Private Eye Confidential

Peeling a Notorious Oakland Murder

2012-02-05T23:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know Thomas Peele very well. Heck, I haven't even read his new book. But when I heard about it-- a deep, unflinching probe into the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey by culprits from Your Black Muslim Bakery--I just had to start exploring. How better to whet my true- crime appetite than a sit-down with the author?

As an East Coast transplant and someone who reported on crime many years ago in Florida, I used to think California and the Bay Area had no real organized crime. Sure, we had crews and loose associations and even Oakland drug kingpin Felix Mitchell in the 1980's but nothing approaching the five families of New York's mafia or Whitey Bulger's evil Winter Hill Mob in South Boston. But upon further review and Peele's talk, Your Black Muslim Bakery from Oakland was every bit a murderous criminal enterprise.

I expect Killing The Messenger to very much be in the same class as Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain's mob classic Murder Machine or Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill's Black Mass about Mr. Bulger. Or maybe it will be on par with Krakauer's superb exploration of crime and religious extremism in Under The Banner of Heaven. For so many reasons Chauncey Bailey's death screams for attention and reflection. It was only five years ago but seems so distant. As Peele points out, the 2007 assassination was the first time since 1976 that a journalist was killed in the United States. And all the events leading up to it played out in the places us Oaklanders frequent daily, San Pablo Avenue, a parking lot next to a McDonald's, a Mexican restaurant near Lake Merritt.

Peele hosts a reading Thursday ,February 9, at 7:00 p.m. at Diesel Bookstore 5433 College Avenue, Oakland. (He refers to Your Black Muslim Bakery as "half bizarre religious cult and half organized crime family.")

The shortest of back stories is this: A man, Yusef Bey aka elder Bey, founds and runs a Nation of Islam splinter group for years in Oakland and owns Your Black Muslim Bakery. The group became a force in Oakland politics and commerce as elder Bey engaged in welfare fraud, child rape and other crimes. The elder died of cancer while facing legal action, and a vicious power struggle erupted to control the bakery. Bey's son Yusef Bey IV and his circle terrorized and murdered Oakland residents. Chauncey Bailey was writing for the Oakland Post about the bakery's bankruptcy and financial problems when Bey IV learned of the pending article and ordered the journalist's killing.

Peele covered the story with his fellow journalists as part of the Chauncey Bailey Project. He is an investigative reporter for the Bay Area News Group and a lecturer at UC-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. It occurred to me that his book is just a big cauldron of investigation: the beginnings of Your Black Muslim Bakery, the tons of detective work that eventually garnered the convictions and Peele's efforts to detail all of it.

Peele's telling of the story is especially relevant for what our City still faces: a short-staffed and overworked Police Department. In the end you would have to say that the good guys won because the shooter, Devaughndre Broussard, took a plea deal and two others were convicted. But there were several times where the cases could have been lost or the guilty not brought to justice.

I wanted to know some of the good and some of the bad detective work in the case. The case got off to an okay start in the investigation of a kidnap/torture case, then two separate murders--known as the Wills and Roberson cases-- that occurred in July 2007 near Your Black Muslim Bakery headquarters on San Pablo Avenue. Prior to all of those incidents, a man's car had been riddled with multiple rounds from various guns. So detectives had a broad idea of the responsible parties but they of course had to build the cases.

"In the beginning I thought that when they realized the Wills and Roberson murders that predate Bailey, those guys knew. Those guys knew. They knew here were a couple guys blown to pieces with Ak-47s and they knew where they had to look. They were overworked and frantic and there were a hell of a lot of murders in 2007." (There were 127 homicides that year in Oakland.) "They knew what to do. They knew that they had to crack that citadel on San Pablo Avenue and about the only thing they had was a car shooting that had taken place eight months earlier." The car's owner had argued with Bey IV and others in the family but refused to cooperate.

A big break came when former homicide chief Ersie Joyner and two detectives gained the man's trust enough for him to become an informant and give detailed information about the bakery. A criminalist, Mark Bennett, would make the comparisons and testify about the ballistic links between the murders and car shooting. "He's a brilliant guy. He's British and studied at Scotland Yard.. You listen to the guy testify. A prosecutor said that the woman jurors love him and the men jurors all think he is James Bond and get men-crushes. He put this all together. It was the same gun." Here is Detective Lou Cruz's search warrant.

A big barrier for police was that the suspect pool was potentially massive. Bey the Elder had 40 or 50 kids. Bey IV had a dozen or so guys in his group. Plus, there were other associates of the bakery.

A parallel investigation had occurred in the kidnap and torture case where a fake police car had pulled over and kidnapped a woman and her mother. A break came when police went back to the property and found a cell phone--that they had first missed -- that belonged to Joshua Bey and that he had dropped. It was a house and cars that belonged to the Beys.

