Cyber bullying cases pass to private investigators ANDREW CARSWELL THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MAY 21, 2013 12:00AM

POLICE are referring cases of Facebook cyber bullying to private investigators, telling them they neither have the time nor the expertise to deal with complaints from parents.

Private investigators receive countless tip-offs from police through unofficial channels asking them to step in and solve cyber bullying crimes.

The Daily Telegraph revealed yesterday that parents were paying up to $800 a day to hire private investigators to identify and track down those who were bullying their children and confront them with evidence of their ugly online behaviour, with one investigator fielding three calls a day from anxious parents.

The revelation sparked our campaign to put pressure on social network sites to become more proactive in pursuing and banning bullies who use anonymous profiles.

For many parents, approaches to private investigators are a last resort after complaints to police and schools often fail to result in action.

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Aside from the fact police are seemingly not equipped to deal with the technical side of cyber-crime on social networks - according to the investigators - the forensics specialists are frequently told by officers that Facebook bullying complaints are "outside their case prioritisation".

Former AFP investigator Jason King, who operates J&D Online Investigations, said police often pass on the details of parents who have complained about cyber bullying.

"They contact me to take on the cases," Mr King said.

"Not officially of course, because they can't be seen not doing their jobs properly.

"It's not that the police are under-resourced, but a kid getting annoyed by Facebook bullies is not really high on their list of priorities. You get these local constables call up and say 'I have no idea how to handle this, can you do it?'.

"We slap intervention orders on people who bully in person. The internet is just another element of that - just investigate it the same way."

At Sydney's Lyonswood Investigations and Forensics Group, investigator Lachlan Jarvis said that some parents came to them on the advice of the police.

"We get clients who have been referred by police who tell them 'it is not work we take on; we don't have the expertise'," Mr Jarvis said.

NSW Police launched a Fraud and Cyber Crime Squad in November 2011, committing resources to what it claimed was a dramatic shift in the way its detectives were investigating crime in cyberspace.

A police spokesperson said police have "successfully identified numerous people (who are) using social media platform to commit a variety of cyber crimes.

"We don't use private investigators, nor do we refer to private investigators."

 

Killing of Vancouver man in Costa Rica a targeted hit

Killing of Vancouver man in Costa Rica a targeted hit: private detective

 

Victim sold futures in unregulated market

 

BY LARISSA CAHUTE, POSTMEDIA NEWSMAY 21, 2013

 

 

A father from Vancouver shot dead in his home in Costa Rica was the victim of a targeted hit, according to a private investigator in the Central American country.

Brad Deering, 42, and three others were inside his gated community home in San Jose on Thursday morning when three men stormed the house, shot and killed Deering and tied up the others.

According to private investigator Douglas Smith, local police are calling the attack a home invasion, but "that doesn't make sense."

"This wasn't a household robbery, this was a hit," Smith said from his office in Costa Rica. "They had one intention and one intention alone of capping him."

While Smith isn't investigating the case, he said he was made aware of the killing by close friends of Deering.

According to Smith, three men dressed as security officers fooled a guard outside Deering's home into letting them in.

They tied up the guard, broke into the home and tied up three people while Deering tried to escape. They ultimately found Deering and shot him three times.

"A home invasion usually is at night ... most of the time in home invasions they wait for people not to be there," Smith said. "In this case they went in prepared, tied people up in broad daylight.

"It doesn't measure up as a home invasion."

According to Smith, Deering "sold futures" in Costa Rica - an unregulated and dangerous business in that country.

"Buying futures as an investment is the most dangerous, most speculative investment you can possibly do," he said. "Buying them from any broker in Costa Rica, you're playing in the twilight zone."

Smith speculates that someone targeted Deering because they either lost money in a deal with him, or simply because his wealth was known, as he owned three expensive cars and lived in an expensive home.

"He made himself a target in Costa Rica," said Smith, but added that those who knew Deering had "nothing but nice things" to say about him. He had a young daughter, aged around four, from a previous marriage.

The Canadian consulate did not respond to requests for information by deadline.

Read breaking news on your mobile device at vancouversun.com

Burglary victims hire private investigators

By REBECCA MAR
Mercer Island Reporter Staff Writer
MAY 9, 2013 · 10:21 AM

Charon Gooding’s wedding ring is the only piece of jewelry she has left after her home was burglarized while she was out of town last month.

The 73-year-old Mercer Island resident was widowed 20 years ago, but still wears her diamond wedding ring.

Gooding was visiting her daughter in Los Angeles when the burglary occurred, sometime between April 8 and April 22. Gooding has lived in her waterfront home below East Mercer Way, in the 5400 block of 96th Avenue S.E., for 27 years. The home is situated in a wooded area.

Several other houses off of East Mercer Way were burglarized during the same timeframe, April 12-16. Island police have made an arrest in those incidents.

“My mom is devastated,” Chandra McNicholas, Gooding’s only daughter, wrote to the Reporter. “She lost three generations of our family’s heirlooms and, of course, other more monetarily valuable jewelry. She’s got a great attitude, but she is a widow and lives alone and, aside from her family, her jewelry was her most cherished possession.”

The pieces carried sentimental value, McNicholas said. Many were gifts from her mother’s late husband, James.

