Liar Catchers Blog

DA agrees doctor incompetent

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

San Mateo County prosecutors have abandoned efforts to prove a former prominent child psychiatrist is mentally fit to stand trial a second time on accusations he molested several male patients, sending him to a state mental hospital and essentially ending a prolonged legal battle over the fate of the 79-year-old man.
Prosecutor Melissa McKowan stipulated that William Hamilton Ayres, who reportedly suffers from Alzeimer’s-related dementia, is incompetent. The announcement came on what would have been the start of Ayres’ second jury trial on the competency issue. Although the defense has the burden of proof in this mental issue, defense attorney Jonathan McDougall appeared ready to try the matter as many times as necessary rather than letting Ayres be found competent by default.
Instead, the prosecution relented.
“The bottom line is we spent a good deal of time seeing if we could improve our case but that level of evidence we have just doesn’t accomplish that,” said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. “Another trial will cost county taxpayers thousands of dollars and we can’t just willy-nilly throw that away.”
McDougall did not return a call for comment.
A placement report is due by the end of the month and Judge Jack Grandsaert will rule Sept. 7 where Ayres should be committed. The law requires a locked facility for a minimum of six months and Napa State Hospital seems the most likely although he could be transferred in the future to a different locked facility.
During Ayres’s first competency trial, which hung 8-4 earlier this year, both the defense and prosecution agreed he likely has some age and Alzheimer’s related dementia. The question for jurors was if it was enough to find him unable to help McDougall prepare for a criminal defense.
Ayres had already stood trial once in 2009 on nine varied counts of child molestation and substantial sexual contact. That jury hung in varying amounts on every count, including some with as narrow a margin as 11 to 1, and prosecutors planned a retrial. The criminal trial could not be held while questions of Ayres’ competency remained.
After the mistrial, Ayres replaced his hired attorney, Doron Weinberg, with McDougall. McKowan argued to jurors that having been tried and testified once, Ayres did not need to be as fully aware of court proceedings the second time around and in any case was not hopelessly impaired by Alzheimer’s disease.
Two of three court-appointed doctors found Ayres competent but McDougall requested a jury’s verdict.
McDougall asked jurors how his client, who cannot remember his children’s middle names or the word for simple items like biscuit, could possible help defend himself against felony child molestation allegations by six former male patients when they were aged 9 to 13. The alleged abuse happened between 1988 and 1996 under the guise of medical exams.
The Ayres case drew wide publicity after his 2007 arrest because he commonly received referrals from the county’s courts, schools and social workers. He also served as president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry between 1993 to 1995 and developed a controversial sex education program for teenagers called “Time of Your Life.”
Wagstaffe said he is not disappointed the case resolved because it was warranted under the circumstances but that he wished the alleged victims could get the type of closure they sought.
“I’m disappointed and sad this man has been able to elude justice. It took four years to get to this point and for that and for the victims I am sad,” Wagstaffe said.
The stipulation did not sit well with the alleged victims, their families and supporters who believe the prosecution dragged its feet on filing charges against Ayres.
“The families believe that this case should never have been tried by San Mateo County in the first place. Ayres was under contract by the juvenile courts for decades and the San Mateo District Attorney’s Office itself hired Ayres to evaluate boys. This is a clear conflict of interest,” said Victoria Balfour a freelance writer who became connected to the case through her friendship with one alleged victim and actively pushed authorities to purse charges.
As worries grew that the District Attorney’s Office would stipulate to Ayres’ incompetence, the group hired a private investigator to follow and videotape him in hopes of securing proof he was mentally fit. An attorney delivered the footage and a report of the investigators findings to prosecutors.
The silent footage, also provided to the Daily Journal, shows Ayres having lunch at a San Francisco restaurant with his wife and two people. The investigator noted Ayres spoke about politics, doing puzzles and a former patient.
Balfour said it is “incomprehensible” to victims and their families that Ayres would not be deemed competent based on his behavior in the video. Wagstaffe said he understands how these individuals feel about his office’s work in this case but said it is not what dragged out a resolution.
“It took two years from filing to get to trial and, but for one juror who hung 11 to 1, Ayres would have been in prison two years and those victims’ families wouldn’t have any complaint at all,” he said.

http://liarcatchers.com/electronic_surveillance.html

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2 years later, Chesco woman is still missing

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

Two years ago today, a Chester County nurse and mother who left a party at a former 76er’s home in Penn Valley vanished, leaving an unsettling dearth of clues.

Since then, the search for Toni Lee Sharpless, 31, of West Brandywine Township, has involved investigators in multiple venues, prompted a Schuylkill search, and generated national TV coverage.