"The detectives did good work to unravel the stuff. They got the warrants and they got the subpoenas for the cell phone records." Just as the detectives in the car shooting case had persuaded a reluctant witness, the detectives in the kidnap torture case had done solid work. But events were occurring quickly.

"The problem was and where it fell apart was that it was taking time and you have to ask yourself why was it taking time? One, was it taking time because they are bad? which they are not -- or is it taking time because they are the good detectives and there are too few of them in Oakland because the police department in Oakland is too small? They got their warrants."

"Where they screwed up was they waited too long." The raid on bakery headquarters was supposed to have occurred August 1, 2007, but then police Chief Wayne Tucker delayed the operation because two in the command staff were backpacking in Yosemite. The gunman executed Bailey in a downtown parking lot the very next morning. (Peele said that other SWAT sergeants have told him that the two men were not essential in carrying out the raid.) The chief could have told the two to come back early from vacation. It was the biggest operation in the department's history, with six other departments called in for mutual aid, and ambulances and a trauma surgeon a block away for the on-site treatment of bullet wounds. "They thought they were going to be going into a blood bath" when they did the 5:00 a.m. raid.

Another tragic aspect of Bailey's death was that the bakery's bankruptcy was already a public record and another publication had done a small story on it. Bailey was not a crusading reporter. Bey IV had plans to kill others, according to Peele. "His blood-lust was apparently not satisfied with having three people killed."

Over-worked detectives and harried district attorneys make mistakes. One example of such sloppiness came out during the trial. After the big raid of August 3, 2007, police took a full audio-taped statement from a woman who had been with Bey IV the night before and morning of Bailey's murder. She gave them credible information, including how when she was with Bey IV and news of a murder of a prominent person in Oakland came on TV. She told them that Bey IV called her over to the television and said, "That will teach them to fuck with me!" She told police that she thought that Bey IV had something to do with Bailey's murder." But her statement was put into the files for the Wills and Roberson murders but not into the Bailey file. It sat for a year.

A relevant observation from Peele about police work or any investigation is this:

"No one was minding the store in an overview position of the homicide unit.. There was no one in the homicide unit directing the flow of information. There was no central person to give reports to commanders who would make assessments and then talk to his commanders and the district attorneys about what the reports show." There was a disconnect within the police department and between police and prosecutors.

Not much has changed in the Oakland Police Department. Crime still occurs at high levels and we have a City populace and government that often does not back police or want to fund police.

Peele said:

"The other myth and reality thing is this.--is once they got Broussard and he said that he had did it--which is true, was that it closed the case. They don't get more clearance rates for charging multiple people with the same murder. It's over. They charge shooters. They historically don't go after shot callers. It's triage."

"The myth is that cops catch bad guys and they go to jail, but the reality in Oakland is that they do investigations by triage and they get what they can, and they get someone like Devaughndre Broussard who says, 'I did it' and it goes to crap after that.."

Readers of Legal Newspaper Pick Top PI: Me!

2011-09-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

I didn't pay much attention in 2007 when readers of The Recorder legal newspaper in San Francisco had selected me as Best Private Investigator/Skip Tracer. It was a small field. It was sort of a nice honor. I won the thing a few more times. Granted, it's kind of a vanity poll and designed to sell ads. But this year they opened the field up from about three to 10 or more private investigators. I learned last month that I won again.

I'm grateful for any attorney, legal staff member or friend who voted for me. The trust means a lot. I have had some of the same clients almost as long as I have been licensed, since 1996. In a tough economy with hundreds of investigators for lawyers to pick, I try my best and take nothing for granted. As a self-employed friend said of the self-employed. "Every day I wake up unemployed." Each day I have to earn my bread.

The honor came just as we had done two successful locates of two people at the extremes of
the economy. The first was a locate and serve of a wealthy man who owns numerous properties in California and Nevada. The rich can be anywhere, jetting or maybe just driving from one place to another. We had picked up some social media intelligence that his wife had moved back to Southern California. We decided to start looking for him in Orange County.

Nothing indicated to me that he was dodging service. He was listed in a collision report with a PO box but his listed phone was out of service. A bit more research revealed him to be a businessman. I told the process server in Orange County to respect the man and his time and just make an appointment with him. She had been to his wife's place a couple times, and his wife passed on the information that we were looking for him. He accepted the appointment and the service at a hotel.

He might not have been happy about it, but being respectful of his time, and the fact that we were persistent, might have persuaded him to take the papers. It was a suit over a vehicle collision.If you have no indication that someone is intentionally dodging service, then be straight up with them and tell them what you want. Respect is a two-way street, etc.

