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.

Facebook Postings in Legal and Financial Arenas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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