Call us:
888-740-4600
After Hurricane Irene and the earthquake on the East Coast of the United States, members of the public are reminded to contact the FBI at the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) if they have any information regarding theft of or fraud relating to U.S. government disaster aid funds.
http://liarcatchers.com/insurance_fraud.html
The NCDF can be reached by calling (866) 720-5721 or e-mailing disaster@leo.gov.
The FBI launched a redesigned FBI-SOS website this week featuring an Internet Challenge to help educate students on cyber safety. The full FBI Safe Online Surfing site is set to launch in early 2012.
The FBI-SOS program is a nationwide initiative designed to educate children about the dangers they face on the Internet and to help prevent crimes against children. It promotes cyber citizenship among students by engaging them in a fun, age-appropriate, competitive online program where they learn how to safely and responsibly use the Internet. The program emphasizes the importance of cyber safety topics such as password security, smart surfing habits, and the safeguarding of personal information.
http://liarcatchers.com/cyber_investigations.html
If you are a teacher or a principal and wish to be notified when the full SOS program launches, please leave your e-mail address at https://sos.fbi.gov/about-us.
BOSTON—On Monday, September 19, 2011, the Boston Division of the FBI received final authorization from the United States Department of Justice to pay the $2.1 million reward to those responsible for providing information which directly led to the arrest of former Top Ten Fugitive James “Whitey” Bulger and his companion, Catherine Greig. This information was generated as a direct result of the FBI’s public service announcement campaign, which was initiated on June 20, 2011.
The FBI offered $2 million for information leading to the arrest of Mr. Bulger, and $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Ms. Greig. As of Friday, September 23, 2011, the FBI has paid this reward money to more than one individual.
http://liarcatchers.com/index.php
To protect the anonymity and privacy of those responsible for providing information which directly led to the arrests of Mr. Bulger and Ms. Greig, the FBI will not comment further regarding this matter. Any further inquiries relating to Mr. Bulger and Ms. Greig should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, at 617.748.3100.
WASHINGTON—Two individuals have been charged in New York for their alleged participation in a plot directed by elements of the Iranian government to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with explosives while the Ambassador was in the United States.
The charges were announced by Attorney General Eric Holder; FBI Director Robert S. Mueller; Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; and Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
A criminal complaint filed today in the Southern District of New York charges Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen holding both Iranian and U.S. passports, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Qods Force, which is a special operations unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that is said to sponsor and promote terrorist activities abroad.
http://liarcatchers.com/missingpersons.html
Both defendants are charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives); and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism transcending national boundaries. Arbabsiar is further charged with an additional count of foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.
Shakuri remains at large. Arbabsiar was arrested on Sept. 29, 2011, at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and will make his initial appearance today before in federal court in Manhattan. He faces a maximum potential sentence of life in prison if convicted of all the charges.
“The criminal complaint unsealed today exposes a deadly plot directed by factions of the Iranian government to assassinate a foreign Ambassador on U.S. soil with explosives,” said Attorney General Holder. “Through the diligent and coordinated efforts of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies, we were able to disrupt this plot before anyone was harmed. We will continue to investigate this matter vigorously and bring those who have violated any laws to justice.”
“The investigation leading to today’s charges illustrates both the challenges and complexities of the international threat environment, and our increased ability today to bring together the intelligence and law enforcement resources necessary to better identify and disrupt those threats, regardless of their origin,” said FBI Director Mueller.
“The disruption of this plot is a significant milestone that stems from months of hard work by our law enforcement and intelligence professionals,” said Assistant Attorney General Monaco. “I applaud the many agents, analysts and prosecutors who helped bring about today’s case.”
“As alleged, these defendants were part of a well-funded and pernicious plot that had, as its first priority, the assassination of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, without care or concern for the mass casualties that would result from their planned attack,” said U.S. Attorney Bharara. “Today’s charges should make crystal clear that we will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground.”