Sharpless was last seen about 5 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2009, in her black 2002 four-door Pontiac Grand Prix with Pennsylvania tag DND-7772 in front of basketball player Willie Green’s home, where she had attended a small get-together.

“I just want to keep the public aware that she still has not been found and to please keep an eye out for her,” her mother, Donna Knebel, pleaded Monday.

Eileen Auch Law, a private investigator who has been assisting Sharpless’s distraught family, said the investigation has been frustrating but she remains optimistic that Sharpless will be found.

“There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary,” she said.

Crystal Johns, a longtime friend of Sharpless and the last person to see her, told investigators that the pair had been invited to Green’s Main Line home after meeting him at a Philadelphia nightclub. She said Sharpless apparently had too much to drink, and they were asked to leave.

Once outside, Johns suggested that Sharpless should not drive, the two argued, and Sharpless drove off, stranding Johns, who had to call a relative for a ride home. Johns called Sharpless’ behavior unusual.

Even more uncharacteristic was the fact that Sharpless had gone out for a night on the town, her mother said. She said her daughter had been working tirelessly as a nurse to provide for her daughter, who was 12 when Sharpless disappeared.

Knebel said she and her husband, Peter Knebel, were eager to give Sharpless some relaxation time and had offered to watch their granddaughter.

Among many adversities her daughter had overcome, Knebel said she had finally found a successful treatment for her bipolar disorder – medication that should not have been combined with alcohol. Even worse, Sharpless had worked a midnight shift the night before at Lancaster General Hospital, exacerbating the mix with a lack of sleep.

Police said Sharpless’ cellphone has not been used since she sent a text message to her daughter a few hours before leaving the party, urging her to get a good night’s sleep. Her credit cards have also not been used, and her car was only spotted once, by a machine that records license-plate numbers on Sept. 8, 2009, in Camden.

That same month, Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit search-and-recovery firm, used sonar to see whether Sharpless had accidentally driven into the Schuylkill near Flat Rock Park in Gladwyne. Eleven submerged vehicles were found; none belonged to Sharpless.

Law, who has set up a Sharpless Facebook page and a website – www.MissingToniSharpless.com – to generate leads, has theorized that Sharpless’s impaired condition could have made her vulnerable to a drug or prostitution ring.

She said the recent rerun on the Investigation Discovery network of an episode of “Disappeared” that featured Sharpless, resulted in several possible sightings in the New Castle, De., area.

“Someone knows something more than what has been presented: I pray they will come forward,” said Law.

Anyone with information should call West Brandywine Township police at 610-380-8201 or Law at 610-388-1776. Knebel also suggested that if someone thinks they see her daughter, they should “take a picture with a cellphone.”

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

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The Odd Death of Arturo Gatti

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

At the end of this month, at a press conference in New Jersey, Arturo Gatti’s friends will announce that they now have proof — courtesy of a private investigator named Paul Ciolino — that the world champion boxer did not take his own life.

But despite the best efforts of his still-loyal corner, the story of Gatti’s death will probably always be incomplete. He was a great boxer because his fights were definitive; there was never much mystery about him in the ring. But his end wasn’t nearly as plain. There are so many possibilities, but each of them leads only to impossibility. Answer after answer, and yet none feels true.

For the people who knew and loved Gatti — most especially his longtime manager, Pat Lynch, who funded Ciolino’s investigation — his alleged suicide remains the greatest impossibility. In brutal fights against Micky Ward, against Ivan Robinson, against Wilson Rodriguez, Arturo Gatti never quit. He won fights despite broken hands and swollen eyes. His face opened with the frequency of doors, but he always pushed through, blind to the blood.

How could a man with that kind of heart ever choose to stop it?

In July 2009, Gatti was found dead in a hotel suite in Porto de Galinhas, Brazil. His wife, Amanda Rodrigues, and their 10-month-old son, Arturo Jr., were in the same suite, unharmed. From the beginning, Brazilian police were baffled: “It is still too early to say anything concrete,” an investigator named Edilson Alves told the Associated Press in the opening hours of his work, “although it is all very strange.”

At first, they arrested Rodrigues for the murder of her husband. They believed that she stabbed Gatti in the head and then strangled him to death with the strap from her purse.

Their brief marriage had been violent from the beginning. They were in Brazil for a second honeymoon, a futile attempt to repair the damage done. (Gatti’s family had begged him to leave her, but he’d already had a daughter with another woman whom he didn’t see very much, and he said that he couldn’t risk losing his namesake son, too.) That night, he and his wife fought yet again, the police believed, only this time around there had been a different finish.

Later, the police — after an investigation that Ciolino has already called “inadequate and downright incompetent” — decided instead that a distraught Gatti, realizing that his marriage was over, that he was facing a life alone, had hanged himself from a banister with Rodrigues’ purse. In the end, the police could never get past the murder physics: that this tiny woman could have overpowered and killed the former champion of the world.

