired him to lead a four-day class that covers an introduction to terrorism.
According to government contracting documents, in a separate four-day period in 2006, McManus made nearly $40,000 for leading a seminar for immigration officers in “detecting deception and eliciting responses.” A year later, he secured a $238,000 contract to perform guest lectures. Pretty soon, more contracts began rolling in.
McManus said he is well compensated for his work at Abraxas. One of his first big purchases in post-agency life: a black Maserati GranTurismo, which retails for $160,000.
Helms, Abraxas’s founder, declined to be interviewed. In 2009, the privately held firm had an estimated 470 employees and annual revenue of $90 million. Late last year, Cubic, another defense contractor, acquired Abraxas for $124 million.
Many former CIA officers say they are surprised at their worth in the private sector. Some are surprised the private sector wants them at all.
At a 2009 conference hosted by the Digital Government Institute, John Sano, former deputy director of the National Clandestine Service and now a director of business development at Cisco, cracked a joke about his background.
“Let me tell you about my technological expertise: I have none,” Sano told conference attendees at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington. “I just figured out how the spring on this pen works. That is the limit to my expertise.”
If he didn’t bring technical expertise to Cisco, Sano, a 28-year veteran of the agency, did bring something else: the ability to help the firm navigate the sometimes mystifying layers of bureaucracy in Washington.
The same can be said of countless other CIA veterans. A top-level official with experience at the agency might know the right people on the right committees or be able to help identify federal employees who play a key role in awarding a lucrative intelligence contract. They also know how the intelligence world works.
“If you worked on the seventh floor of the agency, you have a view of everything that’s going on in the world from Marrakesh to Bangladesh,” one former operations officer said. “That knowledge is invaluable to companies working internationally.”
Outside the intelligence world, corporations have found reasons to turn to CIA veterans in the post-9/11 era. Many former officers now head security for multinational firms. Among others, Robert Dannenberg, a former Central Eurasia division chief, left the CIA to run BP’s international security affairs division and now is the director for global security at Goldman Sachs.
When Mel Gamble, a 40-year veteran of the agency, retired in 2008, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He was retiring as the chief of recruitment for the National Clandestine Service, after serving in jobs that included being operations officer and eventually a chief of station in Africa.
In the old days, through the 1990s, there had been an “unwritten rule,” Gamble recalled: “You would retire and go away. Go raise tulips or dogs.”
But some officials with the agency now have concluded that their retirement income is not enough, and they don’t want to stay at the agency working as “instructors or doing task-specific duties,” Gamble said.
“I didn’t just want to go back to the agency [as a contractor] as so many people do,” said Gamble, who ultimately settled on a position at Electronic Warfare Associates, a defense contractor based in Herndon that advertises services including network penetration testing and computer forensics analysis.
“They knew the ins and outs of how to deal with [the Defense Department], but they didn’t understand other agencies at all and how they were structured,” said Gamble, who has since left EWA for another company. “I tell them, you need to talk to people at this level, or it’s actually this person at the National Security Council who would make a decision on this project.”
At the agency, some say the wave of departures has led to a sense of unease. In 2009, after a double agent blew himself up at a CIA base in Afghanistan, killing seven of the agency’s officers, many former officials suggested that the tragedy might have been prevented had the CIA retained more senior personnel at the outpost.
Some officials questioned why the agency had given one of the top assignments there to an officer who had never served in a war zone. Other former officials raised concerns about how intelligence assets were being handled in the field.
“The tradecraft that was developed over many years is passe,” a recently retired senior intelligence official said at the time. “Now it’s a military tempo, where you don’t have time for validating and vetting sources. . . . All that seems to have gone by the board. It shows there are not a lot of people with a great deal of experience in this field.”
Only a year before the bombing, the agency had instituted a new program to mitigate the loss of institutional memory. The program required officers heading out the door to train their successors or participate in oral histories about their own careers. Some officers even make manuals describing specialized work. At times, though, a transfer of knowledge has not been enough.
In 2010, after the CIA lost Michael Sulick, the head of its clandestine service, to retirement, it chose not to replace him from within its current ranks. Rather, the agency tapped John D. Bennett, a CIA veteran who had served as station chief in Pakistan and who had retired only two months before.
As far back as 1989, the agency established a retirement program to help former employees adjust to life outside the bubble of the agency. The program, now three months long, teaches agency officials about their benefits and financial management skills. But these days, it also functions as a recruitment space.
When the retirement program was conceived, fewer than 20 firms came to speak to the retiring classes about opportunities in the workforce outside the agency. Today, 40 to 50 companies vie to attend an agency-sponsored job fair held 10 times a year at the CIA’s retirement center in Reston. Major contractors — including SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton and CACI — are regular participants.
One agency participant who interviewed with top defense contractors described the conversations as an exercise in figuring out whom he knew in the intelligence world.
“With a couple of firms, it was sort of a blatant, how-can-we-exploit-your-Rolodex conversation,” said one former intelligence officer. The chief executive of the company he ended up working for told him: “We want to know how the intelligence world works and how we can provide services to them.”
At the agency, Director Leon Panetta has helped slow the exit of talent. But this year he has seen his top three leaders leave the agency. Collectively, they represented more than 75 years of institutional knowledge and operations talent. One former official said the loss of so many insiders has taken a toll on those connected to the agency.
“Honestly, it’s painful to see, and it’s not in the national interest to see so many men and women at the peak of their experience walk out of the agency at the age of 52 or 53,” the former official said. “The agency would be well served to implement stronger incentives to encourage people to stay.”
Bob Wallace, a 32-year agency veteran who now runs Artemus Consulting Group in Herndon, suggested that the departures from the agency reflect more than the draw of a big salary outside government. Rather, he said, some veterans who have risen to the management level are leaving for a much more mundane reason: bureaucracy.
“People tire of meetings,” Wallace said. “Eventually, they decide they want to jump to the private sector so they can be back on the street again — doing what they love.”
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Private Investigator Murdered in Virginia
A former Bradenton private investigator working in Virginia has been discovered shot to death and stuffed in the trunk of his car.
Arthur “Greg” Brown, 50, whose father started Robert H. Brown Private Investigation in Bradenton in 1968, was found Sunday morning at the Valley Mall in Harrisonburg, Va., according to Mary-Hope Vass of the Harrisonburg Police Department.
The Harrisonburg Police Department began investigating the report of a missing man March 3 when Greg Brown failed to return home, Vass said.
At approximately 9:30 a.m. Sunday, police received a tip with information on the location of Brown’s gray Honda Accord and found it in a parking lot.
Brown’s exact cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner.
“Our thoughts are first with the friends and family of Greg Brown during this difficult time,” said Vass, the department’s crime analyst. “We will not stop with this investigation until we have all of the facts of the case before us.”
Police in Harrisonburg, which is about two hours from Washington, D.C., and Richmond, are looking for Ali Abid, 49, of Weyers Cave, Va. It is believed that he was the last person in contact with Brown, Vass said.
Brown’s slaying came as a shock to local licensed private investigator Chuck Chambers.
“I received an e-mail early this morning,” said Chambers, of Bradenton’s Chamber’s Investigations. “I was shocked. I hadn’t heard from him in three or four years. At first I felt it couldn’t be him. But then I looked at the photo posted and I knew.”
At the time of his death, Brown was working an infidelity case, Chambers said.
“These cases are dangerous. I know because I train investigators for the state of Florida. Things can happen like this because emotions run very high,” Chambers said.
As the son of one of Bradenton’s leading private investigators, the late Bob Brown, Greg Brown grew up in the business, Chambers said.
Bob Brown died in the early 2000s after about 40 years in the business locally, Chambers said.
“Greg was 6 foot 3 but his dad was 5 foot 5,” Chambers added. “His dad was known for his skill as a private investigator also. He could be a little gruff at times, but he was a kind man, well liked by all his clients.”