The Alleged Plot
The criminal complaint alleges that, from the spring of 2011 to October 2011, Arbabsiar and his Iran-based co-conspirators, including Shakuri of the Qods Force, have been plotting the murder of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. In furtherance of this conspiracy, Arbabsiar allegedly met on a number of occasions in Mexico with a DEA confidential source (CS-1) who has posed as an associate of a violent international drug trafficking cartel. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar arranged to hire CS-1 and CS-1’s purported accomplices to murder the Ambassador, and Shakuri and other Iran-based co-conspirators were aware of and approved the plan. With Shakuri’s approval, Arbabsiar has allegedly caused approximately $100,000 to be wired into a bank account in the United States as a down payment to CS-1 for the anticipated killing of the Ambassador, which was to take place in the United States.
According to the criminal complaint, the IRCG is an arm of the Iranian military that is composed of a number of branches, one of which is the Qods Force. The Qods Force conducts sensitive covert operations abroad, including terrorist attacks, assassinations and kidnappings, and is believed to sponsor attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq. In October 2007, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Qods Force for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.
The complaint alleges that Arbabsiar met with CS-1 in Mexico on May 24, 2011, where Arbabsiar inquired as to CS-1’s knowledge with respect to explosives and explained that he was interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia. In response, CS-1 allegedly indicated that he was knowledgeable with respect to C-4 explosives. In June and July 2011, the complaint alleges, Arbabsiar returned to Mexico and held additional meetings with CS-1, where Arbabsiar explained that his associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions for CS-1 and his associates to perform, including the murder of the Ambassador.
$1.5 Million Fee for Alleged Assassination
In a July 14, 2011, meeting in Mexico, CS-1 allegedly told Arbabsiar that he would need to use four men to carry out the Ambassador’s murder and that his price for carrying out the murder was $1.5 million. Arbabsiar allegedly agreed and stated that the murder of the Ambassador should be handled first, before the execution of other attacks. Arbabsiar also allegedly indicated he and his associates had $100,000 in Iran to pay CS-1 as a first payment toward the assassination and discussed the manner in which that payment would be made.
During the same meeting, Arbabsiar allegedly described to CS-1 his cousin in Iran, who he said had requested that Arbabsiar find someone to carry out the Ambassador’s assassination. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar indicated that his cousin was a “big general” in the Iranian military; that he focuses on matters outside Iran and that he had taken certain unspecified actions related to a bombing in Iraq.
In a July 17, 2011, meeting in Mexico, CS-1 noted to Arbabsiar that one of his workers had already traveled to Washington, D.C., to surveill the Ambassador. CS-1 also raised the possibility of innocent bystander casualties. The complaint alleges that Arbabsiar made it clear that the assassination needed to go forward, despite mass casualties, telling CS-1, “They want that guy [the Ambassador] done [killed], if the hundred go with him f**k ‘em.” CS-1 and Arbabsiar allegedly discussed bombing a restaurant in the United States that the Ambassador frequented. When CS-1 noted that others could be killed in the attack, including U.S. senators who dine at the restaurant, Arbabsiar allegedly dismissed these concerns as “no big deal.”
On Aug. 1, and Aug. 9, 2011, with Shakuri’s approval, Arbabsiar allegedly caused two overseas wire transfers totaling approximately $100,000 to be sent to an FBI undercover account as a down payment for CS-1 to carry out the assassination. Later, Arbabsiar allegedly explained to CS-1 that he would provide the remainder of the $1.5 million after the assassination. On Sept. 20, 2011, CS-1 allegedly told Arbabsiar that the operation was ready and requested that Arbabsiar either pay one half of the agreed upon price ($1.5 million) for the murder or that Arbabsiar personally travel to Mexico as collateral for the final payment of the fee. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar agreed to travel to Mexico to guarantee final payment for the murder.