Rodrigues was released. A loyal, outraged Lynch soon began his crusade. Now the case will be opened again, if only at a press conference, scheduled for August 30, in a boxing gym in North Bergen. After, there will be more headlines, more debate, more dissection. Conclusions will be drawn.

But there will still be disbelief about every last one of them. Maybe that’s because all of the possible paths start with the same faulty premise: Nothing could have put this man down.

He was flawed in many ways, reckless and impulsive. He was suspicious. (When he was working with trainer Buddy McGirt, Gatti would purse his lips if a stranger walked into the gym, a nearly invisible directive to McGirt that he should investigate.) He had appetites; he ate too much and drank too much. He had a temper, and for all his strength, he could be easily wounded.

After a press conference before his 2001 fight against Oscar De La Hoya, Gatti sat down with a small group of familiar reporters. One of them, Michael Katz, made a bad joke about whether Gatti should start the fight wearing bandages, to ward off the coming cuts. That was it. Gatti was gone.

But he was beautiful in other ways. He was courageous and determined. He could be almost too generous. He was engaging and funny. Sitting down with Gatti for dinner, over big bowls of pasta and baskets of bread, was like eating with your favorite cousin, the adventurer, the one with all those crazy stories from the wars.

Arturo Gatti also loved, to a fault.

After that fight against De La Hoya — during which, in the opening minutes, he did suffer a bad cut under his eye and would eventually be stopped by his corner — Gatti walked through the arena tunnels to his dressing room. A doctor trailed him, wanting to look at his cut, but first Gatti needed some time alone.

He disappeared into a bathroom stall. Down the hall, a mariachi band played outside De La Hoya’s dressing room; the noise of a raucous celebration filtered in. Over them came the sound of Gatti’s crying. He wept in that toilet — wept because his face had let him down again, wept because he had such high hopes that night, had come back from such a long way. He was a prideful man, Arturo Gatti, and he was optimistic and hopeful, and it was as though he couldn’t quite believe that he was bleeding yet again.

He got it all out. He emerged from the stall, submitted to the doctor’s examination — she ordered him to go to the hospital — and then there, smiling at him, was Vivian.

They were engaged to be married, the boxer and the blonde. Gatti held a towel to his face with one hand; he held Vivian’s hand with the other. They walked back out into the tunnels, under the humming fluorescent lights, squeezing past that godforsaken mariachi band and their bedlam. Finally they were through the noise, on their way to the blue-and-white ambulance, the same colors as his trunks. In that last moment of quiet, Gatti looked at Vivian through his one open eye.

“You look good,” he said, like a boy. “At least one of us does.”

Different things were meant to be. They broke up not long before Gatti’s 2004 fight with Gianluca Branco. At a prefight press conference, there was a moment of vulnerability even more revealing than his De La Hoya walkout. He began to thank Vivian — for saving his life in some ways, for lifting him out of his most self-destructive stretches. This time he didn’t get it all out. He began to cry. He struggled to continue before he finally gave up and sat down. Finally he said what everybody who knew him already understood:

“My heart’s too big. That’s my downfall in life.”

Now comes this press conference in New Jersey, the last in a long succession of wins and losses.

Gatti fought Ward three times, winning twice. He lost Vivian. He won the vacant WBC light welterweight title against Branco. He was humiliated by Floyd Mayweather Jr., after which he cried again. He met a woman and had a daughter. He met another woman and had a son.

They flew together to Brazil, and they checked into a hotel suite in a town called Porto de Galinhas. They were hoping to make it work. One way or another, Gatti died there, suffocated by a purse strap. He was 37 years old.

In that hot gym in North Bergen, Gatti will be remembered for many things, but mostly he’ll be remembered for his heart. The case will be made that someone else conspired to shut it down — that will be the only explanation offered, the only answer considered. Nothing else makes sense. He wouldn’t have left on his own. His heart could never have been that broken.

But there, at least, no other possibility exists. His friends won’t like to think so, because it’s a hard truth to stomach, but however Arturo Gatti died, he died broken-hearted. He died without any other way out.

http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html

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Murder fears for missing Geelong man

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

Private investigators fear a missing Geelong man who may have been living with the homeless could have been murdered.

Daniel James O’Keeffe, 24, left his parent’s home in Highton about 9am on July 15, and his family has not heard from him since.

A police spokesman said investigations were continuing and the possibility Mr O’Keeffe had left to experience life on the streets had not been discounted.

Advertisement: Story continues below But private investigator Arthur Athas, who is working on the family’s behalf to solve the case, says Mr O’Keeffe was not living as a vagrant and it was possible he had met with foul play.