Greg Brown was much more easy-going than his dad, Chambers said.
“Greg was a quiet fellow with a very mild personality,” Chambers said. “He always had a smile. He had these remarkable green eyes, which were his most distinctive feature. You would expect a guy 6 foot 3 to be loud and bodacious, but he was not. He was a good man who was very religious.”
Greg Brown was a private investigator in Manatee County from 1983 through the early 1990s, Chambers said. After he left the area he was a preacher, Chambers added.
“About six or seven years ago he called me and asked me to write a letter attesting to his experience so he could open a PI agency in Virginia,” Chambers said. “I was glad to send the letter. Greg was a very experienced investigator.”
Besides his immediate family, Greg Brown is survived by a younger brother -- Robert Brown Jr. -- a sister, Leslie, and his mother, Patty, both of whom live in Colorado, Chambers said.
“Greg wouldn’t be the first private investigator to get killed due to a domestic dispute,” Chambers said. “We don’t have a backup to call. We don’t have a radio with 10 squad cars at our disposal. We can only rely on ourselves. Greg was well experienced but anyone can be caught. We are not bulletproof.”
Arthur “Greg” Brown, 50, whose father started Robert H. Brown Private Investigation in Bradenton in 1968, was found Sunday morning at the Valley Mall in Harrisonburg, Va., according to Mary-Hope Vass of the Harrisonburg Police Department.
The Harrisonburg Police Department began investigating the report of a missing man March 3 when Greg Brown failed to return home, Vass said.
At approximately 9:30 a.m. Sunday, police received a tip with information on the location of Brown’s gray Honda Accord and found it in a parking lot.
Brown’s exact cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner.
“Our thoughts are first with the friends and family of Greg Brown during this difficult time,” said Vass, the department’s crime analyst. “We will not stop with this investigation until we have all of the facts of the case before us.”
Police in Harrisonburg, which is about two hours from Washington, D.C., and Richmond, are looking for Ali Abid, 49, of Weyers Cave, Va. It is believed that he was the last person in contact with Brown, Vass said.
Brown’s slaying came as a shock to local licensed private investigator Chuck Chambers.
“I received an e-mail early this morning,” said Chambers, of Bradenton’s Chamber’s Investigations. “I was shocked. I hadn’t heard from him in three or four years. At first I felt it couldn’t be him. But then I looked at the photo posted and I knew.”
At the time of his death, Brown was working an infidelity case, Chambers said.
“These cases are dangerous. I know because I train investigators for the state of Florida. Things can happen like this because emotions run very high,” Chambers said.
As the son of one of Bradenton’s leading private investigators, the late Bob Brown, Greg Brown grew up in the business, Chambers said.
Bob Brown died in the early 2000s after about 40 years in the business locally, Chambers said.
“Greg was 6 foot 3 but his dad was 5 foot 5,” Chambers added. “His dad was known for his skill as a private investigator also. He could be a little gruff at times, but he was a kind man, well liked by all his clients.”
Greg Brown was much more easy-going than his dad, Chambers said.
“Greg was a quiet fellow with a very mild personality,” Chambers said. “He always had a smile. He had these remarkable green eyes, which were his most distinctive feature. You would expect a guy 6 foot 3 to be loud and bodacious, but he was not. He was a good man who was very religious.”
Greg Brown was a private investigator in Manatee County from 1983 through the early 1990s, Chambers said. After he left the area he was a preacher, Chambers added.
“About six or seven years ago he called me and asked me to write a letter attesting to his experience so he could open a PI agency in Virginia,” Chambers said. “I was glad to send the letter. Greg was a very experienced investigator.”
Besides his immediate family, Greg Brown is survived by a younger brother -- Robert Brown Jr. -- a sister, Leslie, and his mother, Patty, both of whom live in Colorado, Chambers said.
“Greg wouldn’t be the first private investigator to get killed due to a domestic dispute,” Chambers said. “We don’t have a backup to call. We don’t have a radio with 10 squad cars at our disposal. We can only rely on ourselves. Greg was well experienced but anyone can be caught. We are not bulletproof.”
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Police Officer Moonlighting As Private Investigator in Phoenix
Posted in the Phoenix News, updated March 1, 2011
Arizona law could soon change the limits of what police officers are allowed to do in their free time.
It was the off-duty work of a Tolleson police officer that prompted lawmakers to propose Senate Bill 1020. The bill would make it illegal for active or reserve police officers to also work as private investigators.
Tolleson police Cmndr. Wayne Booher was caught on tape offering his services as a private investigator.
"We've been doing it for years now," he's heard saying on the recording. "We do a variety of investigations. We do private investigations, we do unarmed security and armed security. We do police officers. We do surveillance."
The person who made the recording can be heard asking Booher, "You're licensed by the state, right?" Booher answers, "Yeah."
Booher apparently did apply for a private investigator's license through the Arizona Department of Public Safety -- which is the licensing agency.
DPS in turn opened an investigation into Booher's extracurricular activities. Operating as a P.I. without a license is a class one misdemeanor. DPS said the investigation was closed and it did not punish Booher. DPS has still not provided CBS 5 Investigates with a copy of the report and refused to discuss the case on camera.
Private investigator Justin Yentis sees a potential conflict for a police officer who moonlights as a P.I.
"A police officer has access to certain information that a P.I. does not have as readily available," said Yentis. "For example, MVD (Motor Vehicle Department) information, case histories, criminal backgrounds of certain individuals. A P.I. has to request that information via the public records law or FOIA. Whereas a member of law enforcement can generally get that information with a phone call."
Booher says he's done nothing wrong.
"We were running a private investigations business doing private investigations business, subcontracting the work out," said Booher. "We were advertising that, but we hadn't done any work because we had just started the company."
But that's not what Booher said in that secret recording..
"This company has been in business for three years," Booher said on the recording. "I personally have done surveillance for 21 years. I know it inside and out."
CBS 5 Investigates asked Booher about that recording.
"I was set up," he said. "Certainly the person that called us and wanted us to do some work for him misrepresented himself."
Either way, if Senate Bill 1020 gets through the House of Representatives and is signed by the governor, police officers will not be allowed to also work as private investigators.
Arizona law could soon change the limits of what police officers are allowed to do in their free time.
It was the off-duty work of a Tolleson police officer that prompted lawmakers to propose Senate Bill 1020. The bill would make it illegal for active or reserve police officers to also work as private investigators.
Tolleson police Cmndr. Wayne Booher was caught on tape offering his services as a private investigator.
"We've been doing it for years now," he's heard saying on the recording. "We do a variety of investigations. We do private investigations, we do unarmed security and armed security. We do police officers. We do surveillance."
The person who made the recording can be heard asking Booher, "You're licensed by the state, right?" Booher answers, "Yeah."
Booher apparently did apply for a private investigator's license through the Arizona Department of Public Safety -- which is the licensing agency.
DPS in turn opened an investigation into Booher's extracurricular activities. Operating as a P.I. without a license is a class one misdemeanor. DPS said the investigation was closed and it did not punish Booher. DPS has still not provided CBS 5 Investigates with a copy of the report and refused to discuss the case on camera.
Private investigator Justin Yentis sees a potential conflict for a police officer who moonlights as a P.I.
"A police officer has access to certain information that a P.I. does not have as readily available," said Yentis. "For example, MVD (Motor Vehicle Department) information, case histories, criminal backgrounds of certain individuals. A P.I. has to request that information via the public records law or FOIA. Whereas a member of law enforcement can generally get that information with a phone call."
Booher says he's done nothing wrong.
"We were running a private investigations business doing private investigations business, subcontracting the work out," said Booher. "We were advertising that, but we hadn't done any work because we had just started the company."
But that's not what Booher said in that secret recording..
"This company has been in business for three years," Booher said on the recording. "I personally have done surveillance for 21 years. I know it inside and out."