Arrest and Alleged Confession
On or about Sept. 28, 2011, Arbabsiar flew to Mexico. Arbabsiar was refused entry into Mexico by Mexican authorities and, according to Mexican law and international agreements; he was placed on a return flight destined for his last point of departure. On Sept. 29, 2011, Arbabsiar was arrested by federal agents during a flight layover at JFK International Airport in New York. Several hours after his arrest, Arbabsiar was advised of his Miranda rights and he agreed to waive those rights and speak with law enforcement agents. During a series of Mirandized interviews, Arbabsiar allegedly confessed to his participation in the murder plot.
According to the complaint, Arbabsiar also admitted to agents that, in connection with this plot, he was recruited, funded, and directed by men he understood to be senior officials in Iran’s Qods Force. He allegedly said these Iranian officials were aware of and approved of the use of CS-1 in connection with the plot; as well as payments to CS-1; the means by which the Ambassador would be killed in the United States and the casualties that would likely result.
Arbabsiar allegedly told agents that his cousin, who he had long understood to be a senior member of the Qods Force, had approached him in the early spring of 2011 about recruiting narco-traffickers to kidnap the Ambassador. Arbabsiar told agents that he then met with the CS-1 in Mexico and discussed assassinating the Ambassador. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar said that, afterwards, he met several times in Iran with Shakuri and another senior Qods Force official, where he explained that the plan was to blow up a restaurant in the United States frequented by the Ambassador and that numerous bystanders could be killed, according to the complaint. The plan was allegedly approved by these officials.
In October 2011, according to the complaint, Arbabsiar made phone calls at the direction of law enforcement to Shakuri in Iran that were monitored. During these phone calls, Shakuri allegedly confirmed that Arbabsiar should move forward with the plot to murder the Ambassador and that he should accomplish the task as quickly as possible, stating on Oct. 5, 2011, “[j]ust do it quickly, it’s late . . .” The complaint alleges that Shakuri also told Arbabsiar that he would consult with his superiors about whether they would be willing to pay CS-1 additional money.
This investigation is being conducted by the FBI Houston Division and DEA Houston Division, with assistance from the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Glen Kopp and Edward Kim, of the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and the U.S. State Department provided substantial assistance. We thank the government of Mexico for its close coordination and collaboration in this matter, and for its role in ensuring that the defendant was safely apprehended.
The charges contained in a criminal complaint are mere allegations and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
A red silhouette representing Mary Marshall Lands will join others as a reminder that domestic violence can be a deadly crime. The silhouette and a new hot air balloon will remain in the community to represent the woman who disappeared from her Marshall home in 2004.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
S.A.F.E. Place Shelter announced the commemorative gesture to add Lands to the county’s Silent Witness National Initiative at a small gathering Tuesday which included the media, a few law enforcement officials and Mary Lands’ mother and father.
Also at the press event, private investigator Jim Carlin announced that he is raising money to build a customized hot air balloon with Lands’ picture and the logo of the S.A.F.E. Place Shelter for domestic violence victims.
The announcements came during national Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
The red silhouette representing Lands bears a plaque asking that her disappearance be a reminder of the national issue of domestic violence. The national initiative to create stand-up display silhouettes representing murder victims of domestic violence started in 1990.
It started in Calhoun County a few years ago, and 10 people have been commemorated, said S.A.F.E. Place Executive Director Jennifer Fopma.
“We can’t allow another beautiful young woman to disappear,” Fopma said. “We can honor Mary today and every day by giving her a voice. Let’s give her the voice that she deserves and end domestic violence.”
Lands, 39, disappeared on March 12, 2004. Her boyfriend, Christopher Pratt, told police he and Lands argued and she walked away from their home in Marshall.
No one has been charged in the disappearance and a body has never been found. Nonetheless, the case has been classified by the Marshall Police Department as a homicide.
Carlin, who has been working on the Lands case, said he and the family have medical records and other evidence to prove Lands was in an abusive relationship with Pratt.
Pratt currently is in prison for assaulting Norreen Parker, a woman he dated after Lands. He has denied any involvement in Lands’ disappearance.