“We’re talking about someone who would be put off by an apple with a bruise on it. He’d throw it in the bin. It’s unlikely Daniel could have assimilated with the homeless,” Mr Athas said.

“We still don’t know what line of inquiry to take, we don’t know if it’s foul play and we don’t know if he’s out there of his own accord.”

Mr O’Keeffe’s parents, Des and Lorraine, sister Loren and girlfriend Susie Mansfield have launched an event on Facebook called All eyes on Daniel, which they hope will lead to his photo being seen across Australia this weekend.

More than 2500 people have agreed to share the photo.

“The time since Daniel disappeared has been very difficult for his family, not knowing where he is or if he is all right,” the family said in a statement issued today.

“One thing that’s helped to keep us going is the support we’ve received from the community, and we’re hoping that support continues this weekend.

“We want every single person in Australia to see Daniel’s picture, and we hope the All eyes on Daniel event will get us closer to that.

“We’re hopeful that every day might be the day when Daniel comes home, and we hope that this weekend, with so many people helping to get his picture out there all at once, the right person might just see it.”

Mr O’Keeffe’s family is encouraging people to print a copy of his image and display it in as many different places as possible, including at work, on their car window, at tram and bus stops or at sporting events.

“They could even leave a poster behind on their train seat in the morning – every little bit helps us to find Daniel,” the family said.

Mr Athas said unconfirmed sightings of Mr O’Keeffe had been made from Fairfield to the Dandenongs, but it was frustrating some people waited up to a week before reporting them.

He urged people who thought they had seen Mr O’Keeffe to approach him and if possible ask his name, note as many details as possible and perhaps even take a picture, and then report the sighting.

“We’re simply trying to close the gap between unconfirmed sightings that come in days after he was supposed to have been seen and confirmed sightings,” Mr Athas said.

“We could be missing out on confirmed sightings because people are taking so long to report them.”

Mr O’Keeffe is about 180 centimetres and may have thick stubble. He was last seen wearing a grey-hooded jumper and ugg boots.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

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District Acted After Probe by Private Investigator

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

A private investigator’s recent findings into financial improprieties with defunct Lapes Athletic Team Sales led Capistrano Unified School administrators to remove San Clemente High football coaches last week, district officials told parents tonight.

In a carefully choreographed meeting about the decision to put the coaches on administrative leave, Principal George Duarte backed by Superintendent Joe Farley addressed the nearly 100 parents in the Triton Center and fielded their questions. The administrators spent about 45 minutes assuring parents they were doing their best to keep the student-athletes’ best interests at heart while discussing the bare-bone basics of a months-long investigation into alleged kickbacks.

“The reason we’re here is because we take this entire situation seriously,” Duarte said. “It’s been tough.”

Last week, Triton head football Coach Eric Patton and four additional coaches were abruptly pulled from their coaching jobs, leaving players and their parents frustrated and concerned about a season only days away from starting.

None of the coaches have been charged criminally, but Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said last week his agency is investigating Lapes Athletic and coaches.

Tonight, parents voiced concern about their boys, the reputations of the coaches and the future of the program.

“I just think the process needs to be looked at,” said parent Tom Donnelly.

Keri Murphy called on the district to complete the process as quickly as possible to reduce the distractions on the athletes.

She also expressed support of Patton who set an “unbelievable example” for his players and who without fanfare helped underprivileged athletes.

“I would just give my heighty-ho to Eric Patton,” said Murphy whose son Kevin Murphy plays for Harvard University and senior Kyle Murphy is among the top-ranked high school offensive tackles in the country.

Both Duarte and Farley indicated that coaches at other high schools, in other districts and even some retired may be affected by the probe.

Already, several of the coaches placed on leave last week had been reinstated, but Farley could not specify tonight. Athletic Director and interim head football Coach Jon Hamro did publicly acknowledge that Jaime Ortiz had been returned to the sidelines.

The superintendent said tonight that the investigator hired by the district spent about eight months looking into the allegations. Farley said he had spent nearly every day over that period dealing with some aspect of the investigation.

“We didn’t want to rush it,” he said. “We let it take its course.”

Farley and the district’s lawyer Daniel Shinoff said the affected coaches had been invited to discuss their leave, and some had already met with the superintendent. Others’ attorneys had scheduling conflicts.

All had been formally notified, Shinoff said. As of today, none of the coaches placed on leave had been disciplined by the district, he said.

Hamro told parents that the events of last week had joined the players and coaches in a “common thread.”

“To be honest, it’s not really players and coaches any more,” he said. “It’s us.”