The other subject we found was a woman who had "dead-ended" in database and all other computer searches. She is an important witness in a personal injury case. She had been moving from place to place with her young children.

How we found her?

Went to a courthouse and started looking at small claims and eviction cases. She was named as a defendant in a case about two years old. She had written to the court and her former landlord. A copy of her note showed two possible phone numbers for her.

I called the one number, reached her and explained why I needed to meet with her and take her statement. Initially, she seemed spooked that I had just called her out of the blue. She wondered if I was gaming her for something else.

She agreed to meet with me over lunch. She brought her toddler son along. Turns out, she is living with her sister or another relative at an address I never would have found.

Private investigations is a business with sometimes more activity than achievement. If it was easy it wouldn't be as satisfying.

The Eyes Don't Have It

2011-08-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

The witness sat across from me at the Denny's in San Pablo, her hands and fingers playing all over her mouth and face as she talked about the gun being hers and not her boyfriend's.

I took the hand-mouth-talk action as classic deception. She had incentive to lie. Her parolee boyfriend was facing gun charges after police rousted the couple at a hotel and found the gun under his side of the bed. I worked for the boyfriend's defense attorney. I told the attorney about the hand-mouth gestures and how I thought she was not being honest.

Turns out, I might have missed the bigger yet smaller picture in focusing so much on her hands covering her mouth while she spoke. I should have been watching for other nonverbal cues--micro expressions. Recall all the stuff we've been taught and told about "looking someone in the eye" to try to assess whether they are telling the truth? I learned from a recent presentation by UC Hastings professor of law Clark Freshman that you should be looking them in the shoulder, eyebrow or perhaps nostrils.

Just after my witness interview I came across an announcement from the San Francisco Bar Association that the expert in facial expressions, emotion recognition and lying was going to be giving a presentation. Freshman is the only authorized provider by Paul Ekman, adviser to the show "Lie To Me," to teach the methods to lawyers and negotiators in North America.

Freshman opened with a clip of trial testimony from infamous OJ house guest Kato Kaelin. Freshman's selling point is to use nonverbal cues and facial expressions to detect deception with science and not bias. "Everyone is terrible at it," Freshman said of our ability to detect lies. People assess lies at about a 54-percent clip, slightly better than flipping a coin.

Freshman joked about what cops might think of Kaelin, "His hair is too long." And what people in LA might think of Kaelin, "Bad dye job." He then broke down the clip in slow motion to show Kaelin's expressions that the naked eye would likely miss--the flared nostrils, the clenched jaw, the wrinkling of the nose, the tension in the eyes, the movement of the inner eyebrows.

Freshman's presentation is fascinating. A lot of non-verbal cues don't necessarily mean deception. For example, with my witness interview, the hands over the mouth while talking are more likely a sign of discomfort. Freshman's point is that all of these signs are clues.

He said that what investigators or interviewers should do is "establish a baseline." I sort of do this with most of my interviews in person. Get people talking about harmless or trivial matters to assess their mannerisms, the pitch of their voice, the speech cadence, etc. Save the tough or provocative questions for later in the session.

He explained that when emotion is triggered, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain clamps down "but things will leak out in other ways." When we just focus on the eyes, we miss a lot. Another example: the fake smile or laugh. In a "felt smile," the cheekbones will push up. In a fake smile, it's just the lower part of the mouth that moves. Facial expressions are cross-cultural, he said.

The seven universal emotions are: happy, surprise, contempt, sadness, anger, disgust and fear.

He also showed some footage of disgraced former Senator John Edwards talking about his affair. He slowed the clip down to highlight Edwards giving a slight shoulder shrug, a telltale microexpression of deception. The voice says one thing while the body signals something else.

Part of my little cynic came alive during the talk. What if Freshman is just trying to hustle gullible attorneys for business, sort of like the dance school that tells klutzes how much they are improving and that with just a few more paid lessons they will be masters. He said that people can be trained to become better at detecting deception.

For any investigator or attorney, don't we just assume that we are going into certain interviews knowing we are about to be sold a line of crud and deception? It's sort of like sitting down for a game of poker. But as Freshman explained, "Poker tells can be faked. Movement of the inner eyebrows can't be faked."

But Freshman won me over though because he spoke more about trying to get at the root of emotions instead of just fixating on lie detection. All of these mannerisms in speech and body language are indicators but not necessarily absolutes.

From Sole Proprietor to Corporation. Why?

2011-08-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

The huge image is the new logo at Spencer Elrod Services, Inc., our new investigations company. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I don't know all the historical significance of the Knights Templar, but it looks cool. Cooler than the hackneyed fedora silhouette, magnifying glass shtick, trench coats and all the other worn PI images. (Apparently, it was the symbol of the first private investigators in Europe.)