CBS 5 Investigates asked Booher about that recording.
"I was set up," he said. "Certainly the person that called us and wanted us to do some work for him misrepresented himself."
Either way, if Senate Bill 1020 gets through the House of Representatives and is signed by the governor, police officers will not be allowed to also work as private investigators.
Public Records Reveal University Surveillance of Student Organizers
By Laurel Fujii & April Short, City on a Hill Press, Published March 3, 2011
Fourth-year Tom Pazo recently received a public records document he requested of the university about seven months ago. The returned request consists of two pages: an invoice and official record of purchase that detail $6,000 spent by UCSC to contract private investigator Scott H. Newby to photo and video document a student demonstration on May 18 and 19 last year.
According to the invoice, UCSC contracted Newby for 24 hours at $100 per hour, including post-production and transportation fees from San Jose to Santa Cruz. The “demonstration” on May 18 and 19 to which the invoice refers was a UCSC Strike Committee-led event entitled “Walk Out to Your Education.”
The Strike Committee is an open collective of undergraduates, graduate students, workers and professors who volunteer and organize in the defense of public education. The event was organized as an alternative way to educate the campus about the unstable budget situation.
“It was basically a really mellow, just student-teaching demonstration, attended in total throughout the day by about no more than 150 students at any given time,” said Pazo, who attended the event last May. “It was met by heavy, heavy police presence … A complete police barricade, a line of officers blocking the road, sheriffs on ATVs, trucks, four-wheelers, all sorts of things. And they were also photographing students.”
At the May 18 and 19 event, Pazo noticed an unidentifiable man with a telescopic lens camera snapping photographs of event participants from behind car doors and trees. When Pazo and Spanish lecturer Maria Morris, who was also present at the event, walked up to the unidentified photographer, he was reluctant to tell them why he was there and who he worked for, Pazo said. The only information Pazo received was the man’s name, Scott Newby. Pazo had a hunch that UCSC had contracted the man, so he decided to request a public record of the transaction.
Newby did not respond to phone calls and e-mails requesting an interview.
Pazo also noticed police vans from UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley present at the event.
His public record request inquired about UCSC’s authorization of out-of-department police from other campuses on May 18 and 19.
A portion of Pazo’s public records request, including the invoice and receipt of purchase of Newby’s services, was returned Feb. 15. The rest of his request has not yet been unfulfilled.
The heavy police presence was expected on May 18, as it coincided with the Amgen Tour de California bicycle race, but organizers and faculty say the continued police presence on May 19, and the presence of an outsourced photographer, was unwarranted.
Students and faculty expressed concerns that photographs taken at organized events such as May 18 and 19 walk-out and teach-out would be used to profile and possibly reprimand students.
Morris, a Spanish language lecturer, has taught at UCSC since 1989. Morris held class at the May 18 and 19 event to express her solidarity, and spoke with Scott Newby at the event alongside Pazo about his presence and purpose in photographing students present.
“I was real upset that [Newby] was hiding behind a tree across the street taking pictures of my class,” Morris said. “I was pissed … because I wouldn’t expose students to any danger. I’m there to support them … Some of them were quite upset [that their picture was being taken].”
Director of university relations Jim Burns said in an e-mail that photographs such as the ones taken by Newby are not used to profile students.
“Rather, they are taken in the event that there is activity that violates university policies or regulations and/or the law,” Burns said in the e-mail.
Leo Ritz-Barr is an undergraduate at UCSC and organizer with the Strike Committee. Last year he was cited with seven violations and assigned 40 hours of community service following the November 2009 occupation of the Kerr Hall administrative building. At the Kerr Hall protest, many students, including Ritz-Barr, were retrospectively identified and cited with violations based on photographs taken at the event.
Ever since the Kerr Hall occupation drew attention to Ritz-Barr, campus police officers greet him by first name whenever they see him on campus, Ritz-Barr said.
“The cops call me Leonard,” Ritz-Barr said. “Nobody calls me Leonard. My parents don’t call me Leonard, no teachers call me Leonard. Only administrators who don’t know who I am, or only know me through cameras and pictures of my photo ID, call me Leonard … It’s scary as fuck.”
Pazo said that on May 18 he experienced a similar example of what he called UCSC “police intimidation tactics.”
He said Augie Zigon, police captain of the UCSC Police Department, approached him at the event.
“He asked me, ‘Are you Tom Pazo?’ and I was kind of taken aback, like, ‘Who wants to know?’” Pazo said. “He was asking if I was an organizer, asking what was going to happen during the day.”
Pazo attended the event as a participant, but was not an organizer.
The UCSC Police Department did not respond to interview requests.
Ritz-Barr said it was fiscally irresponsible of the administration to hire Newby to photograph students.
He said Adam Snook, coordinator for the Colleges and University Housing Service’s Community Safety Program and the Emergency Preparedness Program, could have provided the same services.
Snook worked for 15 years, “in the private sector as a private investigator and corporate safety and security professional,” according to his profile on the UCSC website.
“Snook already stalks protesters at all events, and takes photos of us,” Ritz-Barr said. “[So does] Augie Zigon, the head of UCPD up here. Why couldn’t Snook have pulled out one of his nice little cameras from when he was a private investigator? Did we really need to outsource labor that we could have done in house?”
Snook declined to comment. He said in an e-mail that he would be on vacation for several days and that the matter was “outside of [his] realm of expertise.”
Zigon did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview.
Jim Burns, director of university relations at UCSC, said the UCSC Police Department hired Newby as part of planning for what was originally billed as a “three-day shutdown” of the campus.
“[Newby] was hired as a videographer/photographer,” Burns said in the e-mail. “He was not hired as a private investigator. This decision was based on legitimate law-enforcement concerns.”
Organizers of the May 18 and 19 event said they informed the administration ahead of time of their plans for the event.
“The administration was made aware with several e-mails that May 18 and 19 was not planned as a hard strike,” Pazo said.
Burns said photographs taken at events like May 18 and 19 are attached to a case file documenting an event.
“In the absence of the suspicion of criminal activity, the photos are purged after one year,” Burns said in the e-mail.
Because of California’s budget crisis, in the past couple of years the UC system has seen fee hikes, faculty and staff layoffs, and educational cuts to programs including entire majors. Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in January a $500 million reduction of UC funds.
Literature graduate student and teaching assistant Brian Malone compared the university’s spending of $6,000 to what it could pay for at UCSC.
“Six thousand dollars — that’s more than members of my unit, the [teaching assistant] union, get paid to TA for a quarter,” Malone said.
Six thousand dollars is the amount necessary to fund most UCSC lecture courses for one quarter.
Burns said the university’s spending on a photographer for this event was necessary.
“It made sense to contract for such services for several reasons,” Burns said in an e-mail. “The university police department does not have the expertise to provide such services. Using a police officer to provide such services prevents the officer from fulfilling his or her law-enforcement duties, and if such documentation ultimately was needed, it made sense to contract with someone who had professional experience in that area.”
Malone said the photographer’s presence was a show of force to intimidate students.
“The issue wasn’t just this photographer, this outsider — although he was belligerent — but it was also the huge UC police presence,” Malone said. “It’s one thing to talk about $6,000 spent on this outside photographer — they must have spent tens of thousands of dollars on importing UC police from other campuses and putting them all out there.”
Pazo said the public records he received demonstrate a larger issue regarding UCSC’s attitude towards and allocation of funds.
“What this says is it’s a complete joke and lie to say that there’s not enough money or funding,” Pazo said.
In a recent study, the group Californians Aware evaluated all UCs and CSUs for their compliance with public records requests. With 40 points out of 100, UCSC received a failing grade.
Pazo made his original public records request last year on July 28. Seven months later, he received the main portion of the documents he requested.
An agency must determine within 10 days whether to comply with the request and must inform the requester of its decision at that time, according to the California Public Records Act.