Since Hamro had been named as the leader of the team, he had already brought on two additional coaches in an assistant head coach in Pat Harlow, who played for the New England Patriots, and special teams and tight ends coach John Allred, who played for the Chicago Bears. After the meeting, the athletic director stressed that the two were not replacements but additions.

“We’re working as hard as we can to get the team ready for September 2,” he said of their first match up of the season against Long Beach’s Cabrillo High at Thalassa Stadium.

The superintendent told parents that the decision to put the coaches on leave had been difficult for administrators who had tried to be fair with their employees. He also told parents he appreciated them being there, he said.

“This is an extremely difficult situation for any of us to deal with,” Farley said.

The coaches and the kids would not be successful without the community support they enjoyed, the principal noted. Duarte told parents that San Clemente High was a great place to be.

“It’s a dream job for me,” he said, adding, “not tonight, but it is a dream job.”

http://liarcatchers.com/corporate_investigations.html

Posted in Private Investigation | Tagged Hire a private investigator | 1 Comment

Liar catcher the Book

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

Next time your touch your mouth, speed up your speech or tug your ear as you speak to someone, consider the real message you are communicating.

These are the classic signs that you’re lying, and maliciously or not, there’s little chance of you supressing them.

Dr David Craig has just published a book “Lie Catcher”, where he claims he can make you a human lie detector in under 60 minutes.

The book uses photos and real life situations to teach you how to spot a liar; invaluable when dealing with used car salesman, real estate agents and your teenage children.

Dr Craig has more than 20 years of criminological experience and achieved a doctorate in law by completing international research of undercover programs.

He took 891 ABC Adelaide’s mornings presenter Ian Henschke through his tricks of the trade.

http://liarcatchers.com/

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Corruption case: Sobbing ex-cop pleads not guilty

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

OAKLAND — A former drug task force commander in Contra Costa County sobbed and wiped away tears today as he pleaded not guilty to drug and corruption charges, offenses that could carry a life sentence if convicted.

Norman Wielsch, 50, was scheduled to be released later in the day after agreeing in Oakland federal court to undergo a psychiatric evaluation within three days to determine whether he is suicidal. His father posted his $100,000 bail.

Wielsch is a former narcotics agent with the state Department of Justice who, until earlier this year, was commander of the multiagency Centra Contra Costa Narcotics Enforcement Team. He was arrested by federal agents at his Antioch home last week after a grand jury indicted him and former Concord private investigator Christopher Butler.

The men are charged with stealing methamphetamine and marijuana from police evidence lockers to sell, robbing prostitutes of cash and cell phones during phony sting operations, and operating a brothel in Pleasant Hill that fronted as a massage parlor.

The 17-count indictment also alleges the men conducted a phony drug bust on a Danville teenager, falsely detained him and stole his drugs.

Butler, 50, pleaded not guilty Friday and was released after his father secured a $1 million bond.

In Oakland today, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hemann told Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler that his office considered Wielsch’s suicide risk “sufficiently grave” and requested a psychological assessment as part of the conditions of his release.

If Wielsch’s psychologist finds him to be a threat to himself, he could be returned to supervised custody.

During his arraignment, Wielsch repeatedly broke into sobs as the judge read the charges to his elderly father, Ernest Wielsch, who agreed to secure the bail amount.

After the judge asked the elder Wielsch if he understood he was financially liable if his son violates bail conditions, the father asked, “Could you be lenient on my son? He’s been good.”

Outside the courtroom, Norman Wielsch’s attorney, Michael Cardoza, said his client has been meeting regularly with a psychologist.

“They’re worried that a cop, in his position and facing the embarrassment he’s brought upon himself and his family would, as they say in the business, eat his gun,” Cardoza said. “While he is embarrassed, it is not a real concern.”

Wielsch and Butler are scheduled to appear in federal court Sept. 6.

http://liarcatchers.com/employee_investigations.html

Posted in Private Investigation | Tagged Private investigator and cop plead | 12 Comments

Parental Abductions. One Family’s Story

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

Daughter Abducted: Now What

When my ex-husband disappeared with our daughter, I do not think he thought I would fight to get Carol back. However, if the malicious accusations against my character were meant to dissuade me, they had the opposite effect. It was horrifying knowing the extent of his lies about me to a court. Worse was imagining what he told our daughter now that she was spirited away.

Where I worked, they knew I was divorced. However, I was very quiet about my private life. They were unaware that I had a child. That had to change. I would need character witnesses and time off work.

My LA attorney looked over the litigation, and then consulted with a Houston colleague. It was explained that just because my ex was in violation of a California order, that would not mean much in Texas.

Their prognosis was that in family law, as he had our daughter somewhere in that state, that jurisdiction favored the Lone star resident. While my ex was in violation of the California custody decree, there was at best a 50/50 percentage chance that Texas was going to let me bring my daughter back to the Golden State.