(Page 2 of 2)
“We need to continue to write letters to the parole board and ask that he remain in prison,” Carlin said. “But today is not specifically about Christopher Luke Pratt. It’s about victims of domestic violence.”
More than 1,500 victims sought help from the S.A.F.E. Place Shelter last year. Eighty-five percent of victims of domestic violence are women, Fopma said.
“The most common question I’m asked is, ‘Why does she stay? Why doesn’t she just leave?'” Fopma said. “Let me challenge you. One out of every four women is a domestic violence victim or survivor. If an armed gunman came in and shot one out of every four women, would we ask, ‘Why wasn’t she wearing a bulletproof vest?'”
Fatality increases by 75 percent for victims who try to leave, Fopma said. In Mary Lands’ case, her family never knew she was abused, said her father, Clifford Marshall.
“The bad thing is when she decided to leave that night, that was the end of it,” Marshall said. “There’s no doubt in my mind. He wasn’t going to let her go.”
Those who are suffering from domestic violence should call the police, or at least tell their family, Marshall said.
“If Mary would have told me the truth, she knows — and everyone that knows me knows — that that would not have went on,” Marshall said. “That would have been stopped instantly.”
Sarah Lambert can be reached at 966-0589 or slambert@battlecreekenquirer.com.
“We need to continue to write letters to the parole board and ask that he remain in prison,” Carlin said. “But today is not specifically about Christopher Luke Pratt. It’s about victims of domestic violence.”
More than 1,500 victims sought help from the S.A.F.E. Place Shelter last year. Eighty-five percent of victims of domestic violence are women, Fopma said.
“The most common question I’m asked is, ‘Why does she stay? Why doesn’t she just leave?'” Fopma said. “Let me challenge you. One out of every four women is a domestic violence victim or survivor. If an armed gunman came in and shot one out of every four women, would we ask, ‘Why wasn’t she wearing a bulletproof vest?'”
Fatality increases by 75 percent for victims who try to leave, Fopma said. In Mary Lands’ case, her family never knew she was abused, said her father, Clifford Marshall.
“The bad thing is when she decided to leave that night, that was the end of it,” Marshall said. “There’s no doubt in my mind. He wasn’t going to let her go.”
Those who are suffering from domestic violence should call the police, or at least tell their family, Marshall said.
“If Mary would have told me the truth, she knows — and everyone that knows me knows — that that would not have went on,” Marshall said. “That would have been stopped instantly.”
MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – More arrests appear imminent in the SAT cheating scandal ravaging Nassau County. Prosecutors are now looking into whether parents helped with the payouts.
It turns out elite Great Neck North High School is only the tip of the iceberg as the tentacles of the growing scandal continue to spread across the county.
Soon, more public school districts and even a private high school will join the ranks — implicated in the disturbing scheme, 1010 WINS’ Mona Rivera first reported earlier Tuesday.
As her probe widens, District Attorney Kathleen Rice told CBS 2′s Jennifer McLogan on Tuesday night that additional arrests are imminent.
“There are arrests that are going to be made of not just additional test takers, but those who paid them as well. It’s a much bigger and more systemic problem,” Rice said.
http://liarcatchers.com/civil_investigations.html
With students’ careers and schools’ reputations at risk, Rice said she would not yet name names — that is until the investigation in Nassau is completed. Prosecutors have subpoenaed “a mountain” of records from the Educational Testing Service, the organization that administers the SAT.
A private investigator hired to represent Sam Eshaghoff, the accused brain-for-hire in the impersonation scheme, is working to uncover proof that college board cheating is so widespread that criminal charges should be immediately dropped against his client and the six others so far arrested, arguing against the legality of “selective prosecution.”
“We believe it is really an epidemic, probably nationwide,” private eye Les Levine said, adding that the entire saga should have been handled administratively and not taken to the level it’s been taken to, including the use of handcuffs.