My partner, Jeremy Elrod, not only suggested the new image but was the one who approached me about going into business together. I would not likely have considered the idea if it came from anyone else. I have been pretty comfortable in the job as a sole proprietor these last 14 years but that is precisely why it's time for a kick in the tuckus.

"You don't get the house on the hill just doing your own work," he told me. He's right. I don't necessarily want the house on the hill but I definitely want to improve financially. I look back at my life at the bench marks: school, first job, graduate school, opening a business, getting married. I felt like my benchmarks, professionally speaking, had flat-lined a bit. I'm at the half-way point, time to kick it up a few notches.

I broached the partnership/corporation idea in a private investigator group. The negative reactions surprised me. But, I am big believer in my instincts about people and am rarely wrong. I have known Jeremy since we played rugby together many years ago. Rugby and team situations give you insight into someone's character; you know who will practice hard and play hard in a match. Jeremy then went on to serve our country as an Army ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He brings a business background. I bring a good understanding of private investigations and the work that attorneys want to help them win. We have a certain overlap in broad categories such as surveillance, interviewing witnesses and understanding how people and businesses can get burned. We want to build something.

The first year has been sort of a trial. But I have already seen the benefits. In high-risk service of legal process, he has literally had my back in bad parts of East Oakland. I have seen Jeremy stay up nearly two days straight tracking a subject from The Bay Area to Anaheim. We have had fruitful interviews of key witnesses in wrongful death cases. We have produced timely results and positive outcomes.

Our personalities are different. He is more of a doer and visionary; I am the communicator, daily manager and plodder. We are both big believers in team and want to build a company that will attract great talent to help our clients. We both place high expectations on ourselves.

Why do this? There must be something in the human spirit that wants us to grow, create, build and nurture. If you don't risk anything you risk even more.

Investigate Your Investigator

2011-03-05T12:41:00.001-08:00

Handy, helpful tips for an attorney looking to match the best investigator for the case. (Published in the 2009 Alameda County Bar Association Bulletin.)

Who Assassinated Mark Kharmats?

2011-01-24T12:02:00.000-08:00

I took the photo of the victim's mother and wrote this article in 2008 for the Oakbook magazine. What I love about digital media is that it lives forever. My reason for posting this is to get it out into the public domain because it's still an open case. The subhead "Oakland's Other Assassination" refers to the killing the same year of journalist Chanucey Bailey.

This case has intrigue to spare. Just the location of it, upper Grand Avenue along the Piedmont border, and the victim being a colorful character give it some extra juice.

The Oakbook was a great magazine and is still a fine web site. It's nice to see the various Oakland news outlets and bloggers picking up the slack for The Chronicle.

Homeless Witness The Key in $5 Million Settlement

2010-12-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

On a Saturday morning in 2009 in San Francisco a 75-year-old grandmother of 10 and mother of 5 had a green light and started to walk across Bush Street at Polk heading east. She was an estimated 6 feet into the crosswalk when a sanitation truck made a right, ran over her with its rear tires and dragged her for several feet. Several people witnessed it but it was a homeless veteran who was first to try to help her and to call 911. She had a cruhed pelvis and required numerous surgeries. The incident was so grisly it left a trail of her skin and tissue.

I worked on the case for one of my personal injury law firms. I had returned to the scene a few times to canvass for witnesses and to shoot video of how the sanitation trucks would just roll through the red light without stopping. I would have to give it the award for my 2010 case of the year, at least for law cases. (I had some other doozies in 2010 but those were more of the domestic nature and I really can't and shouldn't discuss them in public.)

The homeless man's name is Larry. The police report just had an address for him at a liquor store. So for a few weekends in a row I staked out the liquor store and eventually found my man. He was in pretty bad shape from street living and an apparent life of alcohol. He told me that he was from the Hudson River Valley in New York and had stayed in California after serving in Vietnam.

Larry gave me a statement at the scene, showing where he was in relation to the victim. He started crying when he recalled yelling for the driver to "Stop, Stop, Stop!" So over the months I kept checking up on Larry at the liquor store, letting him know that one day the lawyers would need him for the deposition, or the taking of a formal statement with defense lawyers present.

Other witnesses were not as forthcoming as Larry. One, a young artist guitar player, just avoided me and shunned me even though my wife and I tried to talk with him. I had tracked him to one of his performances. A couple others were helpful but did not have the crucial vantage point that Larry had.

On deposition day I found Larry at 7:00 a.m. in advance of the 10:00 a.m. deposition. He had a buddy with him who wanted to get paid a little for babysitting Larry. I wanted to get to Larry early enough in the morning so that he would not be drunk. I brought him a change of clothes and took them both to breakfast at McDonald's.