While getting ready for court, we pulled in every favor, depleted my savings and began to coordinate an alternate plan. If there was any way to get Carol back to California before the Texas court date, I was willing to face legal jeopardy to get my daughter back from the man she grew up to call her “birth father.”

A retired FBI agent took an interest. Someone had installed a “bug” in my apartment, which was immediately disconnected.

Two Plans, Wigs and Disguises

A week before the Houston Court date, there were two plans in place. One had us going to court. My witnesses had plane tickets and hotel reservations. The other had us finding my daughter beforehand and hightailing it back to the protection of the legal system here.

I lived in California as a natural brunette who favored tailored clothing. I got on the plane as a prissy blonde-haired woman carrying suitcases bulging with a rainbow of wigs and outfits to alter my appearance as the situation required.

I was met at the Houston airport by my attorney and private investigator. They did not have a positive ID on where Carol was being educated, however they had some posh private schools we could peek into windows and scope out children on recess breaks.

We circled the schools more than once, each time in a different car. In a corner of a play yard, I spotted one of my daughter’s outfits that my ex described as tacky. Carol was unmistakable wearing the red dress with the Peter Pan collar.

My attorney and I headed to the office, pretending to be a married couple with a child we were considering enrolling. While my attorney listened to the principal expound upon the school’s excellent reputation, an assistant took me on a tour of the facilities. On the playground, I inched closer to my daughter. We had not seen each other in over three months and she had never seen me as a blonde.

Next to my child, I grabbed her to face me. “It’s your mother and I am taking you home.” Her eyes were wide as I lifted her up and ran back through the office.

The attorney pulled out a copy of the custody order from California and explained to the principal that we were taking Carol. Then the real fun began.

My mother and her side of the family were in Colorado with plans to meet us in Denver, thinking there would be safety in numbers. However, my attorney was concerned that there would be a warrant issued for my arrest. He advised the safest route would be straight through to where the original custody order was filed: back in Los Angeles. We would book the earliest flight possible that was not in full daylight.

Every 4 hours we moved to a different hotel room. I learned what my ex told our daughter — that I did not want her anymore. A pair of airplane tickets was purchased in an acquaintance’s name. She had a son about the same age as Carol.

For the flight home, I was a redhead. Carol’s was dressed in boy’s clothing and her hair was cut very short. On my attorney’s advice, Carol took the window seat. I sat next to her, a metal nail file clutched tightly in my hand.

The family phone tree had been busy. The LAX lobby was full of relatives. Carol shot off like a rocket to my parents. I ran to the man dressed in black. I was afraid the family would assume he was there in some capacity to undo what I had just done, when in reality he was my most trusted colleague at work.

Back Home

For the next 6 months, while the State and Federal issues were resolved by the courts, Carol was hidden with a trusted Aunt and Uncle. The State of California pulled the professional license of my ex to work here. He was ordered to pay child support. He never did. Still, I never said a bad word about him to my child. It served no purpose.

For Carol, there was no normal ever again. Her father never sent her a card, called or acknowledged her in any way until her 21st birthday. Then she went to see him once. She came home saying, “I never want to see anyone in that family ever again.”

In the end, cancer took the daughter my ex tried to steal. She lived her whole life with the trauma of being used as a pawn by someone who should have loved her. She could not sleep with a window cracked open. She never fully trusted men. With one exception, the man dressed in black at LAX. When asked who her father was, that man, who became my second husband, she answered that he was the only father that counted.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

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Larry Black, Joel Fox and David Hendershott File New, $22 Million Claim Based on Munnell Memo Investigation

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

Larry Black, Joel Fox and David Hendershott filed a $22 million claim last week against Maricopa County employees, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and a private investigator over the so-called Munnell Memo probe.

The three current and former Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office employees were the main targets of the widely publicized probe that was based on allegations made last year by MCSO Deputy Chief Frank Munnell in his 63-page memo. Sheriff Joe Arpaio ordered the internal investigation after the memo went public, but turned the job over to his political ally, Pinal County Sheriff Babeu, who, in turn, farmed it to to Phoenix private investigator Keith Sobraske.

Arpaio fired Hendershott and Black — his chief deputy and No. 3 man, respectively — after the investigation, which uncovered evidence that they’d committed policy violations and/or potential crimes. Captain Fox remains employed by MCSO, but on administrative leave, as he appeals a termination order.

Now all three claim to be “victims” in a scheme to destroy their careers and reputations by a cabal of self-interested players including Munnell, various other MCSO employees, the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, County Manager David Smith, County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Babeu and Sobraske.

Joel Fox

Hendershott and Fox have already filed lawsuits against various entities.