Eshaghoff’s attorney, Matina Emouna, said he is not surprised the scandal is growing.
“I’m sure across the country — in California, in Texas, in Oregon — people are doing this stuff,” Emouna said.
Eshaghoff was paid between $1,500 and $2,500 by students to take the SAT exams for them, officials said.
Officials said the students registered to take the test at a different school so they would not be known by the proctors and then Eshaghoff would show up with a fake ID with his photo and the paying student’s name on it. Rice said the students got caught because their SAT scores were so much higher than their school grades, some with as high as 2200 out of a perfect 2400.
Eshaghoff’s court appearance Tuesday was waived. He will return on Nov. 28 to face charges of criminal impersonation, fraud and falsifying business records. For now, he is back at school at Emory University.
Great Neck North graduate Perry Landsman told McLogan none of this is new. Kids have been trying to cheat on the SAT for years. Some students are getting defensive and parents are trying to use the moment to teach.
John Byrne, policy director for the Nassau DA, said he’s not sure how many students are actually involved.
“Originally we thought it was just one school district and we’ve been surprised at the prevalence that we’ve seen. We do expect there will be more arrests,”
Rice is demanding strengthening the “identification” process nationwide. Officials at ETS and the college board say adding security might increase the $49 cost of the exam.
A nationally known private investigator is now working with Lisa Irwin’s family to find the missing infant, who disappeared more than a week ago.
“Wild Bill” Stanton, a former New York policeman who has served as an ABC News and NBC News security consultant, told reporters that he’ll be conducting an independent investigation, but added that he hopes to meet with police.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
“I’m here to seek the truth,” Stanton told reporters late Tuesday. “And wherever the truth leads, that’s where I’m going to go.”
Kansas City police will welcome any tips or information that Stanton can provide, but he won’t have access to the case file or any sensitive information in the case, a department spokeswoman said.
Stanton said his focus is on finding the little girl.
“We know she’s out there, and we know what the obvious focus is,” he said. “We want to expand that focus.”
Stanton’s statement followed an unsuccessful search by police earlier Tuesday at a vacant Northland home near the Irwin residence. Investigators focused on a 40-foot-deep well.
Police spokeswoman Sgt. Stacey Graves said the well was drained and nothing was recovered. She said investigators would continue to follow up on tips.
A tipster had suggested checking the decaying home in the 3800 block of North Brighton Avenue, about four blocks from the Irwin home on North Lister Avenue.
In other developments Tuesday, Lisa’s aunt announced on a national news show that the family expected police to charge Lisa’s mother in the case. The aunt later toned down that statement.
Hundreds of law enforcement officials have worked on the case since Lisa’s father reported her missing Oct. 4.
On Tuesday, investigators arrived at the North Brighton home about 10:30 a.m. They searched inside before turning their attention to a well in the backyard.
After lowering firefighters into the well twice and finding nothing, they drained about 10 feet of water from the well.
They lowered a firefighter a third time to make sure no evidence sat at the bottom.
Again, they found nothing.
Neighbors said the home, a well-known eyesore, had been unoccupied for years.
Crews began tearing down the house later Tuesday.
In other developments Tuesday, an aunt of Lisa’s told The Star that comments she gave on “Good Morning America” were taken out of context and that she had no knowledge of any police plan to arrest the girl’s mother, Deborah Bradley.
“It is my fault because I did not choose my words carefully enough to articulate the point I was trying to convey,” said Ashley Irwin.
Irwin said police tend to focus their investigation on the parents of a missing child if other leads fail to materialize.
“When they don’t have suspects, when they don’t have any leads, then it always circles back around to square one, which is the parents,” she told The Star.
Earlier on television she said: “It is what the police do. They don’t have any leads, so they have to pin it on somebody.”
In response, police spokesman Capt. Steve Young said any claim that police were trying to pin the disappearance on the child’s mother “was absolutely not true.”