“If possible, records deemed subject to disclosure should be provided at the time the determination is made,” according to the attorney general’s official summary of the Public Records Act. “If immediate disclosure is not possible, the agency must provide the records within a reasonable period of time, along with an estimate of the date that the records will be available.”
The request was formally acknowledged on August 6, in compliance with the law, Jim Burns said in an e-mail.
Pazo said the seven-month response time is unacceptable for a public institution.
“It’s still a very slow response,” Pazo said. “That calls into question [the administration’s] prioritizing of public records request. I think it took longer than it should, whether or not it was in compliance with the law.”
Pazo did not receive responses for up to two weeks in between each e-mail.
“I did follow the proper procedure,” Pazo said. “[Specificity] is sometimes maybe a problem for some public records requests, but I asked for very specific things. I asked for receipt of purchase, purchase order regarding the hiring of a private investigator by the name of Scott Newby on May 18 and 19, 2010. Very specific. These things do take time, but there’s really no excuse … And this is just a drop in the bucket of all [UCSC’s] lack of accountability.”
A portion of Pazo’s public records request is still not fulfilled.
The unsatisfied portion asks for a “record for the authorization of out of department police from other UC campuses on May 18 and 19, 2010,” as Pazo and others noted members of the UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara police present. Pazo received an e-mail from Denise Dolezal, information practices and policy analyst for the Chancellor’s Office, on Feb. 15. Dolezal said the administration continues to search for this record.
Lt. Alex Yao of the UC Berkeley Police Department said he did not remember the May 18 and 19 event, but that it is not uncommon for the UCSC Police Department to be assisted by UC Berkeley Police Department, which is one of the largest UC police departments.
The UC police department chief of one campus sends a request for more police officers from other campuses, said Sgt. Matt Bowman of UC Santa Barbara Police Department, who could not recall the event either. Whoever has personnel to assist responds.
Malone and several others said the amount of police attention on May 19 was unwarranted.
“Part of it was a pure waste of resources on the part of the administration, and a waste of money, presumably tens of thousands of dollars in overtime and travel for other UC police to come [to UCSC],” Malone said.
UC campus police departments have different contracts between each other regarding which campus funds, transportation and fees to bring in backup police forces.
“It’s more common for the requesting school to pay for the other police department’s transportation,” Bowman said. “It does cost money so it’s not to be taken lightly.”
Malone said the police presence was an unnecessary provocation that was incongruous with the peaceful atmosphere of the event.
“By what stretch of the imagination do you need 18 uniformed police for a poetry reading?” Malone said.
One of the things students and staff have demanded all along is transparency from the UC, he said.
“To an extent the [administration’s] message is, ‘Shut up and write us a check,’” Malone said. “There’s nothing we can do, there’s nothing you can do, so just keep your head down, keep going to classes, keep writing us the checks for your tuition. And we don’t know the extent to which what they did has made students think twice about doing anything out of the ordinary on this campus, even if it’s just attending a poetry reading at the base of campus.”
Fourth-year Tom Pazo recently received a public records document he requested of the university about seven months ago. The returned request consists of two pages: an invoice and official record of purchase that detail $6,000 spent by UCSC to contract private investigator Scott H. Newby to photo and video document a student demonstration on May 18 and 19 last year.
According to the invoice, UCSC contracted Newby for 24 hours at $100 per hour, including post-production and transportation fees from San Jose to Santa Cruz. The “demonstration” on May 18 and 19 to which the invoice refers was a UCSC Strike Committee-led event entitled “Walk Out to Your Education.”
The Strike Committee is an open collective of undergraduates, graduate students, workers and professors who volunteer and organize in the defense of public education. The event was organized as an alternative way to educate the campus about the unstable budget situation.
“It was basically a really mellow, just student-teaching demonstration, attended in total throughout the day by about no more than 150 students at any given time,” said Pazo, who attended the event last May. “It was met by heavy, heavy police presence … A complete police barricade, a line of officers blocking the road, sheriffs on ATVs, trucks, four-wheelers, all sorts of things. And they were also photographing students.”
At the May 18 and 19 event, Pazo noticed an unidentifiable man with a telescopic lens camera snapping photographs of event participants from behind car doors and trees. When Pazo and Spanish lecturer Maria Morris, who was also present at the event, walked up to the unidentified photographer, he was reluctant to tell them why he was there and who he worked for, Pazo said. The only information Pazo received was the man’s name, Scott Newby. Pazo had a hunch that UCSC had contracted the man, so he decided to request a public record of the transaction.
Newby did not respond to phone calls and e-mails requesting an interview.
Pazo also noticed police vans from UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley present at the event.
His public record request inquired about UCSC’s authorization of out-of-department police from other campuses on May 18 and 19.
A portion of Pazo’s public records request, including the invoice and receipt of purchase of Newby’s services, was returned Feb. 15. The rest of his request has not yet been unfulfilled.
The heavy police presence was expected on May 18, as it coincided with the Amgen Tour de California bicycle race, but organizers and faculty say the continued police presence on May 19, and the presence of an outsourced photographer, was unwarranted.
Students and faculty expressed concerns that photographs taken at organized events such as May 18 and 19 walk-out and teach-out would be used to profile and possibly reprimand students.
Morris, a Spanish language lecturer, has taught at UCSC since 1989. Morris held class at the May 18 and 19 event to express her solidarity, and spoke with Scott Newby at the event alongside Pazo about his presence and purpose in photographing students present.
“I was real upset that [Newby] was hiding behind a tree across the street taking pictures of my class,” Morris said. “I was pissed … because I wouldn’t expose students to any danger. I’m there to support them … Some of them were quite upset [that their picture was being taken].”
Director of university relations Jim Burns said in an e-mail that photographs such as the ones taken by Newby are not used to profile students.
“Rather, they are taken in the event that there is activity that violates university policies or regulations and/or the law,” Burns said in the e-mail.
Leo Ritz-Barr is an undergraduate at UCSC and organizer with the Strike Committee. Last year he was cited with seven violations and assigned 40 hours of community service following the November 2009 occupation of the Kerr Hall administrative building. At the Kerr Hall protest, many students, including Ritz-Barr, were retrospectively identified and cited with violations based on photographs taken at the event.
Ever since the Kerr Hall occupation drew attention to Ritz-Barr, campus police officers greet him by first name whenever they see him on campus, Ritz-Barr said.
“The cops call me Leonard,” Ritz-Barr said. “Nobody calls me Leonard. My parents don’t call me Leonard, no teachers call me Leonard. Only administrators who don’t know who I am, or only know me through cameras and pictures of my photo ID, call me Leonard … It’s scary as fuck.”
Pazo said that on May 18 he experienced a similar example of what he called UCSC “police intimidation tactics.”
He said Augie Zigon, police captain of the UCSC Police Department, approached him at the event.
“He asked me, ‘Are you Tom Pazo?’ and I was kind of taken aback, like, ‘Who wants to know?’” Pazo said. “He was asking if I was an organizer, asking what was going to happen during the day.”
Pazo attended the event as a participant, but was not an organizer.
The UCSC Police Department did not respond to interview requests.
Ritz-Barr said it was fiscally irresponsible of the administration to hire Newby to photograph students.
He said Adam Snook, coordinator for the Colleges and University Housing Service’s Community Safety Program and the Emergency Preparedness Program, could have provided the same services.
Snook worked for 15 years, “in the private sector as a private investigator and corporate safety and security professional,” according to his profile on the UCSC website.
“Snook already stalks protesters at all events, and takes photos of us,” Ritz-Barr said. “[So does] Augie Zigon, the head of UCPD up here. Why couldn’t Snook have pulled out one of his nice little cameras from when he was a private investigator? Did we really need to outsource labor that we could have done in house?”
Snook declined to comment. He said in an e-mail that he would be on vacation for several days and that the matter was “outside of [his] realm of expertise.”