We entered the law office, drawing looks from employees. I thought the depo would take less than an hour but it lasted more than three hours. The attorney for the elderly woman told me that the defense tried as hard as they could to shake Larry from his account. Apparently, they had argued that the woman had walked into the back of the truck as she is legally blind in one eye.

Larry got the regular witness fee of $45 for his courageous effort, plus an Egg McMuffin and coffee. This story is all a way of reminding myself that every homeless person has a story and dignity.

My Wife Means Business

2010-11-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

I am good at my job but need to improve my business. Know what I mean? As a small business person I am not alone. I am starting a partnership and wanted some reminders about what it takes to succeed in business.

So like any smart dude, I turned to my better half for advice. "Hey, wife. What does it take to succeed at business?" It just so happens that the Mrs. is a professional in sales and marketing, with experience ranging from banking to pharmaceuitcals to a nationwide long term care company. She wrote the following.

Things to remember for sales and marketing:

Selling tactics
1. Sell to the need of your customer, not to the needs of your business
* Sales calls with potential and existing clients should questions regarding the business of your client.
* What is there niche?
* Where is their business goal?
2. Find out how your can help meet your clients goals
* How can your services enhance their business objectives
* What does the client expect from Investigations services?
3. Ask for business
* Once you realize what the client wants, you can explain how you can help with that need
* Don't forget to ask for the business, it is not always assumed
* Sometimes that could be asking the client to try you out first
4. Always do some background work on any new clients before your meeting
* You want to be prepared
* Know your competition and what your competition is offering
5. Dress appropriately
* People like doing business with professionals

Who to meet with
1. Many decision makers in a business may not be who you think
* Gatekeeper is the person who may keep you from meeting the decision maker
* Decision maker may not be the attorney but the office manager or paralegal
2. Integrate within your client's business
* It is more difficult for a client to stop using your services the more integrated you are with that office
* Get to know the decision maker, the attorney, the gatekeeper, etc... everybody.

How people buy
1. People buy not only with emotion but what they think will benefit them
* Given 2 of the same (2 pairs of black shoes), you will choose one that makes you feel better
2. Clients who want to "buy" do not price shop
* Example: people will pay extra for what they percieve is better... paying extra for that name brand TV, etc
3. What you ask is what you get
* If you ask only for difficult cases, that is what you get
* Remember that once you start with one niche, expand your services to meet your client's various needs

Maintenance
1. Once you establish your niche and what services you may provide, don't forget to check in regularly
* Meeting should be in addition to case updates
* Checking in let's you know of any changes on the client's business
* Checking in let's the client know what your capabilities are (expanding your niche)
2. Don't assume that they know what a good job you have done
* Client deals with many vendors and do not always track results
3. In person meetings are always better over phone calls or emails
* As often as possible, drop off reports or updates in person, 2nd choice would be by phone
4. Clients wants to do business with people who make their life / business easier
* Find ways to make thing easier for your clients; this includes easy access and knowing you consider them high priority (they don't know this unless you tell them)
* Don't let your client find out your reports are delayed due to situations, let them in know in advance so their expectations are adjusted due to reasonable occurences

The biggest client you want will not be easy to get... remember to be patient but persistent... it takes an average of 7 sales calls to land a client.

Online Background Check? Think Again

2010-10-31T17:33:00.002-07:00

A colleague on a list-serve bemoaned a business client who had turned away from him in favor of a cheap, online background check service. The down-in-the mouth gumshoe asked for advice on what he should tell the client.

I read the occasionally salty but excellent responses from colleagues. Pundits predicted that the internet would be the death of private investigators. But the wisdom my fellow sleuths shared shows why professional private investigators will always be of value and have business.
Said one PI:

"My reply when a potential client says to me hey, someone else can do it for me for 40 bucks..I say "hey I can do it for 10 bucks. "They are just shocked.... and then I say.... sure, I can do it for that, but it wont be any good. And neither is the one for 40 bucks. Not all backgrounds are created equal."
Fellow PI's remarked of the popular cheap online background checks:

The information is typically outdated and addresses are not likely current.
You generally have no way to verify that the name pulled up in the civil and criminal records are specifically for your subject, i.e. it's not verified.
You have no idea of knowing which specific locales, federal, state or county, were searched and what were the search years covered.

As one knowledgeable PI said, "The criminal and civil record system in the United States is very

fractured. Records are located at municipal, county, state, federal, etc. There's no one database online that can cover all of that information."

Private investigators have access to some databases for which the general public does not have access. And even then, we don't just rely on the computer. We go downto the courthouse to check and verify things. Yes, it costs more but wouldn't you rather be right?