Hendershott and Lisa Aubuchon are suing Maricopa County and the state for $35 million, while Fox seeks $5 million from the county and an unspecified amount in federal complaints against former state Attorney General Terry Goddard and Cox Communications.

In the new notice of claim (see below), filed in Superior Court last Tuesday, Hendershott and Black seek $7 million each, while Fox wants $8 million.

The claim naturally dismisses or glosses over the serious evidence against the trio. Munnell’s held out to be a disgruntled employee who, after working undercover as an “agent” for the FBI and state AG’s office, typed up his memo because he “was frustrated” that no indictments had been issued against the three.

Munnell and his “allies” held grudges against Hendershott, Black and Fox, states the claim written by Hendershott’s Montana lawyer, Edward Moriarity. But a motive for the alleged grudges is only outlined with respect to Hendershott. Supposedly, Munnell was miffed that Hendershott didn’t promote him.

Munnell was helped by Gerard Sheridan (Arpaio’s new chief deputy), Scott Freeman and Jack MacIntyre, (both deputy chiefs), and Lisa Allen, (the sheriff’s longtime spokeswoman), “all of whom benefitted by the wrongful discharge of Larry Black and Dave Hendershott,” the claim states.

Babeu’s alleged selfish interests came into play after Arpaio turned the investigation over to him.

Clearing the names of the three “victims” wouldn’t make headlines for more than a day or two. “However, a finding of some violations would result in a possible springboard for Babeu into a broader politics field, a fact he admitted to after his published findings. He told some reporters that he does have his vision on higher political offices. This opportunity was made to order for his higher goals. However the victims became the stepping stones and fair and impartial went out the window.”

Incredibly, Moriarity writes in the claim that a “fair reading” of the 1,022-page Munnell Memo investigative report “just does not support the allegations in Munnell’s memo and the findings of the investigation do not support a finding of wrongdoing by the victims.”

How about that.

We gave the Munnell Memo and “fair reading” and came to exactly the opposite conclusion, as did many other readers. The biggest problem we saw in the investigation of Munnell’s allegations is that Arpaio’s stake in the corruption was white-washed.

http://liarcatchers.com/corporate_investigations.html

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Chase relies on green grass roots as money flows to her 87th District opponent

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Chief Investigator Valentine

Jo-Ann Chase built Republican “street cred” in her native Puerto Rico, where at 18, she was president of the Young Republicans of Luquillo. Puerto Rico has four politicial parties and 90% of the people there vote, she says.When Virginia’s redistricting process created three new electoral districts in Loudoun County earlier this year, an energized Republican Party produced plenty of candidates to populate the new seats.

In both Senate District 13 and House District 10, three Republicans are in primary races to contest one unopposed Democrat in November.

But while the Republican organization held spirited debates last week in both of those races, there was no debate in House of Delegates District 87.

The 87th reflects the new order in eastern Loudoun politics. It encompasses Potomac Falls, Stone Ridge, Brambleton, South Riding, and several developments in the Route 15 corridor that didn’t exist 10 years ago.

Like the candidates in other new districts, the two Republicans who seek the nomination for state delegate in the 87th are staunch conservatives, one with Tea Party bona fides. Neither was born in the continental United States. Both hope to face unopposed Democrat Mike Kondratick in the general election.

So, with the election less than a week away, why hadn’t they engaged in a party debate?

Jo-Ann Chase of Brambleton, a Tea Party candidate born in Puerto Rico, says her opponent, David Ramadan, wanted their debate to be held within the confines of the Loudoun County Republican Committee (LCRC). “My opponent wanted the debate to be held only in one [closed] location,” Chase says. “All the others were held at open locations.”

Chase says she insisted that the debate in the 87th district should be the same as the other contested races in her party. “What is different about me, other than I am a woman and a Hispanic?” she says. “I had a problem with that. I wanted my opportunity to be equal: not better, not worse, but equal. Obviously, the other side won.”

Howie Lind, Republican Party Chair for the 10th Congressional District, said late this week he was still trying to schedule a debate in the 87th, possibly at a previously scheduled meeting of the LCRC on Aug. 22, but the date didn’t jell. Lind confirmed that Ramadan wanted to debate only “in conjunction with an LCRC meeting.

“They are two separate things,” Lind said. “One’s a committee meeting; one’s a debate. It would not have been optimal to rush through the business at the committee meeting” to make time for a debate. As of Aug. 19, with three days left before the election, it appears the candidates will not debate in the 87th, Lind said.

So Chase, a lifelong Republican loyalist, finds herself in a lopsided contest between a candidate who has plenty of campaign “green” — money — and one for whom campaign “green” represents the grass along the median of the wide boulevards through Brambleton, where campaign signs are grouped around her house.