Zigon did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview.
Jim Burns, director of university relations at UCSC, said the UCSC Police Department hired Newby as part of planning for what was originally billed as a “three-day shutdown” of the campus.
“[Newby] was hired as a videographer/photographer,” Burns said in the e-mail. “He was not hired as a private investigator. This decision was based on legitimate law-enforcement concerns.”
Organizers of the May 18 and 19 event said they informed the administration ahead of time of their plans for the event.
“The administration was made aware with several e-mails that May 18 and 19 was not planned as a hard strike,” Pazo said.
Burns said photographs taken at events like May 18 and 19 are attached to a case file documenting an event.
“In the absence of the suspicion of criminal activity, the photos are purged after one year,” Burns said in the e-mail.
Because of California’s budget crisis, in the past couple of years the UC system has seen fee hikes, faculty and staff layoffs, and educational cuts to programs including entire majors. Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in January a $500 million reduction of UC funds.
Literature graduate student and teaching assistant Brian Malone compared the university’s spending of $6,000 to what it could pay for at UCSC.
“Six thousand dollars — that’s more than members of my unit, the [teaching assistant] union, get paid to TA for a quarter,” Malone said.
Six thousand dollars is the amount necessary to fund most UCSC lecture courses for one quarter.
Burns said the university’s spending on a photographer for this event was necessary.
“It made sense to contract for such services for several reasons,” Burns said in an e-mail. “The university police department does not have the expertise to provide such services. Using a police officer to provide such services prevents the officer from fulfilling his or her law-enforcement duties, and if such documentation ultimately was needed, it made sense to contract with someone who had professional experience in that area.”
Malone said the photographer’s presence was a show of force to intimidate students.
“The issue wasn’t just this photographer, this outsider — although he was belligerent — but it was also the huge UC police presence,” Malone said. “It’s one thing to talk about $6,000 spent on this outside photographer — they must have spent tens of thousands of dollars on importing UC police from other campuses and putting them all out there.”
Pazo said the public records he received demonstrate a larger issue regarding UCSC’s attitude towards and allocation of funds.
“What this says is it’s a complete joke and lie to say that there’s not enough money or funding,” Pazo said.
In a recent study, the group Californians Aware evaluated all UCs and CSUs for their compliance with public records requests. With 40 points out of 100, UCSC received a failing grade.
Pazo made his original public records request last year on July 28. Seven months later, he received the main portion of the documents he requested.
An agency must determine within 10 days whether to comply with the request and must inform the requester of its decision at that time, according to the California Public Records Act.
“If possible, records deemed subject to disclosure should be provided at the time the determination is made,” according to the attorney general’s official summary of the Public Records Act. “If immediate disclosure is not possible, the agency must provide the records within a reasonable period of time, along with an estimate of the date that the records will be available.”
The request was formally acknowledged on August 6, in compliance with the law, Jim Burns said in an e-mail.
Pazo said the seven-month response time is unacceptable for a public institution.
“It’s still a very slow response,” Pazo said. “That calls into question [the administration’s] prioritizing of public records request. I think it took longer than it should, whether or not it was in compliance with the law.”
Pazo did not receive responses for up to two weeks in between each e-mail.
“I did follow the proper procedure,” Pazo said. “[Specificity] is sometimes maybe a problem for some public records requests, but I asked for very specific things. I asked for receipt of purchase, purchase order regarding the hiring of a private investigator by the name of Scott Newby on May 18 and 19, 2010. Very specific. These things do take time, but there’s really no excuse … And this is just a drop in the bucket of all [UCSC’s] lack of accountability.”
A portion of Pazo’s public records request is still not fulfilled.
The unsatisfied portion asks for a “record for the authorization of out of department police from other UC campuses on May 18 and 19, 2010,” as Pazo and others noted members of the UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara police present. Pazo received an e-mail from Denise Dolezal, information practices and policy analyst for the Chancellor’s Office, on Feb. 15. Dolezal said the administration continues to search for this record.
Lt. Alex Yao of the UC Berkeley Police Department said he did not remember the May 18 and 19 event, but that it is not uncommon for the UCSC Police Department to be assisted by UC Berkeley Police Department, which is one of the largest UC police departments.
The UC police department chief of one campus sends a request for more police officers from other campuses, said Sgt. Matt Bowman of UC Santa Barbara Police Department, who could not recall the event either. Whoever has personnel to assist responds.
Malone and several others said the amount of police attention on May 19 was unwarranted.
“Part of it was a pure waste of resources on the part of the administration, and a waste of money, presumably tens of thousands of dollars in overtime and travel for other UC police to come [to UCSC],” Malone said.
UC campus police departments have different contracts between each other regarding which campus funds, transportation and fees to bring in backup police forces.
“It’s more common for the requesting school to pay for the other police department’s transportation,” Bowman said. “It does cost money so it’s not to be taken lightly.”
Malone said the police presence was an unnecessary provocation that was incongruous with the peaceful atmosphere of the event.
“By what stretch of the imagination do you need 18 uniformed police for a poetry reading?” Malone said.
One of the things students and staff have demanded all along is transparency from the UC, he said.
“To an extent the [administration’s] message is, ‘Shut up and write us a check,’” Malone said. “There’s nothing we can do, there’s nothing you can do, so just keep your head down, keep going to classes, keep writing us the checks for your tuition. And we don’t know the extent to which what they did has made students think twice about doing anything out of the ordinary on this campus, even if it’s just attending a poetry reading at the base of campus.”
Monday, January 17, 2011
Mental Health Check for Gun Buys? Talk About a Straw Man...
by Stephen Lemons, Phoenix New Times, January 13, 2011
In the wake of the Tucson massacre, there have been, as you might expect, a number of folks who have suggested that maybe Arizona, and the nation, would benefit from stricter gun legislation.
My recent commentary "Day of the Dead," published in this week's New Times, argues that reining in Sand Land's gun nut culture would be a good thing. Perhaps some simple, common sense hurdles placed in deranged killer Jared Lee Loughner's way could have made Loughner's shooting spree less likely, or less lethal.
But, reading the comments left on the opinion piece, you'd think the article was calling for the elimination of all handguns, as well as the gutting of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
While those might be interesting propositions, the only ones discussing them as if they're legitimate are the firearm fanatics themselves.
This is, of course, is a classic straw man fallacy, where the writer sets up a false premise, knocks it down, and then claims to have refuted their opponent's argument.
My colleague Ray Stern uses such straw man arguments in his recent blog item, "Five Reasons Why a Mental Health Evaluation Should NOT be a Prerequisite For Buying a Gun."
Who is proposing such a prerequisite? Stern does not enlighten us here. Instead he goes about arguing why it would be wrong to have such a prerequisite, and he does the same for a pre-gun buy urinalysis, another "straw man."
To be sure, there are some wacky ideas floating around, such as New York Republican Congressman Pete King's 1,000 foot gun-free zone for public officials.
To cop a line from The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, can us regular schmos get that same gun-free buffer as well?
Still, Stern is not discussing any specific proposal that I'm aware of. I contacted the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and spoke with senior attorney Dan Vice. Vice told me the Brady Campaign is not pushing for the elimination of all handguns.
Instead, the Brady Campaign is seeking reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban, or at least the part having to do with high-capacity magazines, like the 31-round clip Loughner used. The 1994 assault weapons ban limited magazines to 10 rounds, but it expired in 2004, and Congress did not renew it.
The Brady Campaign also wants comprehensive background checks for all gun buys, more extensive than the "instant" FBI check purchasers receive at licensed gun dealers. In addition, the organization would like to see the loophole for gun shows and private sellers closed.
As for the "mental health check" Stern posits, that's not a Brady Campaign proposal, Vice told me. However, the release of mental health information could be a part of a more comprehensive background check. In some cases, it already is.
