Cheryl Thomas
Be sure to read Cheryl Thomas’ new page on the blog, Undercover Investigations.
Category Archives: Women Investigators
“Private Investigator School-101”
- Image via Wikipedia
Hmm..hmm….working with Mom…What do we think of about this? Is this person licensed? Can you be licensed in NC, yet trained in Mississippi? Can you bring unlicensed people along with you while on the job? This is definitely worth looking at -in a NCAPI training session.
From the Burke Herald Leader
Private Investigator school 101
Published: March 27, 2009
Well, it’s official. I am now a paid private investigator—Agent 000. Now, I’m the one who named myself Agent 000. When you think of all that Agent 007 does, how could I, in good conscience give myself a bona fide number along with my oughts? Scary as it may seem, at the age of 71, I have a new career to add to my resume.
My daughter, BJ, has her own agency in Mississippi — Advanced Research & Investigations…
To read the full story, please click here
Is this private investigations or fiction?
Hiring of Fraud Investigators
A Help-Wanted Sign for Fraud Investigators
Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times
Pam Verick, who directs the fraud risk management practice at Protiviti, conducts classes to help clients watch for possible financial schemes.
By AMY ZIPKIN
Published: March 21, 2009
AS the financial crisis has continued to unfold, new suspicions of fraud have been emerging — and with them a need to find whether there is evidence of wrongdoing. That’s why the demand for fraud investigators is rising.
Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that the number of open mortgage-fraud investigations was more than 1,600 at the end of fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30, compared with 881 two years earlier. In addition, 530 corporate-fraud investigations were open, it said.
The bureau is recruiting people to help with these investigations, including those with experience in computer science and accounting. People who speak a foreign language and those who are certified fraud examiners also have an advantage. Certification is a credential offered by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners that notes proficiency and experience in fraud prevention, detection and deterrence.
Outside the government, fraud investigators work for security consulting firms like Kroll; at accounting firms like Deloitte Touche and Eisner; and at global business consulting and internal audit firms like Protiviti. Some hang out their own shingle. These firms may be retained by lawyers or by companies pursuing an internal investigation.
The number of certified examiners is up 10 percent compared with last year, according to the association, a trade group based in Austin, Tex. Median compensation for full-time certified fraud examiners in 2008 was just over $90,000 a year, the association says.
Corporate fraud investigators say the work requires curiosity and tenacity. And they warn that it can be time-consuming and even tedious. Because they are retained on the recommendation of corporate or outside counsel, they are bound by lawyer-client privilege and do not have a say in whether to prosecute a crime. Still, they say, their efforts can be rewarding.
A hero of the breed recently emerged in the form of Harry Markopolos, who repeatedly warned the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard L. Madoff was running a giant Ponzi scheme at the expense of investors. Mr. Markopolos, who was working for an investment company when he started looking into Mr. Madoff’s activities, left in 2004 to start his own investigation firm.
Although the S.E.C. did not act on Mr. Markopolos’s warnings, he has helped ease the way for investigators in his wake who may suspect various “mini-Madoff” scandals and other types of fraud.
While many investigators have backgrounds in forensic accounting, internal audit and law enforcement, experts say the field also draws finance executives, paralegals, librarians and former journalists. “What you need is an uncanny ability to get people to talk,” said Jules Kroll, the recently retired founder of the firm that bears his name.
Two years ago, after Annie Cheney, a freelance writer, completed a book called “Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains,” she considered what to do next. She found writing a book to be a solitary experience. “It was very lonely,” she said. “I needed a job.”
Because she loves reporting and figuring out puzzles, Ms. Cheney sent a résumé to Kroll, the risk management and fraud investigation company. Hired as an analyst, she was recently promoted to director.
Philip S. Deming, who runs Philip S. Deming & Associates of King of Prussia, Pa., started his career with the Treasury Department and has advanced degrees in human resources development and human resources management. In one case that he investigated, he found that an employee had padded an expense account. In another, he discovered that a woman had fabricated a college degree.
The need to investigate fraud these days is so great that Mr. Deming has hired temporary workers — including lawyers, private investigators and certified fraud examiners — who are paid $150 to $275 an hour.
Teaching can also be part of a fraud investigator’s job. Pam Verick, who directs the fraud risk management practice at Protiviti, also conducts training sessions for employees of clients. In these sessions, she guides them through the possible workings of schemes involving bribery, kickbacks and fraudulent financial reporting.
Occasionally, during a break, a participant in the class will take her aside and say, “I have a concern that something we just talked about is happening,” she said. The concern is then referred for investigation to the internal counsel at the participant’s company.
WHEN Ms. Verick conducts her own fraud investigations, she is always alert for fact patterns. And the technology she uses to obtain them has become more sophisticated. She says she now recovers trace evidence from cellphones, BlackBerrys, hard drives and network files.