She has a strong endorsement from Va. Del. Bob Marshall, her mentor, but watched from the wings when party regulars flocked to an Aug. 10 cocktail-hour fundraiser for Ramadan held outside the 87th District in Leesburg. Former Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese introduced Ramadan to a throng of supporters and candidates that included Loudoun County Commonwealth Attorney, Jim Plowman.

The Chase campaign also suffered through a well-blogged account of a private investigator alleged to have visited a South Carolina courthouse to sift through a long-dormant case file from her divorce many years ago.

But the Chase campaign may have contributed to the distance between the two Republican camps in the 87th after some Chase supporters created a distraction an hour before Ramadan’s triumphant fundraiser at Tuscarora Mill. They staged a demonstration across the street at the Loudoun County government center, carrying signs suggesting Ramadan’s Lebanese roots had not been adequately sorted out.

This week, Chase says she accepts the probable outcome of an election decided by money. According to figures computed through Aug. 10 by the Virginia Public Access Project, Ramadan has raised ten times more than Chase: his $252,775 total includes 124 cash donors with two for $50,000 each and 49 for less than $100 each. Her $25,424 total includes 151 cash donors, the largest for $1,000 and 108 for less than $100.

Chase accepted $300 from Ron Speakman, a candidate for Loudoun County sheriff whose bid for office ended at a Republican convention last month. He has since announced he will run as an Independent.

Ramadan’s list of donors includes McLean lobbying firms Alcalde and Fay and Edward J. Newberry of Patton Boggs; Republican loyalist Jo Thoburn of Reston and Glade Hill, and Great Falls developer C. Daniel Clemente.

“If spending is a reflection of who wins and who loses, that is a little bit of a difference” in the candidates, Chase said.

Chase named five political values that guide her quest for political office: defense of the right to life, traditional marriage, the rule of law, 2nd Amendment rights, and fiscal conservation. If the Republican primary contest in the 87th is determined by money, Chase said, “I will lose knowing I was here for the people.”

“You have to be cause-driven,” she said. “You get a lot of people in politics who are paid.”

If elected, Chase wants to eliminate waste in state spending by identifying duplication among agencies and by delegating work to the private sector. “I am against taxes and I am against fees,” she says.

When she decided to run, Chase says she told Speaker of the House William Howell that “There is no price. Nobody can buy me. Money doesn’t make me and it doesn’t break me. I don’t want any. All that I want is to be given a fair opportunity.

“I will speak the truth. I am not going to go along to get along, to pass along, to spend along, to lie along, and to cheat along. I am not going to do that.” Chase says she is guided by, and answers to, her Christian faith. “My faith is going to guide how I do things,” she says. “I am a Christian woman, and I want to put that out there, even though I am being smacked around about it, and told that politics doesn’t mix with religion.

“The faith that you have makes you or breaks you. If it’s a good faith – if you have a faith that is about goodness to others, that is about contributing to your fellow man and society — then that’s who you are. If you come from a faith that is about killing people, destroying ways of life, I don’t think that is a good faith,” says Chase.

“Who we are with our relationship with our God is definitely part of the component of a candidate running for any office. That is my position and it has been forever. It has always been there,” she said. “I am a Christian. I want that to be understood in this race. It is a component of what is going on in this race. No matter what other people want to say about it, I know it, and I am living it.

“I will stand for all those conservative values of families and children and society. As far as the fiscal component of my life, I am very frugal. I have always saved money. That’s how I have been able to survive in a real estate market when you don’t sell a house for two or three months,” she says.

Chase says she favors “legal immigration.”

“Right now, we have a law on the books that clearly stipulates the way we are supposed to come into this country, and we have to obey that,” Chase says. “I don’t believe in many deviations from that — which has cost me a lot of problems with a lot of the Hispanic community. That’s a very controversial issue, and for a Hispanic to have that position, you’re a minority within the minorities. That’s another place I get banged around, too.”

After moving to the continental United States at 19, Chase:

• Attended Trinity (College) University in Washington, DC, volunteered for numerous senatorial campaigns, and was a delegate for Col. Oliver North.

• Ran for the local school board in South Carolina, where she lived in Columbia, in U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s district. She chaired the Hispanic Outreach Committee for the South Carolina Republican Party, and was appointed by Gov. Mark Sanford to the Economic Development Task Force.

• Moved to Virginia in 2001 and joined the Loudoun County Republican Committee.

• Serves on a Hispanic Advisory Board for U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-10th).

• Was vice chair of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Virginia.

• Ran for the State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia in 2008 at the suggestion of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and won the first of three seats in a six-way contest.

• Runs her own real estate company, Exclusive Realty in Ashburn

• Lives in Brambleton.

http://liarcatchers.com/background_checks.html

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