"Some states require gun purchasers to authorize a search of their mental health records," said Vice. "Obviously, just seeing a psychiatrist would be no problem, but if someone was noted to be a danger, a search of their record could reveal that."
Vice explained that Illinois, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state have such a requirement.
Even without a mental health records search, some states with more comprehensive background checks force the applicant to come in contact with authorities, according to Vice. In the case of someone like Loughner, just interacting with them could raise a red flag, more questions might be asked, and a gun permit might end up being denied.
Stern kvetches that going through a process like that in New York, say, could take "weeks" and, "the licensing process adds a lot to the cost of a gun."
Hey, cry me a river.
Life is full of inconveniences, restrictions, and forms. Hell, you even have to fill out a form to rent movies at Blockbuster. It's called civilization. The only way out, really, is living off the grid in a cave somewhere. Or anarchy.
Take cars. There are all sorts of restrictions on operating motor vehicles, many of which limit personal liberty. You have to have a license, insurance, not drive while intoxicated, wear seatbelts.
Automobile makers must comply with a catalogue of federal requirements.
And yet, pretty much anyone who wants a car in this country can buy one. If you want more than one car, it will add to your costs in various ways, the price of the license plates, for instance.
So, um, what's the big deal? Yes, the Second Amendment guarantees your right to bear arms. It does not, however, preclude the states or Congress from implementing certain legal restrictions. The First and Second Amendments are not absolutes. Nor should they be.
As for Stern's worry about the harm to Arizona's "robust gun industry," once again, it's hard for me to get teary-eyed here. Every industry has to deal with ever-shifting federal, state, and local regulations. And the gun industry does not deserve a pass.
Not all gun enthusiasts are against sane gun laws, but there are many out there who demand carte blanche. They want what they want, and they don't seem too troubled when other members of society have to deal with the bloody consequences. This is a petulant, juvenile, state of mind, one the adults in the discussion should reject.
In the wake of the Tucson massacre, there have been, as you might expect, a number of folks who have suggested that maybe Arizona, and the nation, would benefit from stricter gun legislation.
My recent commentary "Day of the Dead," published in this week's New Times, argues that reining in Sand Land's gun nut culture would be a good thing. Perhaps some simple, common sense hurdles placed in deranged killer Jared Lee Loughner's way could have made Loughner's shooting spree less likely, or less lethal.
But, reading the comments left on the opinion piece, you'd think the article was calling for the elimination of all handguns, as well as the gutting of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
While those might be interesting propositions, the only ones discussing them as if they're legitimate are the firearm fanatics themselves.
This is, of course, is a classic straw man fallacy, where the writer sets up a false premise, knocks it down, and then claims to have refuted their opponent's argument.
My colleague Ray Stern uses such straw man arguments in his recent blog item, "Five Reasons Why a Mental Health Evaluation Should NOT be a Prerequisite For Buying a Gun."
Who is proposing such a prerequisite? Stern does not enlighten us here. Instead he goes about arguing why it would be wrong to have such a prerequisite, and he does the same for a pre-gun buy urinalysis, another "straw man."
To be sure, there are some wacky ideas floating around, such as New York Republican Congressman Pete King's 1,000 foot gun-free zone for public officials.
To cop a line from The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, can us regular schmos get that same gun-free buffer as well?
Still, Stern is not discussing any specific proposal that I'm aware of. I contacted the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and spoke with senior attorney Dan Vice. Vice told me the Brady Campaign is not pushing for the elimination of all handguns.
Instead, the Brady Campaign is seeking reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban, or at least the part having to do with high-capacity magazines, like the 31-round clip Loughner used. The 1994 assault weapons ban limited magazines to 10 rounds, but it expired in 2004, and Congress did not renew it.
The Brady Campaign also wants comprehensive background checks for all gun buys, more extensive than the "instant" FBI check purchasers receive at licensed gun dealers. In addition, the organization would like to see the loophole for gun shows and private sellers closed.
As for the "mental health check" Stern posits, that's not a Brady Campaign proposal, Vice told me. However, the release of mental health information could be a part of a more comprehensive background check. In some cases, it already is.
"Some states require gun purchasers to authorize a search of their mental health records," said Vice. "Obviously, just seeing a psychiatrist would be no problem, but if someone was noted to be a danger, a search of their record could reveal that."
Vice explained that Illinois, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state have such a requirement.
Even without a mental health records search, some states with more comprehensive background checks force the applicant to come in contact with authorities, according to Vice. In the case of someone like Loughner, just interacting with them could raise a red flag, more questions might be asked, and a gun permit might end up being denied.
Stern kvetches that going through a process like that in New York, say, could take "weeks" and, "the licensing process adds a lot to the cost of a gun."
Hey, cry me a river.
Life is full of inconveniences, restrictions, and forms. Hell, you even have to fill out a form to rent movies at Blockbuster. It's called civilization. The only way out, really, is living off the grid in a cave somewhere. Or anarchy.
Take cars. There are all sorts of restrictions on operating motor vehicles, many of which limit personal liberty. You have to have a license, insurance, not drive while intoxicated, wear seatbelts.
Automobile makers must comply with a catalogue of federal requirements.
And yet, pretty much anyone who wants a car in this country can buy one. If you want more than one car, it will add to your costs in various ways, the price of the license plates, for instance.
So, um, what's the big deal? Yes, the Second Amendment guarantees your right to bear arms. It does not, however, preclude the states or Congress from implementing certain legal restrictions. The First and Second Amendments are not absolutes. Nor should they be.
As for Stern's worry about the harm to Arizona's "robust gun industry," once again, it's hard for me to get teary-eyed here. Every industry has to deal with ever-shifting federal, state, and local regulations. And the gun industry does not deserve a pass.
Not all gun enthusiasts are against sane gun laws, but there are many out there who demand carte blanche. They want what they want, and they don't seem too troubled when other members of society have to deal with the bloody consequences. This is a petulant, juvenile, state of mind, one the adults in the discussion should reject.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Top Five Identity Theft Scams
by the Better Business Bureau, http://central-northern-western-arizona.bbb.org/
The risk of becoming a victim of identity theft is everywhere. Criminals can gain access to personal information through various ways including mail, computer, credit cards, and even garbage cans. Your BBB has identified the top five scams seeking to steal your identity in 2010.
“ID theft prevention should always be on an individual’s mind,” said Matthew Fehling, President/CEO of BBB. “When it comes to protecting your identity, an ounce of prevention is worth far more than the amount of money, energy, and agony that goes into getting your life back to normal after your financial and personal information has been stolen.”
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have had their identities stolen this year. Victims may not be aware about the theft until they review their credit card statements and credit reports, or are being contacted by a debt collector.
BBB recommends being on the lookout for the following identity theft scams:
1. Social-Networking Scam - With the rising use of social networks, ID thieves can hijack accounts and post worrisome status updates, urging friends to send money. Frequently, these messages and status updates revolve around being mugged overseas or being stranded out of state with no money. Friends who read the message immediately grow concerned and try to help by wiring over funds to identity thieves.
BBB Advice: Contact friends and family to speak with them personally about the message received. This will help determine if the message received is legitimately from a friend.
2. Telephone Denial of Service Attack Scam - Criminals will tie up a phone line with hundreds or even thousands of calls, while they loot bank accounts. As a result, the bank can’t contact consumers to verify the transactions being made because of the tied-up phone lines.
BBB Advice: Never give personal information to an unsolicited caller or via e-mail; change online banking and automated telephone system passwords frequently; check account balances often; and protect computers with the use of the latest virus protection and security software.
If you have been targeted by a telephone denial of service attack, contact your financial institution and telephone provider, and file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
3. Renter’s Scam - The renter’s scam is also a rising trend. Criminals pose as homeowners listing the personal information of the “real” homeowner asking potential tenants to fill out applications that require personal and financial information, as well as money that is to be sent to an overseas address. The criminal then disappears, leaving victims out of their money and a home, as they realize they were not working with the “real” property owner.