Ms. Verick said that in her experience, if fraud is uncovered, most companies do not prosecute. Instead, they make individual agreements with employees who make restitution.
The 18-hour days spent and the vending-machine meals eaten during investigations are worth it, she says, when a client says, “Thank you, we needed to hear that message.”
Dina Blake, a graduate student in accounting at West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va., hopes to investigate fraud one day. She plans to pursue forensic accounting and to receive a fraud-investigation certificate; she has an entry-level job lined up this fall at Ernst & Young, the auditing firm, in Washington.
She said her studies had given her an understanding of the hardships of those who lost retirement savings as a result of corporate fraud. She says she is approaching her new career with idealism. “I’m going to help straighten out the business world one way or another,” she said.
More Articles in Job Market » A version of this article appeared in print on March 22, 2009, on page BU11 of the New York edition.
Alienation of Affection and Criminal Conversation in NC
From the Rosen Law Firm
Alienation of Affection and Criminal Conversation
An outsider’s interference with marriage can cost the outsider big bucks in North Carolina
Fairly high-dollar awards in such cases have existed here for a number of years, a fact not generally known. As long ago as 1926, for instance, a jury in MaconCounty rendered a verdict in the amount of $12,000 against the lover of plaintiff’s wife. A 1931 jury in Forsyth County held against plaintiff wife’s father-in-law for $38,000. A Rowan County jury awarded $30,000 against a husband’s girlfriend in 1969. In 1982, our Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict in the amount of $25,000 in compensatory damages and another $25,000 in punitive damages.Moving into the 1990’s, North Carolina juries were even more generous. A 1990 Forsyth County jury award of $300,000 in punitive damages for alienation was sustained on appeal, even though the court struck the compensatory award for $200,000. In 1997 alone, a jury handed down $1.2 million against a female paramour in Forsyth County and awarding another jilted wife $1 million in Alamance County and a deceived husband $243,000 in Wake County. In late 1999, a judge in Durham County valued compensatory damages in a case brought by a husband against his wife’s lover at less than $3,000 in compensatory damages but the judge still awarded $40,000 in punitive damages on the criminal conversation claim.
Even in this decade, the trend of generosity has continued. In August of 2000, a Burke County judge awarded a devastated wife $86,250 for alienation of affection and $15,000 for criminal conversation, totaling $101,250. In May of 2001, in Richmond County, the jury answered the issues of alienation of affection and criminal conversation in favor of the scorned husband and awarded him compensatory damages of $50,000 plus punitive damages of $50,000. Another distraught husband, in Mecklenburg County, received an award of $1.4 million in May, 2001 comprised of $910,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.The jury found the doctor who had had an affair with this man’s wife liable for both alienation of affection and criminal conversation. After an appeal the original award of compensatory damages was reversed, the punitive damages award, however, was upheld. In 2007, a Cook County judge ordered a man to pay $4802 to a husband who was grieving the loss of his wife after an affair.
Since our Supreme Court refused to abolish these causes of action in 1984 and since our legislature has shown no strong interest in abolishing these causes of action, sizeable damage awards remain a real possibility in North Carolina. More than 200 alienation actions are filed in an average year.
Conduct after date of separation
The date of separation is an important date in alienation of affection and criminal conversation cases. Our courts have decided that conduct that occurs before the date of separation is relevant to these types of actions. This is because a claim of alienation of affection must prove that, among other things, the defendant’s malicious conduct contributed to or caused the loss of affection in the marriage. The parties to the marriage must still be together in order to prove this claim. It is important to note, however, that conduct which occurs after the date of separation may also be considered by a judge, if that conduct corroborates the conduct that occurred before the date of separation. In criminal conversation actions, by contrast, post-separation conduct is even more important. Conduct which occurs after the date of separation can be considered by a court to not only corroborate behavior that occurred before the date of separation, but is enough on its own to maintain an action for criminal conversation.
North Carolina is in the minority
The existence of continuing cases of this sort in North Carolina appears to surprise lawyers and residents in many other states because we are now in a very small minority of jurisdictions — including Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah — which still recognize both alienation of affection and criminal conversation. Forty three states and the District of Columbia have abolished the cause of action for alienation of affection. The states vary widely in the way they deal with this issue: in some states, only one of the two causes of action continues to exist, and thus proof of the claim and/or damages have been significantly curtailed in recent years. None of these reforms has altered the stance favoring such claims in this State.