“We don’t feel any pressure to accuse anybody,” Young said. “We are under pressure to do what we can to find a child.”
Lisa was reported missing about 4 a.m. Oct. 4 after her father, Jeremy Irwin, returned home from work and discovered she was gone from her crib.
On Monday, a Clay County grand jury issued subpoenas to all the local network TV affiliates, requesting any raw footage of interviews with Lisa’s family, friends or neighbors.
Several TV stations said Tuesday that they would provide investigators with copies of their news stories but not raw video of their interviews.
“We comply with all subpoenas, but we do not release raw material,” said Bryan McGruder, WDAF news director
Sherrie Brown, KMBC’s news director, said the station’s legal counsel was reviewing the subpoena and declined further comment.
Bernard J. Rhodes, an attorney with the Lathrop & Gage law firm who represents KSHB and KCTV on the matter, said he referred authorities to a video clipping service that the stations use and a list of stories they have broadcast.
“We are working cooperatively with them to get them what they really need,” he said.
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/11/3201981/private-investigator-joins-lisa.html#ixzz1aZVK8ilH
ST. PETERSBURG —
Just the other day, retired St. Petersburg homicide detective Cindy Leedy was driving across Tampa Bay when she thought of the Rogers family – the mother and two teenage daughters whose bodies surfaced 22 years ago, in the waters south of the bridge Leedy was crossing.
To Leedy, it wasn’t the bloodiest case she’s worked on in her 15 years as a homicide detective – she’s worked a couple of decapitation cases, for instance. But, she said today, it was one of the saddest.
http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html
Joan Rogers, 36, and her two daughters – Michelle, 17, and Christe, 14 – were visiting from Ohio. They checked into the Days Inn on the Courtney Campbell Parkway on June 1, 1989 – the same road Leedy was recently driving on — and their decomposed bodies turned up three days later on the St. Petersburg side of the bay.
Their mouths were covered with duct tape. Their hands were bound with rope. Concrete blocks were tied to their necks. They were naked from the waist down, but investigators couldn’t determine whether they had been raped.
Joan Rogers appears to have stopped and asked Oba Chandler, a Tampa aluminum contractor, for directions. The directions he wrote down helped convict him. Prosecutors believe he sweet-talked them into a sunset cruise on his boat.
Leedy said she often thinks of “the fear and terror the victims felt before they died, knowing they were going to be next.
“I’m sure they were alive when they were thrown overboard,” said Leedy, who retired in 2004 and now works as a bailiff at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center.
Her voice trails off. “I just can’t imagine,” she said.
Now, after years of unsuccessfully appealing his death sentence, Chandler, now 65, is expected to die for his crime on Nov. 15. Gov. Rick Scott signed the death warrant Monday.
To Leedy, it is a bittersweet development. There is relief, yes, that Chandler will finally be executed. But there is also a kind of disappointment.
“I really am sorry he’s not gonna suffer,” she said. “He hasn’t suffered in the whole 22 years nearly as much as they’ve suffered.”
What also rankles is that Chandler hasn’t admitted to the triple slaying, said Leedy, who was picked to interrogate him following his arrest in the belief he would open up to a woman. Chandler didn’t, immediately demanding a lawyer.
Retired Sgt. Glen Moore – Leedy’s former boss who shepherded the Chandler investigation, a probe that once involved 50 investigators – now lives in South Carolina, where he does some ministry work and some private investigation.
Like Leedy, he hasn’t forgotten.
“Anytime you work something this hard, as hard as I did, and as hard as the department did, you don’t get it out of your mind as soon as you leave or retire,” Moore said. “It was such a horrific crime.”
“It’s a long time coming,” Moore said of the imminent execution. “He’s gonna get what he deserves.”
“There are a lot of horrible ones,” he said. “We saw a lot of horrible things. This is by far the worst.”
“This particular guy Oba Chandler had the potential to go on and do many more things in the future,” Moore said. “That was the motivating factor in us finding him. For all the investigators who knew this case inside or out, we didn’t believe this would be the last time he would do something like this.”