BBB Advice: Always research the property owner thoroughly before providing any personal information and entering into any sort of financial agreement. Never wire money to an overseas address you are unfamiliar with since it will be virtually impossible to recover.
4. Charity Scam - Criminals pose as legitimate sounding charities seeking to collect money for a particular cause. Many set up fake websites and send e-mails to unsuspecting users requesting sensitive information such as social security numbers and passwords, allowing criminals to steal your identity.
BBB Advice: Before making a donation, remember to review any charity with BBB’s Wise Giving Alliance. Visit www.bbb.org/charity to verify that a charity meets the BBB’s 20 Standards for Charity Accountability.
5. Job Scam - Work-at-home scams are conducted by cybercriminals who recruit victims to engage in illegal activities such as money-laundering. Typical scams include e-mails that involve a “you are hired” subject line and specifically target job-seekers. The e-mail, supposedly from the human resources department, will forward new-hire forms that need to be filled out. These forms require the applicant to submit personal information such as one’s birthday, social security number, and bank account numbers which cybercriminals can use to steal one’s identity. The victim may also be instructed to deposit checks, which are usually fake, and then asked to wire funds.
BBB Advice: To avoid a job scam, research the company thoroughly and make sure you have legitimate contact information. Contact the company directly to verify they are requesting your personal information and never wire any funds.
If you have become a victim to any of these identity theft scams, file a complaint with your BBB by visiting arizonabbb.org or calling 602-264-1721.
The risk of becoming a victim of identity theft is everywhere. Criminals can gain access to personal information through various ways including mail, computer, credit cards, and even garbage cans. Your BBB has identified the top five scams seeking to steal your identity in 2010.
“ID theft prevention should always be on an individual’s mind,” said Matthew Fehling, President/CEO of BBB. “When it comes to protecting your identity, an ounce of prevention is worth far more than the amount of money, energy, and agony that goes into getting your life back to normal after your financial and personal information has been stolen.”
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have had their identities stolen this year. Victims may not be aware about the theft until they review their credit card statements and credit reports, or are being contacted by a debt collector.
BBB recommends being on the lookout for the following identity theft scams:
1. Social-Networking Scam - With the rising use of social networks, ID thieves can hijack accounts and post worrisome status updates, urging friends to send money. Frequently, these messages and status updates revolve around being mugged overseas or being stranded out of state with no money. Friends who read the message immediately grow concerned and try to help by wiring over funds to identity thieves.
BBB Advice: Contact friends and family to speak with them personally about the message received. This will help determine if the message received is legitimately from a friend.
2. Telephone Denial of Service Attack Scam - Criminals will tie up a phone line with hundreds or even thousands of calls, while they loot bank accounts. As a result, the bank can’t contact consumers to verify the transactions being made because of the tied-up phone lines.
BBB Advice: Never give personal information to an unsolicited caller or via e-mail; change online banking and automated telephone system passwords frequently; check account balances often; and protect computers with the use of the latest virus protection and security software.
If you have been targeted by a telephone denial of service attack, contact your financial institution and telephone provider, and file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
3. Renter’s Scam - The renter’s scam is also a rising trend. Criminals pose as homeowners listing the personal information of the “real” homeowner asking potential tenants to fill out applications that require personal and financial information, as well as money that is to be sent to an overseas address. The criminal then disappears, leaving victims out of their money and a home, as they realize they were not working with the “real” property owner.
BBB Advice: Always research the property owner thoroughly before providing any personal information and entering into any sort of financial agreement. Never wire money to an overseas address you are unfamiliar with since it will be virtually impossible to recover.
4. Charity Scam - Criminals pose as legitimate sounding charities seeking to collect money for a particular cause. Many set up fake websites and send e-mails to unsuspecting users requesting sensitive information such as social security numbers and passwords, allowing criminals to steal your identity.
BBB Advice: Before making a donation, remember to review any charity with BBB’s Wise Giving Alliance. Visit www.bbb.org/charity to verify that a charity meets the BBB’s 20 Standards for Charity Accountability.
5. Job Scam - Work-at-home scams are conducted by cybercriminals who recruit victims to engage in illegal activities such as money-laundering. Typical scams include e-mails that involve a “you are hired” subject line and specifically target job-seekers. The e-mail, supposedly from the human resources department, will forward new-hire forms that need to be filled out. These forms require the applicant to submit personal information such as one’s birthday, social security number, and bank account numbers which cybercriminals can use to steal one’s identity. The victim may also be instructed to deposit checks, which are usually fake, and then asked to wire funds.
BBB Advice: To avoid a job scam, research the company thoroughly and make sure you have legitimate contact information. Contact the company directly to verify they are requesting your personal information and never wire any funds.
If you have become a victim to any of these identity theft scams, file a complaint with your BBB by visiting arizonabbb.org or calling 602-264-1721.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Murderer Caught by Arizona Private Investigator
written by Megan Boehnke - Mar. 26, 2010, The Arizona Republic
Judge Bradley Soos asked twice Thursday if the feeble man before him in a Pinal County Superior Courtroom could hear him.
"I think so," said the man, leaning forward, his hands cuffed, his tattoos drooping beneath his red jumpsuit.
The court knows the man as Frank Dryman, a fugitive from parole, a murderer who shot a man seven times in the back in a small Montana oilfield town in 1951.
His neighbors in Arizona City know him as Victor Houston, the gruff yet charming deacon who ran a wedding chapel, painted signs and sold cactuses and desert knickknacks. He was a notary public. He was on the board of the local Moose Lodge. He graduated from the sheriff's citizens' academy.
In Arizona City, the man everyone saw but few knew well had suddenly become the man who had nearly been hanged in Montana.
In the sleepy community 60 miles south of downtown Phoenix, news spreads fast. One car after another drove by the compound surrounding his wedding chapel Thursday morning, boots hang from the skeleton of a cholla cactus. But beyond knowing him as the quirky man who ran the town's wedding chapel, few really knew much about their neighbor, and no one in town knew him as well as his close friend Patricia Lindholme did.
Not long after she met the man she knew as Vic, he told her he once killed somebody. He told her that it was in a bar fight a long time ago and that he had served his time. She didn't ask questions.
Decades earlier, a 19-year-old Frank Dryman caught a ride with Clarence Pellett, a rotund café owner and father of six, as Dryman hitchhiked from California to Canada in April 1951. When the two arrived in Shelby, Mont., Dryman pulled a .45 caliber pistol. Pellett took off running. Dryman missed with the first shot but felled his victim with the second. Then Dryman walked up to the body and fired six more shots.
A 160-man posse fanned out across northwestern Montana in search of Pellett. They found his body with eight empty shells nearby, about 45 feet from muddy tire tracks in a field.
Authorities caught up to Dryman in Canada the next day, and he signed a confession. Within a week of the murder, he was convicted and sentenced to hang. The state's "galloping gallows," the traveling execution squad, would be coming to Shelby.
The newspaper in town published a special section about the murder, but the hanging never happened. The verdict was thrown out because of the local publicity. After a second trial he was sentenced to a life of hard labor in the state penitentiary. He served 14 years. Two years later, he skipped out on his parole.
"Whatever happened to the infamous Frank Dryman, the cold-blooded murderer?" the Great Falls Tribune asked in an article written in 1977.
In the three decades that Frank Dryman lived as Victor Houston, his only brush with the law was a speeding ticket from the Pinal County Sheriff's Office. He tended to his own business, spoke his mind occasionally and built a humble life as a sign-painter and a father.
He paid his yearly dues to the Chamber of Commerce. Most businesses around town display signs painted by Dryman. No one knew it was a trade he picked up in prison.
His daughter and stepdaughter attended local schools in the 1990s, when Houston participated in a parent-teacher organization and donated signs to carnivals. Most in town saw Vic as a rough but active member of the community. Lindholme saw him differently.