Criminal Conversation
Criminal conversation is the name for a civil lawsuit sounding in tort (a kind of injury to the person) based on sexual intercourse between the defendant and the plaintiff’s spouse. Criminal conversation is something like a “strict liability tort” because the only things the plaintiff has to prove are (1) an act of intercourse and (2) the existence of a valid marriage between the plaintiff and the adulterous spouse, and (3) the bringing of the lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations. For all practical purposes, there are no obvious defenses to a timely claim for criminal conversation, provided the plaintiff can prove a valid marriage and intercourse between the defendant and plaintiff’s spouse. It is not a defense that: the defendant did not know the other person was married, that the person consented to the sex, that the plaintiff was separated from his or her spouse, that the other person actually seduced the defendant, that the marriage was an unhappy one, that the defendant’s sex with the spouse did not otherwise impact on the plaintiff’s marriage, that plaintiff had mistreated the spouse, or that the plaintiff had also been unfaithful. It might be a defense that the plaintiff “consented” to the illicit intercourse; but defendant would have to show that this approval or encouragement had pre-dated the extramarital conduct.
Alienation of Affection
An action for alienation of affection, on the other hand, does not require proof of extramarital sex. Despite this difference, an alienation claim tends to be more difficult to establish because it is comprised of more elements and there are some additional defenses. To succeed on an alienation claim, the plaintiff has to show that (1) the marriage entailed love between the spouses in some degree; (2) the spousal love was alienated and destroyed; and (3) defendant’s malicious conduct contributed to or caused the loss of affection. It is not necessary to show that the defendant set out to destroy the marital relationship, but only that he or she intentionally engaged in acts which would foreseeably impact on the marriage. Thus, defendant has a defense against an alienation claim — but not to a claim for criminal conversation — where it can be shown that defendant did not know that the object of his or her affections was in fact married. As with a criminal conversation action, it is not a defense that the non-innocent spouse consented to defendant’s conduct. But it might be a defense that the defendant was not the active and aggressive seducer. If defendant’s conduct was somehow inadvertent, the plaintiff would be unable to show intentional or malicious action. But prior marital problems do not establish a defense unless such unhappiness had reached a level of negating love between the spouses.
Criticism of these laws
Critics of such laws call them obsolete methods for legislating morality (despite the fact that most criminal laws could be said to legislate morality). Critics also say the laws do not fulfill their purpose of protecting marital relationships, inequitably punish only one of two guilty parties, and serve as an excuse for blackmail or forced settlements. The critics add that such suits can also be misused by embittered spouses seeking vengeance against a third party interferer and that injured spouses cannot possibly be compensated for a lost marriage. On the other hand, defenders point to the virtual non-existence of criminal prosecutions for adultery in current American culture, a need to uphold the sanctity of the marriage vows through some kind of formal legal sanction for violation of marital promises, and the potential deterrence of rampant extramarital affairs by means of the threat of monetary damage suits. Defenders also point out that adultery has a very long history of illegality; and that it is therefore appropriate for the civil laws of criminal conversation and alienation of affections to perpetuate Western culture’s longstanding disapproval, by law and by custom, of extramarital affairs.
Whether one thinks it is a good or a bad situation for North Carolina to continue to recognize such claims by spouses claiming injury to their marriages may largely depend, then, on one’s views of the need in the 1990s for protection of the marital relationship through civil litigation against the non-spouse wrongdoer and for monetary remedies for the alleged harms caused to that relationship. Indeed, some commentators have mentioned that high jury verdicts and the renewed popular interest in lawsuits for alienation of affections and criminal conversation may signal a growing societal disaffection with overly permissive sexual standards and a desire for stricter enforcement of family values. Pro-family writers believe it important that deceived spouses have litigation-oriented opportunities for vindication and that society retain this acknowledgment, however marginalized at present, of the supremacy of the institution of marriage against unwarranted intrusion. Ultimately, of course, these are all subjective and philosophical viewpoints likely to vary considerably from person to person.
Investigative Research and the Internet
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
From Law.com a very interesting article
Evidence in an Age of Self-Surveillance
Post a CommentGeorge Orwell’s state-run surveillance society had children spying on parents, neighbors scrutinizing neighbors and Big Brother watching over everyone. What Orwell did not foresee was a time when people would voluntarily publish chronicles of their lives for public consumption.
Imagine bookstores suddenly inundated with truckloads of privately published diaries, photo albums and home movies. An unlikely scenario until the mass marketing of computers, digital cameras and Internet access provided an inexpensive outlet.
Millions are participating in online social networks in an age of unprecedented self-surveillance (sousveillance). And these sites are pushing criminal investigation into uncharted waters.
Two of the most popular networking sites are MySpace and Facebook, each of which boasts over 100 million users. And according to a 2008 Pew Internet and American Life Project survey, the numbers of adult users with online profiles increased more than 400 percent over the last four years.[FOOTNOTE 1]
Evidence derived from social networking comes into play in several ways. Law enforcement and prosecutors use it to identify suspects and build cases. And defense attorneys have begun to mine this resource for information that can exculpate their clients, impeach a state’s witness or provide a basis for a reduced sentence or post-conviction review.