Much like Leedy, Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett thinks Chandler dumped the bodies at three different locations, raising the possibility that either mother watched daughter, or daughter watched mother, get dumped overboard.
The death penalty was designed for the likes of Oba Chandler, Bartlett said.
Neither Moore nor Leedy has been in touch with Hal Rogers, Joan’s then-husband and father of Michelle and Christe.
“I have not kept in touch with Hal Rogers,” Leedy said. “If he can have a day without thinking of the tragedy, I wouldn’t want to call him and bring it all back. I doubt if ever a day went by without its being on his mind.”
“The whole family was just about wiped out.”
The body of a West Hollywood man missing for two weeks was found at the bottom of a steep ravine recently, as a result of another man’s crash landing at the same site and surviving the ordeal.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
Melvin Gelfand, an 88-year old Wehoan, often drove off on a day trip to do some gambling, but failed to arrive home him early September.
Family efforts to locate him, including hiring a private investigator, turned up nothing.
That is, until the victim of a car crash who flew off the same road down the same ravine in the remote mountain area 50 miles north of Los Angeles, 67-year-old David Lavau, crash landed just feet from Mr. Gelfand’s car.
Fortunately for Mr. Lavau, he was able to survive on bugs, leaves and creek water – along with borrowing Mr. Gelfand’s eyeglasses – for nearly a week until his cell phone’s signal could be tracked and a rescue team could locate him.
Apparently Mr. Gelfand turned his cell phone off.
Mr. Lavau underwent surgery for his injuries and is expected to make a full recovery.
Mr. Gelfand’s family told the LA Times that he was accustomed to driving “10 miles away to Hawthorne where he would catch a shuttle to a San Diego-area casino.”
This time, however, he must have gotten turned around and headed northward ending up 70 miles away from his destination after having to navigate sometimes twisting mountain roadways.
Both families are advocating placement of a guard rail at that curve, with Mr. Gelfand’s relative saying, “two cars go off the same spot within a week of each other, is Caltrans paying attention here?”
But son-in-law Will Matlack had more profound advice for children of elders.
He told the Times, “If there’s another thing I’d like to see come of this, it’s getting older people to turn on their cell phones when they leave home,” he said. “They don’t do it because they think no one’s going to call, but it’s not about people calling, it’s about being able to find them.”
A private investigator commissioned a conman to use the “dark arts” to extract illegal data – including bank transactions, mobile-phone records and information from Interpol – on behalf of a roll call of wealthy clients, a court heard yesterday.
http://liarcatchers.com/civil_investigations.html
Graham Freeman, 51, jointly ran a Northamptonshire-based investigation agency that employed Daniel Summers, a so-called “blagger” who was adept at tricking banks, phone companies and public bodies into releasing private information for onward sale at up to £1,000 a time. A jury at Kingston Crown Court in south-west London heard that Summers and Philip Campbell-Smith, Mr Freeman’s business partner, have already pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit fraud by obtaining illegal information to be sold to customers.
Mr Freeman has denied the same charge, saying he knew nothing of the methods employed by Summers.
The three men were arrested in 2009 after an investigation into Summers by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) that involved an undercover officer buying the conman’s second-hand computers after they were advertised for sale in a local newspaper.
Forensic experts then recovered from the machines a large number of emails between the men which Summers had attempted to delete. Tim Probert-Wood, the prosecutor, said: “There is no doubt that there was a conspiracy between Daniel Summers and Philip Campbell-Smith to blag and unlawfully obtain private and personal information by deceit. The one issue is, was Graham Freeman part of that conspiracy or was he in the dark?”
The court heard that Mr Freeman was copied into emails between Campbell-Smith and Summers detailing the type of information he had been commissioned to obtain. In one case, a Mayfair-based businessman asked an investigation agency to find out the origin of a £40,000 payment made to the bank account of a family member. The case continues.