"There was something so sad coming off of him," she said. "I saw this deteriorating old man, and there was nobody to help him."
He was legally blind and could barely hear. He had liver failure and had survived prostate cancer. In recent weeks, he began asking Lindholme to take care of his affairs. He wrote a will on March 16 and asked her to be its executor. But looking back, Lindholme said, she still doesn't think her friend Vic knew what was coming.
Neither did Clem Pellett, who was born two years after his grandfather was shot to death. Clem's father never spoke about the murder but warned Clem to never pick up hitchhikers. It wasn't until he cleaned out his mother's Chandler home that Pellett, an oral surgeon from Washington, discovered a box of mementoes and the newspaper clippings on his grandfather's death.
Pellett called local Montana newspapers and began requesting more clippings. He looked through transcripts of the trial, where his wife found a description of Dryman's tattoos. He requested records from the Montana Department of Corrections and the parole board. Then he began searching for Dryman himself. Before long, Pellett received a call from a family friend that a private investigator had found Dryman.
"I was just flabbergasted. I thought he was dead," Pellett said.
Patrick Cote, a private investigator based in Casa Grande, Arizona, tracked Dryman's Social Security number to the wedding chapel. Cote went looking for Frank Valentine, another alias. He found Victor Houston. His tattoos were similar and the stories seemed to match.
"Dryman and Houston were one and the same," Cote wrote in his report to the Pellett family.
It took Pinal County sheriff's deputies about 30 minutes to get a confession.
The tattoos were faded and his fingerprints weren't in the national database. But after the detectives told Houston that they were getting an analyst to compare his prints to those of the missing Frank Dryman, he broke down and told the truth.
On Thursday, two days after his arrest, Dryman signed a waiver to forfeit his rights to extradition proceedings. The state of Montana will come to Arizona to pick up the fragile old man. The state's parole board then has the option of re-paroling him, sending him to prison with the option to return before the board or requiring him to serve the full life sentence.
Lindholme said if he does return to prison, she isn't sure how long he'll last. With his recent money problems and the loss of his license, life in Arizona City has been hard.
Lindholme has been in touch with his daughter, who lives in New Mexico, and his siblings. They all knew of his past, though how much his daughter knew is unclear. Dryman even told a detention officer that he was relieved to not have to run anymore, said Tamatha Villar, a sheriff's department spokeswoman.
"Vic was chased by demons all his life," Lindholme said. "Let's face it, all he had to do was abide by the rules, and he couldn't do it."
Judge Bradley Soos asked twice Thursday if the feeble man before him in a Pinal County Superior Courtroom could hear him.
"I think so," said the man, leaning forward, his hands cuffed, his tattoos drooping beneath his red jumpsuit.
The court knows the man as Frank Dryman, a fugitive from parole, a murderer who shot a man seven times in the back in a small Montana oilfield town in 1951.
His neighbors in Arizona City know him as Victor Houston, the gruff yet charming deacon who ran a wedding chapel, painted signs and sold cactuses and desert knickknacks. He was a notary public. He was on the board of the local Moose Lodge. He graduated from the sheriff's citizens' academy.
In Arizona City, the man everyone saw but few knew well had suddenly become the man who had nearly been hanged in Montana.
In the sleepy community 60 miles south of downtown Phoenix, news spreads fast. One car after another drove by the compound surrounding his wedding chapel Thursday morning, boots hang from the skeleton of a cholla cactus. But beyond knowing him as the quirky man who ran the town's wedding chapel, few really knew much about their neighbor, and no one in town knew him as well as his close friend Patricia Lindholme did.
Not long after she met the man she knew as Vic, he told her he once killed somebody. He told her that it was in a bar fight a long time ago and that he had served his time. She didn't ask questions.
Decades earlier, a 19-year-old Frank Dryman caught a ride with Clarence Pellett, a rotund café owner and father of six, as Dryman hitchhiked from California to Canada in April 1951. When the two arrived in Shelby, Mont., Dryman pulled a .45 caliber pistol. Pellett took off running. Dryman missed with the first shot but felled his victim with the second. Then Dryman walked up to the body and fired six more shots.
A 160-man posse fanned out across northwestern Montana in search of Pellett. They found his body with eight empty shells nearby, about 45 feet from muddy tire tracks in a field.
Authorities caught up to Dryman in Canada the next day, and he signed a confession. Within a week of the murder, he was convicted and sentenced to hang. The state's "galloping gallows," the traveling execution squad, would be coming to Shelby.
The newspaper in town published a special section about the murder, but the hanging never happened. The verdict was thrown out because of the local publicity. After a second trial he was sentenced to a life of hard labor in the state penitentiary. He served 14 years. Two years later, he skipped out on his parole.
"Whatever happened to the infamous Frank Dryman, the cold-blooded murderer?" the Great Falls Tribune asked in an article written in 1977.
In the three decades that Frank Dryman lived as Victor Houston, his only brush with the law was a speeding ticket from the Pinal County Sheriff's Office. He tended to his own business, spoke his mind occasionally and built a humble life as a sign-painter and a father.
He paid his yearly dues to the Chamber of Commerce. Most businesses around town display signs painted by Dryman. No one knew it was a trade he picked up in prison.
His daughter and stepdaughter attended local schools in the 1990s, when Houston participated in a parent-teacher organization and donated signs to carnivals. Most in town saw Vic as a rough but active member of the community. Lindholme saw him differently.
"There was something so sad coming off of him," she said. "I saw this deteriorating old man, and there was nobody to help him."
He was legally blind and could barely hear. He had liver failure and had survived prostate cancer. In recent weeks, he began asking Lindholme to take care of his affairs. He wrote a will on March 16 and asked her to be its executor. But looking back, Lindholme said, she still doesn't think her friend Vic knew what was coming.
Neither did Clem Pellett, who was born two years after his grandfather was shot to death. Clem's father never spoke about the murder but warned Clem to never pick up hitchhikers. It wasn't until he cleaned out his mother's Chandler home that Pellett, an oral surgeon from Washington, discovered a box of mementoes and the newspaper clippings on his grandfather's death.
Pellett called local Montana newspapers and began requesting more clippings. He looked through transcripts of the trial, where his wife found a description of Dryman's tattoos. He requested records from the Montana Department of Corrections and the parole board. Then he began searching for Dryman himself. Before long, Pellett received a call from a family friend that a private investigator had found Dryman.
"I was just flabbergasted. I thought he was dead," Pellett said.
Patrick Cote, a private investigator based in Casa Grande, Arizona, tracked Dryman's Social Security number to the wedding chapel. Cote went looking for Frank Valentine, another alias. He found Victor Houston. His tattoos were similar and the stories seemed to match.
"Dryman and Houston were one and the same," Cote wrote in his report to the Pellett family.
It took Pinal County sheriff's deputies about 30 minutes to get a confession.
The tattoos were faded and his fingerprints weren't in the national database. But after the detectives told Houston that they were getting an analyst to compare his prints to those of the missing Frank Dryman, he broke down and told the truth.
On Thursday, two days after his arrest, Dryman signed a waiver to forfeit his rights to extradition proceedings. The state of Montana will come to Arizona to pick up the fragile old man. The state's parole board then has the option of re-paroling him, sending him to prison with the option to return before the board or requiring him to serve the full life sentence.
Lindholme said if he does return to prison, she isn't sure how long he'll last. With his recent money problems and the loss of his license, life in Arizona City has been hard.
Lindholme has been in touch with his daughter, who lives in New Mexico, and his siblings. They all knew of his past, though how much his daughter knew is unclear. Dryman even told a detention officer that he was relieved to not have to run anymore, said Tamatha Villar, a sheriff's department spokeswoman.
"Vic was chased by demons all his life," Lindholme said. "Let's face it, all he had to do was abide by the rules, and he couldn't do it."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