A couple of months ago, Newsweek reported on an investigation concerning the murder of a British college student in Italy.[FOOTNOTE 2] The suspects in that case were identified through Skype, an Internet phone service; and additional leads revealed by photos and short stories appearing on a Facebook page, an unsettling YouTube video and queries found in the history of a Google search engine. All told, these social networking and Internet communication sites collectively created a “virtual crime scene,” the output of which is finding its way into the courtroom.
In a Niagara County Court, a judge increased the bail of a defendant charged with felony assault and misdemeanor weapons possession based on pictures found on a MySpace page.[FOOTNOTE 3] The accused had been released on $5,000 bail, but during his arraignment the prosecutor introduced 10 pages of MySpace photos. They allegedly showed him wearing gang clothing, giving gang signs and standing with others in gang colors. Based on this and other information supporting a likelihood of conviction, the judge raised bail to $50,000.
And during a Michigan murder trial, the prosecutor introduced Molineux-type evidence of intent and planning from defendant’s MySpace site. The evidence in People v. Liceaga, 2009 Mich. App. LEXIS 160 (Mich. Ct. App. Jan. 27, 2009), included photos of the accused with a gun, purportedly used to shoot the victim and “throwing” a gang sign. Admission of the images was upheld on appeal because they established familiarity with the weapon and a pattern of threats made to other victims.
Social networking evidence plays an increasingly important role at other stages of the criminal process.
In United States v. Ebersole, 263 Fed. Appx. 251, 253 n.4 (3d Cir. Pa. 2008), a sentence of supervised released for interstate stalking was revoked because it was claimed the defendant sent a threatening e-mail to the victim. “At the revocation hearing,” the court said, “Ebersole testified that he used his MySpace web page as a ‘vehicle to voice [his] frustration.’ (App. 29.)” The court admitted the profile page evidence to put the message in context.
Recently, in People v. Fernino, 2008 NY Slip Op 28044, 3 (N.Y. City Crim. Ct. 2008), a Staten Island judge held that a friend request intended to reach the complainant’s MySpace page violated the “no contact” provision of an order of protection. “The defendant should not be exculpated because she, instead of contacting her victim directly, used the MySpace Mail Center Friend Request Manager,” the court said.
In both cases the indirect nature of the communication was an unavailing defense. However, communication is a two-way street, and as illustrated below, the actions of the recipient may determine the outcome of a case.
In People v. Rodriguez, 2008 NY Slip Op 28123, 5 (N.Y. City Crim. Ct. 2008), an 18-year-old defendant’s expression of “unrequited teenage love” for a 14-year-old complainant via MySpace failed to reach the level of aggravated harassment.
A key factor in dismissing the charge was the complainant’s willingness to access defendant’s messages on her page. No attempts were made to block them nor did she ask him to desist. At some point, the prosecution claimed she disabled her account, but offered no evidence to determine when it occurred or whether it was done in response to defendant’s epistles.
The virtue and vice of social networking, and the Internet in general, are that it empowers everyone to be an investigator. But incautious use of publicly accessible profiles can lead down the wrong path in some cases.
A North Carolina resident had been arrested and prosecuted for injuries to a victim in an Albany bar fight.[FOOTNOTE 4] Some time after the incident, the victim had gone to a MySpace page where he saw an image of a person he thought was the attacker. Meanwhile, the man in the photo, who lived more than 700 miles away, denied ever having been in Albany. One DNA sample later, the case against him was dismissed.
DUE DILIGENCE
Internet searching has emerged as a necessity in legal investigation. And with the advent of Google cache and the Wayback Machine to resurrect defunct sites and links, the search parameters have broadened. And now social networking is redefining due diligence in online investigation.[FOOTNOTE 5]
Sites like Facebook and MySpace may hold the keys to an alibi,[FOOTNOTE 6] justification or mental health defense or mitigating evidence. In addition, they may provide material to impeach law enforcement and expert witnesses or assail the credibility of eyewitnesses.[FOOTNOTE 7] Mistaken identifications and false or misleading information might be uncovered as well.
A defendant’s social networking page can also be turned to advantage because, like most personal sites, it represents part of a life story. There may be postings that show strong roots in the community supporting a bail application or positive reputation evidence from testimonials useful in developing a defense theory or mitigation at sentencing.[FOOTNOTE 8]
Depending on the material posted, it could prove to be a valuable snapshot of a client’s experiences — similar to a day in the life movies used in civil litigation.
JURY BEHAVIOR
These sites can open the door to opinion making, where the power of one person or a 1,000 to post their views about a pending case can impact due process.