The colleague is spot-on about the fractured records system. On a local level you cannot access criminal records online in Alameda and San Francisco counties. So if you ran one of the cheap online background checks on a California subject, you would be missing criminal records in these two major jurisdictions. Not to mention you would also miss more obscure but numerous counties like Placer, El Dorado, Yolo, etc

Consumers have bought the Hollywood myth that all we have to do is type in a name, then the computer will magically assemble all the latest information, and oldest most obscure information, and spit it back at you in less than a minute for less than $40.00.

Professional private investigators doing a background check routinely:

Tailor a search to the needs of the client
Uncover SSNs, dates of birth and other identifiers to help verify info on a subject
Expand the search to include social media.
Obtain hard copies of information to prove the records are for the subject.

Steamy Private Eye Page -Turners

2010-10-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

I have never been much for mysteries or private eye books, like Sue Grafton's tedious alphabetical progression with "B is for Bung-hole." (Sorry, made that one up but you get the gist.) If I can't relate to the character I lose interest. It would be like me trying to watch "Magnum PI." I have no imagination. I am not racing around in a red Lamborghini in Hawaii, with Doberman Pinschers back at my estate, so why bother try to get into it.

Lately though I have stumbled across three novels that feature private investigators. I have finished James Ellroy's "Blood's A Rover," am half-way through Michael Connelly's "Lincoln Lawyer" and want to start Oakland private eye Steve Gore's debut novel "Final Target."

James Ellroy will always be my lit hero. His story and willpower fascinate me. When he was a boy his mother was murdered and dumped in a scummy L.A. suburb. Young Ellroy dropped out of high school, became an addict of various substances, peeped and burglarized tony LA houses and just literally and figuratively jerked off until he was about 30 years old. He got sober and started writing best sellers "LA Confidential," "The Black Dahlia "and lately the Underworld USA Trilogy of "American Tabloid," "The Cold Six Thousand" and "Blood's A Rover."

About 10 years ago I went to an Ellroy reading in Oakland. I think I might have asked:

"Why are your books always about cops and not private investigators?"

He told us that cops are just inherently more interesting as they are first responders and private investigators don't come along until trails are cold and the action is long over.

But Ellroy's Blood (2009) features a young fictional private eye Don Crutchfield, a real life legendary shamus. The book has great scenes of car lots where wheel-men and private eyes used to gather before doing surveillance, kicking down doors and snapping incriminating footage of cheating spouses. This was in the day before California and most of the rest of the country went to no-fault divorce laws. Other legendary LA private dicks pop up in the novel, doing bug jobs on "fuck pads," conducting "fruit shakes" and other scandalous stuff.

It's a juicy slice of California private investigator history with good surveillance scenes that capture what the job is really like, boredom and terror.

My friend gave me her copy of "The Lincoln Lawyer" by Michael Connolly. I'm trying to finish it. What I like is that it's a very accurate picture of a criminal defense attorney and his private investigator, Raul Levin.

The concept thus far is that attorney Mickey Haller lands the case and client of a lifetime but is so jaded by the justice system that he has problems working for someone who might actually be innocent. Private eye Levin though digs up some good dirt and other negative information about the client. It's a little over-the-top but Connolly gets most of the details right. The only aspect of the novel I don't like is the author digresses far from the plot to drop in stuff just to show how much research he did about the legal profession.

I just reached the point in the book where the PI turns up dead after failing to show at a Dodgers game where he had bought tickets for three defense attorneys clients of his.

The other book I want to read is "Final Target" by Oakland private eye turned novelist Steven Gore. It's a thriller with a lot of aspects and details from Gore's decades as an international private investigator.

The reviews look stellar, such as:

“To save a beset friend, a San Francisco p.i. takes on American law enforcement, international capitalism and thugs from just about anywhere in Gore's accomplished debut….Gore has a deft way with one-liners, and in Gage, who views the world through eyes as cool as Sam Spade's, he has a keeper.” —Kirkus Reviews

Defending My Crown

2010-08-27T15:37:00.001-07:00

I write this with the heavyweight title belt cinched around my waist.It is now time to defend Best Investigator/Skip Tracer category in the Recorder legal newspaper annual survey.

You can vote and take the survey. Would it be nice to repeat? Heck yes.

The past year has been a productive one as I have sharpened my locate skills and had some amazing serves. The future looks bright too as I have increased contacts and added a few connections with broad investigative skills.

Thanks for your support.

Pulp Nonfiction: Murder in The Oakland Hills

2010-06-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

While murder is unfortunately a part of the Oakland landscape, it stays close to sea level.