Gooding and her husband were married for 32 years. They were both born in Canada, and met at a church in Seattle.

“My dad went to church because he was looking for a wife,” McNicholas said. The couple married at the Seattle Tennis Club in 1961. Years later they settled on Mercer Island, on 96th Avenue S.E., where they shared seven years together before James Gooding’s untimely death.

James Gooding was working as a lawyer in Kent when one of his tenants walked into his office and shot him three days after Christmas, in 1993. The tenant, 33-year-old Timothy Ledford, then immediately shot himself. Gooding had recently served an eviction notice on Ledford and his girlfriend, who were renting the house across the street from the law office. The couple had stopped paying their rent.

Gooding’s son, Jim, had just started practicing law in his father’s office. That particular day, however, he was absent.

Several pieces of Gooding’s jewelry were purchased abroad, in Italy, Australia, Greece and the U.K. Her collection, worth an estimated $142,844, comprised at least 58 pieces bought locally and in other states and countries.

Most of the jewelry was appraised, but it was never insured.

While Mercer Island police continue to investigate the burglary, McNicholas hired two private investigators. The first visited local pawn shops. The second, Denise Scaffidi, canvassed the neighborhoods where the series of mid-April burglaries took place.

“The purpose of this canvas was to ascertain whether other neighbors had received unexplained or unusual visits from strangers,” Scaffidi wrote in a report of her investigation. “My assumption was that in order for the burglars to know which houses were empty and vulnerable, they had to have information from a scout.”

Scaffidi has a background in criminal defense. She was the lead defense investigator in the Green River and Christopher Monfort cases.

“The neighbors she (Scaffidi) spoke with had never been contacted by the police, and no one has been asked to help with a police sketch of the suspects,” McNicholas said.

Four sightings of a white utility van were reported to Scaffidi. The van was seen parked outside of a home in the 9900 block of S.E. 40th Street one week before it was burglarized. A neighbor saw the van again after encountering a suspicious solicitor. On the same day of the burglary, another neighbor saw a white van parked at the bottom of the lane, and an older, disheveled Caucasian man approached her and her daughter. Another resident, in the 4200 block of East Mercer Way, recalled seeing a white van park in her neighbors’ driveway on the day they were burglarized in December of 2012. In all incidents, the van did not have windows or any writing on it.

Scaffidi documented numerous reports of suspicious visitors. One resident who owns a restaurant on Mercer Island told Scaffidi that he answered the door to a young man supposedly selling magazines but wanting to come inside to use a bathroom, and he “felt that the young man had some unlawful purpose for being at his home,” according to the report.

MIPD Commander Leslie Burns concurred that there has been a lot of recent activity involving solicitors.

“Over the past six to eight weeks, we have had a landslide of calls regarding solicitors on the Island,” she said. “We are well aware of the relationship between those who knock on doors, to see if anyone is home, to residential burglaries.”

Detective Pete Erickson of MIPD said that there are different criminal “crews” working the Island at any given time.

“We investigate these burglaries; we do it all the time,” he said. “It helps us if people call us when they see something suspicious when it happens. That is when it is most helpful.”

According to police, there have been over 30 residential burglaries reported on the Island since the first of the year.

“One thing I know for sure; had my mom known about all of these crimes, she would have locked her jewelry away and probably taken other precautions,” McNicholas said.

 

 

 

Contact Mercer Island Reporter Staff Writer Rebecca Mar at rmar@mi-reporter.com or (206) 232-1215.

House panel OKs registry requirement of Colorado private investigators

By Kurtis Lee
The Denver Post

If Coloradans need a private investigator to spy on a cheating spouse or help recover stolen property, it's likely the individual is not registered to do the job.

That's because the state is one of a handful that do not require investigators be registered, though this could change as a measure ensuring regulation must occur makes its way through the legislature.

Opponents, including Colorado's Society of Private Investigators, say regulation is not needed and would be a burden.

"By making this a requirement, we're going to protect people and generate jobs in Colorado," said Rep. Jovan Melton, D-Aurora, the House's prime sponsor of the bill, which Thursday passed through the House Business, Labor and Economic


Read the inside scoop on Colorado politics and policies at blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/.
Full political news coverage at denverpost.com/politics.
committee on a party-line vote.
Melton stressed the measure has three objectives: providing consumer protection from scam artists, ensuring public safety by requiring background checks for investigators, and retaining jobs in Colorado. He said 44 other states regulate private investigators.

Senate Bill 259 requires all private investigators to register with the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Already in Colorado, private investigators can voluntarily register with the state. Economic analysts say the bill is designed to have registration fees cover the cost of bills' implementation.

Dan Anglin, chief lobbyist for the Colorado Society of Private Investigators, said the organization had little input into crafting the bill. He called the measure duplicative and futile.

"The bill would require everyone to have a fingerprint-based background check. Well, that's already required for concealed-carry weapons permits," Anglin said, noting that many private investigators carry firearms.

Anglin on Thursday was among about a dozen opponents to the measure who testified against the bill being heard before the House Business committee.

Proponents, however, argued a registry would weed out bad investigators. "The state has become a dumping ground of private investigators," said Ellis Armistead, president of Heartland Investigative Group based in Denver. "There's convicts, sexual offenders out there acting as private investigators."