In United States v. Boyd, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88493 (E.D. Tenn. Nov. 30, 2007), the accused moved for a change of venue based on pretrial publicity. In addition to TV broadcasts and newspapers articles, attorneys involved with the defense testified that there were YouTube videos, opinions about the case posted on Internet news sites, and extensive Google search results concerning the victim. All of the electronic information was available to any potential juror in the venire district.
While the attorneys could not determine how many potential jurors might have viewed the YouTube videos, for example, they noted: “[A]nyone, located anywhere on Earth, with access to a computer and the internet, could create a video about Christian and Newsom [victims], or the prosecutions arising from their deaths, and put it on YouTube.”
The trial judge denied the motion as premature, being unable to determine the existence of actual prejudice, and instead granted a defense motion for individual voir dire as needed.
The dangers of jury pool contamination intoned by the defense attorneys in Boyd were realized in a West Virginia case.
K.J., one of the alleged sex abuse victims in State v. Cecil, 221 W. Va. 495, 504 (W. Va. 2007), had a MySpace account. A private detective working for the defense testified that she posted a statement about being “famous someday,” and “used the website to communicate with older boys contrary to her mother’s testimony that K.J. was now withdrawn and did not like to be around older boys or men.”
The curiosity of two jurors got the better of them, and during trial they tried to visit K.J.’s MySpace page. However, the profile had been restricted or removed before trial and inaccessible — reducing its prejudicial impact. Still, one of the jurors did discuss the site with her daughter, who knew the other victim and her family. While the jurors’ attempted investigation was not productive, their actions combined with other misconduct by a third juror denied Cecil a fair trial.
As this next case illustrates, Web sites have to be seen to be impactful.
In State v. Gaskins, 2007 Ohio 4103, P30-P35 (Ohio Ct. App., Medina County, Aug. 13, 2007), the defendant was charged with sex crimes against two underage victims. During trial, he attempted to introduce evidence that one of the complainants held herself out on her MySpace page as an 18 year old with experience in adult sexual relationships.
The court permitted photos of the victim from that site to be admitted based on testimony about her appearance at the time. However, since no proof had been offered that the defendant had ever seen the site, and it was created after the event, questioning about the MySpace page was not permitted.
Jury selection has to take into account the fact that many in the pool will be familiar with social networking and Internet searching or have their own sites.
In view of the potential for unwanted publicity or juror curiosity, voir dire and jury instructions should consider how these sites can infiltrate and influence the proceedings. The questions from the Pew survey might suggest a few starting points.[FOOTNOTE 9]
INFORMATION QUALITY
Since Web pages can change or disappear, archiving or making a demand for preservation may be necessary. Admission or exclusion of testimony about the contents may hinge on this early capture of Web content.
Distinct from content is the conduct of the person profiled, whether a party or witness. The act of removing a page, privatizing access or changing the nature of the material posted may be probative as a virtual recantation, recent fabrication, inconsistent statement or basis for impeachment.
Depending on the reason that a complainant shuts down her site or a witness restricts access to his MySpace page, the next step may involve a subpoena to the networking host, a discovery motion, a Rosario demand or preclusion motion, and ultimately, an adverse inference jury charge.[FOOTNOTE 10]
Foreclosure of such evidence might run afoul of the confrontation and compulsory process clauses.
Moreover, if photos from Facebook were used in an identification proceeding or statements on a blog found their way into a search warrant application, there might be a basis for suppression.
The integrity of self-published online information depends on its authenticity and reliability. Well-known phenomena plaguing Web sites apply with equal force to social networking, such as hacking, identity theft, malicious misinformation and misrepresentation.
The Pew survey reported that 4 percent of users deleted their profiles because their page had been hacked or password stolen.
Social networking sites are personal. They represent an extension of conversations that take place between friends or reveal the desire to create casual relationships. The informality and dubiety of their content can be questioned. Whether offered as evidence by the prosecution or considered for use by the defense, fact checking is essential.[FOOTNOTE 11]
CONCLUSION
Media rich social networking sites have pulled back the curtain on the activities of multitudes. And lawyers are representing an increasing number of clients with an online presence, and trying cases where complainants and witnesses post information that can lead to impeaching or exonerating evidence.
Criminal defense is now virtual defense. And unlike memories that fade with time or physical evidence that deteriorates, a Web site will continue communicating to a global audience for a long time.
What will it mean when we live in a society where everyone knows everything about everyone? And how will it affect the rights of defendants to confront their accusers and prepare their cases?[FOOTNOTE 12]
A world with “virtual crime scenes” demands a comparable set of safeguards to ensure access to and the integrity of the virtual evidence that is fast becoming a staple of criminal prosecutions.
Ken Strutin is director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association.
::::FOOTNOTES::::
FN1 Pew Internet Project Data Memo: Adults and Social Networking Web Sites (Jan. 14, 2009). See “New Numbers on Social Network Usage,” CNET News, Feb. 10, 2009, .