But one murder and saga gripped the hills for two years, the Nina Reiser case and then the trial of her husband Hans. Henry Lee, who reported the case for The Chronicle, has written a book about it: Presumed Dead: True Life Murder Mystery.

Hans Reiser was a tsunami of slime--computer programmer, borderline genius, ultimate social misfit, precision farter- cum murderer and then body burier. (One source had told P.E.C that Hans would only eat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups when being held at Santa Rita Jail.)

Private Eye Confidential caught up with Henry for a phoner. The crime chronicler was about to amscray before beginning a book promo blitz that would make Anne Rule envious. He will be back in town on July 7, at 7 pm, at A Great Good Place for Books, 6120 La Salle Avenue, Oakland. Henry has been around East Bay crime and cops for nearly 20 years, getting his start at the Daily Cal before becoming a stalwart at The Chronicle. It's his first book so come out and support him.

PEC asked him what it would be like to some day see his book at an airport book store.

"You know that's funny you should say that because I am going to the airport tomorrow to see family. And you are right. Not only will it be at Borders and Barnes and Noble but it's surreal to thinking that it will be at Targets and airports across the country. Absolutely surreal. It is something different to be on the receiving end of these questions. I try to answer them with aplomb and humility while trying to publicize the heck out of this book."

As is the nature of news, it had been a while since we thought of strange, strange, strange Hans. At the time, PEC would take the staff dog out for walks at Redwood Park and see the police helicopters hovering. The story just kept getting bigger because a vibrant young mother's vehicle was found, no body had been located and Hans led Oakland cops, and Henry, in a cat-and-mouse game.

What is it about Hans Reiser that just creeps us out to hell and back? (At least Ted Bundy could be a little charming and O.J. had some good moments.)

"He was a computer expert, some would say genius, who had his own namesake file system. Everyone in the computer world knew about. He had the world at his fingertips but lacked the social grace that most people have-- and he ultimately killed his wife."

If the public thought him repugnant before trial, his antics in court just cemented the bad image.

"On the stand he was arrogant and self-centered and thought he was smarter than everyone else, the DA, the judge and his own attorneys. Most people agreed that he talked his way into a first-degree murder conviction. He would say things like, `I really didn't need a wife and kids financially' or `I'm an egotistical asshole' when he was asked why he never called his wife on her cell phone after she went missing. He memorably said, `It's cheaper to hire a housekeeper,' when asked about the foibles and the pluses and minuses of marriage."

Reiser early on in the case showed he liked to hide and try to outsmart police. Henry said that Reiser would routinely engage in counter surveillance, speeding up and slowing down and other evasive maneuvers.

The dogged reporter even wound up trying to literally chase him down one day (photo of Henry after Reiser on the left) after he got a tip that Reiser would be going to Alameda County services to visit his kids. Reiser would be arrested 12 days later.

In one of the case's many oddities, Reiser assaulted Oakland police detective Jesse Grant with a controlled fart. ( A young Officer Grant had once done an illegal search and arrested the Chairman of PEC as he conducted a lawful surveillance off Lakeshore Avenue. Grant lied about the incident to Oakland police internal affairs, which conveniently "lost" the file and never bothered to contact potential witnesses until more than six months had passed. Grant transferred to Berkeley police in the aftermath of the Chauncey Bailey murder case.)

It was during the serving of a search warrant and photographing the suspect looking for signs of a struggle on him that Reiser let Grant have "it."

"Hans farted in Jesse's face but not before telling him, `You're about to experience chaos,'" Henry said. "Then he let loose in Grant's face as he was taking off his pants, without underwear, to be photographed."

The title of the book is because Nina's body was not found until Hans Reiser cut a deal and agreed to lead authorities to where he had buried her in the hills. The burial spot was along a deer trail not far from Redwood Park and where the couple had once lived. Why didn't the cops find her body earlier?

"It was in a cleverly chosen spot, close to civilization yet so off the beaten path--so to speak--that no one but the killer would have ever found her."

Henry has promised to dish more at the July 7 reading than what has appeared in print. I asked for a sneak preview. He revealed that he received a letter a couple days ago from Reiser, now in Mule Creek state prison, in which Reiser claims that no one understands him but that he wants Henry to "bring his own" polygraph because no one understands what a danger Nina was to their two children.

We haven't heard the last of this story.

Unwarranted Privacy Freakout?

2010-05-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's because I'm in the business of the lawful uncovering of information or that I am so used to my profession that nothing shocks me much anymore, but the "privacy concerns" of others amuse me.

I had a friend who recently dropped her Facebook account. I guess she just didn't like the idea how much her information was being "shared." Congress has even started to make some noise about looking into FB's ways.