FN2 “Murder Most Wired,” Newsweek, Dec. 3, 2008.
FN3 “MySpace Page Used Against Gang Suspect,” Buffalo News, Jan. 23, 2009.
FN4 “Bar Brawl Indictment Dismissed,” Albany Times Union, Feb. 18, 2009.
FN5 See generally “Due Diligence With Social Networks,” Law Technology News, Dec. 12, 2008, ; “Making Internet Searches Part of Due Diligence,” Los Angeles Lawyer, Feb. 2007, at 46.
FN6 See, e.g., “Lack of Internet Access Muddies Case Against Sex Offender’s MySpace Site,” Law.com, Nov. 6, 2006.
FN7 See, e.g., “MySpaced-Out Cops: NYPD Eyes Web Pages of Recruits,” New York Post, Jan. 21, 2009; “Litigation Clues Are Found on Facebook,” National Law Journal, Oct. 15, 2007>
FN8 But see “Social Networking Puts the Bite on Defendants,” Law.com, July 22, 2008; “Danger of Self-Inflicted Damage on the Web,” Pennsylvania Lawyer, November/December 2008, at 34.
FN9 Cf. “Social Networking Sites Help Vet Jurors,” National Law Journal, Aug. 13, 2008.
FN10 Cf. “MySpace, Facebook Pages Called Key to Dispute Over Insurance Coverage for Eating Disorders,” National Law Journal, Feb. 1, 2008.
FN11 See generally “When Reporters Go Into MySpace,” News & Observer, Dec. 31, 2007.
FN12 See generally Anita L. Allen, “Dredging Up the Past: Lifelogging, Memory, and Surveillance,” 75 U. Chi. L. Rev. 47 (2008); “India’s Novel Use of Brain Scans in Courts Is Debated,” The New York Times, Sept. 14, 2008.
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History of Women in Investigations
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I was also a Pinkerton Detective.
Kate Warne: The First Female Detective
When Kate Warne walked into Allan Pinkerton’s Detective Agency in 1856, he thought she was interested in clerical work. When the childless widow said she wanted to be a detective, Pinkerton replied “It is not the custom to employ women detectives!”
But Warne didn’t leave, and after pointing out to the advantages a female detective would have in certain situations over men, Pinkerton hired her the next day.
Warne became one of Pinkerton’s best operatives. The night the Pinkertons protected Abraham Lincoln on his trip through Baltimore for his first inauguration, it was Warne who arranged the railcars, coordinated transportation, and provided disguises.
In 1860, Pinkerton had hired several more female detectives and called them his “Female Detective Bureau.”
Warne’s career, unfortunately, was cut short by illness. She passed away suddenly in January 1868, at age 35 with Pinkerton at her bedside. She’s buried in the Pinkerton Family Plot in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, IL.
Upon her death, Pinkerton said “She succeeded far beyond my utmost expectations. Mrs. Warne never let me down!”
Resources
Web Sites
- Find-A-Grave (View Kate Warne’s Grave)
- Pinkerton History
- “In his memoirs, Allan Pinkerton was to credit two specific agents – one female – for doing more in the early days than anyone else to establish the firm’s reputation for efficiency and honor. They were Timothy Webster and Kate Warne.” Quote from an article on Court TV’s Crime Library web site.
Other Resources
Filed under Home, Professional Investigations, Women Investigators
Spotlight on a SC Investigator
Here is a story about a fellow PI in SC and member of SCALI. Linda Cecil of Locaters Unlimited.
Contact: Linda Cecil Office – 843-757-5700 – SC / 859-885-1777 – Ky Toll Free 1-800-455-5574 / cell 859-619-1777 PI Licenses: Ky- 0081, SC Sled Lic. PDC2214 www.LocatorsUnlimited.com – President/Investigator www.KyAdoptions.com – Registry,Search and Support www.SouthCarolinaAdoptions.com – Registry, Search and Support www.SCAdoptionReform.com – Coordinator – Legislation Reform So Carolina Foster Care Review Board –Chairperson 14B Reunited Adoptee
Private investigator specializes in reuniting birth families
By Adam Parker
The Post and Courier
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Alan Hawes
The Post and Courier
Heather Bailey gave up her son reluctantly then spent 36 years, on and off, looking for him. In late 2007, the search paid off.
Remembering 36 birthdays
Editor’s Note: In an e-mail, Heather Bailey shared a story describing what she did when her son turned 36. Reunited after years of searching for one another, she finally could celebrate her son’s birthday.
One thing I forgot to tell you, and it’s kind of sad and funny at the same time. You asked if I was consumed with searching for my son. Not at all. While I did think about my son every day, I did have a very full life.
However, every year around the time of his birthday, for some reason, I was drawn to look at and read birthday cards and hope that someday I would be able to send one to him.
We were reunited about six weeks before his 36th birthday. In 2007, I was finally able to buy my son a birthday gift and card for the first time. I went to the card store, and something kind of comedic kicked in. I bought all the age-numbered “To My Son” cards I could find: 1-18, 21, 25, 29, 30, and 35. Then I filled in cards for the other years for which I couldn’t find numbered cards. The store clerk was blown away, and I told her not to even ask.
I signed every one (on the 36th card I wrote a little note that we were finally all caught up), sealed them up, and put numbers from 1 to 36 on the envelopes, and put them in a separate box underneath his wrapped gift.
When he received the gift, he called me laughing about it. He said he opened the gift and thought I had sent him two presents. When he opened the second box and found all those envelopes, his wife grabbed her camera and started snapping photos as he arranged them in order and started opening them. He said after he opened a few cards, he realized the camera flash had stopped. That was because his wife was crying and just unable to snap any more photos. They sent me a picture of him at the dining room table with all 36 cards set up in front of him. He told me he will always keep every one of them.
I think my husband and my son’s wife were just as happy as we were about the reunion.
On the web
—www.childwelfare.gov: Child Welfare Information Gateway.
—www.LocatorsUnlimited.com: Private investigations.
—www.SouthCarolinaAdoptions.com: Registry, search and support.
—www.SCAdoptionReform.com: Information on proposed legislation reform.
Family Fair participants:
—www.ACCadoptionservices.com: Summerville agency.
—www.adoptionsc.com: Adoption attorney, Spartanburg.
—www.realpagessites.com/glennlister: Adoption attorney in Mount Pleasant.
—www.cwa.org: Christian World Adoption.
BLUFFTON — Linda Cecil will accept most any assignment — producing evidence of adultery for use in court, finding missing persons, video surveillance, premarital investigations, employer fraud. But her favorite kind of case has nothing to do with suspicion and blame and everything to do with longing and love.
Cecil, a private investigator who lives in Bluffton and is licensed in South Carolina and Kentucky, specializes in reuniting adoptees with their birth parents.
An adoptee herself, she knows firsthand what a reunion can mean, and she has become an advocate for legislative reform that makes it easier for birth parents and adopted children to find one another should they choose.
She says there are three types of adoption placement in South Carolina: public (via the Department of Social Services), agency-instigated (for those actively searching for a child domestically or internationally) and private (direct arrangements among or between families).
Adoption laws apply in the state of adoption, not the state of birth,she said, and each state has its own set of laws. There is no federal legal guideline, which makes for a lot of confusion when it comes to reunions, she says.
Adoption records in some states are open and accessible to the public (South Carolina had open records until 1963.). Agencies such as DSS will provide some, but not all, adoption information upon request. (Identifying information is redacted.) Private agencies rarely will release their data. What’s more, she says, states typically do not have records of adoptions facilitated by private groups or arranged among families. Only the original birth certificate is on file with the state.
Cecil has been fighting to get states to keep their records up to date and more accessible (especially medical records), to pass laws that make reunions easier when there is mutual consent and to ensure that birth mothers have an extended waiting period before they are required to terminate their parental rights.
Some adoption officials argue that that window should be small, that months of preparation, counseling and soul-searching before birth should not be compromised by a last-minute, hormone-laden change of heart.
Not all birth parents or adoptees want to find one another, Cecil says. When searches are managed by a private investigator, anyone being sought who doesn’t want a reunion always has the right to refuse contact, she says.
But there are good reasons to facilitate reunions, she says. Instinct and curiosity are legitimate impulses that might drive people back together. And practical concerns regarding medical histories and genetic inheritances also serve as motivators, she says.
Someone with a health condition can better understand the implications and likely outcomes when the family medical history and genetic information are obtained.
Looking for a match
To help people find one another despite the obstacles, Cecil and others have set up adoption registries (most are online now) that enable searchers to list information about themselves in a database with the hope that matches can be made.
It was Cecil’s registry, http://www.southcarolinaadoptions.com, that finally brought together Heather Bailey and her son, Scott.
Bailey is 55 now. She grew up in Aiken and works as a paralegal in Columbia. Her first husband was a “control freak” who didn’t want children, she says. The nightmare began when Bailey got pregnant unexpectedly. She says she felt threatened. She says she was scared.
“I felt I was already dead,” she says. But the child — he must be protected.
After the cesarean section, she was in the hospital for five days, listening to her child’s cries, unable to go to him. A nurse tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry, you’ll have another one,” she had said.
On the fifth day, a social worker arrived.
“What time is your husband coming?” she wanted to know, so that the papers could be signed.
“This is not what I want,” Bailey, recovering from surgery, on pain medication, susceptible to hormonal changes, managed to tell her.
The social worker looked Bailey in the eyes and repeated her question.
She signed the papers reluctantly, she says. She asked for copies of the documents but never received them. Counseling was never offered.
Soon she would divorce and, in 1986, remarry. But she never had another child.
For the next 36 years after giving birth, Bailey thought about her lost child every day, she says. She tried to search for him, but she had only the name of an Aiken lawyer and the Columbia legal guardian, clues not substantial enough to set her on the path of discovery.
She decided to wait until the child turned 18 before she would search in earnest. In 1989, she began to add her information to every registry she could find. She avoided baby showers. She became depressed around the child’s birthday in November.
Reunion
Several years ago, Bailey came across a South Carolina adoption registry online. She plugged in her information and got in touch with the site’s manager, Cecil. The two women became friends, and Bailey, discouraged about her own search, began to help others.
Meanwhile, Scott Rodgers decided he wanted to find his biological mother, so he started researching his origins, discovering clues such as the fact that he was born in a Catholic hospital.
He searched the Web for information. He found Cecil’s Web site. He called.
As Rodgers and Cecil talked, the private investigator entered the information into her database. One name kept popping up. Later, Cecil called her friend.
“You need to sit down,” she said.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God …”
“You’ll never guess who I’ve been talking to for the last hour.”
Bailey learned that her son was in law school, living in Washington state. She learned that his adoptive father had died. She learned that his adoptive mother supported his quest. She learned of Scott’s wife and two stepchildren, of his degrees in economics, chemistry and sociology/anthropology, of the Master of Business Administration he had earned. His adoptive mother, “an amazing and giving woman,” has sent Bailey dozens of photographs taken over the years.
When they spoke to each other for the first time in September 2007, he said, “I know you had other options. Thank you for not pursuing them.”
She said, “I did what I did out of love, because I wanted you very much.”
A few months later, when Bailey took a flight to Seattle for her first visit with her found son, she sat in the bulkhead next to a man from Colombia and two of his daughters. They fell to talking. The man told her that his third daughter was adopted and that she had just found her birth mother in Seattle. The family was flying there for the reunion.
They cried and cried.
Copyright © 1997 – 2008 the Evening Post Publishing Co.
Women Investigators
Here’s news story from the Columbia MO Tribune about women investigators. Love this.
Female private eyes sleuth past stereotypes.
Published Wednesday, January 28, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. – A new private-investigation agency here is less like Sam Spade and more like the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Sandy Love and Kelly Hite are sleuthing around Central Florida, challenging the perception of PIs.
“People meet us and think it’s the coolest thing,” said Hite, 49. “People have a concept of what you should look like, but people meet us and think it’s wonderful. We’re just hardworking women.”
Love, 45, has been a private investigator for almost 22 years and in 1995 started her own business, Sandy Love Investigations, when she had trouble finding work because she was a woman and did not have previous military or law-enforcement experience.
Hite owned a medical clinic for 18 years before selling it last January because she was disillusioned with the insurance red tape. She had known Love for about seven years. Central Florida PI was born last spring, with Love in the field and Hite handling administration while working on her two-year licensing internship.
Two other women also are working on their internships at the Windermere, Fla.-based company.
Orlando private investigator Stephen Craig, a regional director with the 600-member Florida Association of Licensed Investigators, said private investigation is a male-dominated field because many private investigators are men with military or law-enforcement training in their past.
He said about a third of licensed investigators are women, who tend to put subjects at ease, not on the defensive.
“I don’t intimidate people,” Love said. “I have a funny, crazy personality. And yes, I carry a gun.”
Love said that in the beginning she didn’t worry about working alone, but now she works with a partner and will quickly back out of an uncomfortable situation.
“I’ve had my share of run-ins with bad people, but if you know how to handle your situation, you’re OK,” Love said. “I kind of go with my gut feeling.”
Once, Love said, she approached someone she wanted to talk with in Apopka, Fla., on a murder case, and he pulled a gun on her because he was dealing drugs.
Hite said one reason she got into the business is to help keep others safe.
As a single woman, she went to dinner with a man she had met online. Though he seemed like a wonderful person, she had Love run a background check and found he had recently been released from prison.
“If I had not had a friend like Sandy, I would have seen this person more times,” Hite said. “It really got me to thinking about women and men that don’t check.”
Love and Hite work cases involving everything from missing people to child custody.
Some of Love’s most challenging, time-consuming cases are homicides, in which she retraces the life of the accused. She gathers information about the subjects, including their prenatal care and childhood injuries, and interviews school and work associates.
“Every day, it’s something different,” Love said.
Copyright © 2009 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights Reserved.
The Columbia Daily Tribune
101 North 4th Street, Columbia, MO 65201
Ann Lane
The Carolina Investigator 