First off, lesson one in social media. It is just that: "social." But you have the power to determine how much or how little of yourself makes it to the internet. Just like there are some simple and quick ways to adjust your Facebook privacy settings. I do admit though that it's annoying to have to take the time to check that you don't want your FB to be linked to Yelp or your daily newspaper or to other outlets.

I am not overly concerned that advertisers might learn and share information that I like: dogs, golf, rugby, Oakland, California, and Coors Light.

You then had the "spokeo warning" that was making the rounds. Spokeo is a web site like trackle.com or 123people.com or zabasearch that aggregates or pulls together information under your name. I wouldn't worry too much about Spokeo because it's garbage. All the site does is comb the internet for mentions of your name. The odd Spokeo feature is that it has a little meter for your alleged credit rating. I tested it out and it pretty much pegs everyone as the same. Anyone who would use spokeo and think that it's accurate is living a fantasy. Much of the same information is available through on-line public records.

All of these concerns that pop up are normal, healthy and evolutionary. I remember when my 79-year-old father discovered that Mapquest could give you directions right to someone's house or Google was posting photos of peoples houses. He was aghast, just like many others who feared internet banking, PayPal and shopping on the internet.

Nothing in life is free. So if you use social media there will always be some slight risk. But risk financial and otherwise is always a fact of life.

For now fraud risk still comes more from in-person encounters than from over the internet. I had a friend whose credit card number was apparently stolen by a clerk at a gas station. There was no "skimmer" reading his card number but just the guy at the register who helped himself. I have had lockers and cars broken into but knock on wood not my meager bank account.

Lastly, I always get these ugly looks from people when they notice that I am videotaping in public. I don't engage them in debate. I just collapse the tripod and skedaddle. I have the legal right to videotape in public, so long as I don't use a zoom lens to look inside a dwelling or commit any sort of trespass.

How is using my video camera in public any different from the "eye in the sky" we now have everywhere in public? At your bank, your shopping center, your downtown street and your gym you are on camera. We just had such video prove useful in identifying the Times Square bombing suspect and in identifying two Oakland teen-agers involved in a fatal assault on a 59-year-old man.

Sometimes our privacy concerns are valid but a little misplaced.

Oakland and Tow Yard Turn Misery Into Money

2010-03-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

A minivan struck her husband and daughter while he rode his Harley in the Laurel district after picking her up from school. In a scuzzy, dank garage, the wife cried when she found his clothes shoved in the bike's luggage compartment--the jeans, shirt and sweatshirt had been shredded from paramedics who worked to save his life. On the bike she found her daughter's Little Mermaid blue backpack that the girl had worn. The wife and mother is a client and I am doing some leg work for her lawyer. We don't know about driver's insurance but it won't even come close to covering medical costs.

Oh, and file this under insult to injury, The City and its tow-partner A&B Auto charged this grieving soul $840 for towing and storage charges. Plus, we had to pay a tow company $125 to remove the damaged bike. (I cannot say enough good things about Cycle Tow, whose two employees took 2 hours to drive from Berkeley to the tow yard, wrestle an 800-pound bike onto the lift and deliver it flawlessly into storage.)

My client's husband and daughter did not ask for a minivan to smash them and cause brain damage for the husband. And yet the City and the tow company hammer them for storage, tow and other fees. Police had the incident under investigation for two weeks, preventing my client from getting the Harley out of storage sooner. Yes, the tow yard and City reduced some of the storage fees but the whole situation disgusts me. If police and the City wonder why the public detests the City look no further than this story.

The bill for the "basic tow" from the incident scene was $176. (Uh, Cycle Tow of Berkeley did it for $125.) The City charged 2 hours of labor at $130.00 per hour for $260.00. Storage charges were $1,200 but the tow yard knocked it down for a total bill of $840.00.

Here's the process: Your vehicle gets in a collision or is stolen. Police authorize a tow company to take the vehicle down to A&B where storage fees start. As someone who has had a couple vehicles swiped in Oakland, the City does not notify you promptly that it found your ride. You get the call. You then wait in line down on the third floor of Oakland police to get a release form for the tow yard. You then have to get a ride about 6 miles away to the "alphabet streets" where the tow yard is located, on G Street.

It took my client 4.5 hours to get this taken care of today, with my help. The employee who drove us to find the bike in the lot sympathized as he listened to country music on the radio.

I have no sympathy for parking scofflaws, Sideshow participants and others whose vehicles get impounded. But the City and A&B tow yard should not stick it to victims. The cop at the scene should have the authority to mark "waive or reduce" all charges for victims, or maybe an injured party or victim can get a refund upon showing they had no fault in the matter. In this incident the City has killed potential for any good will a victim might have towards the City and Police.

We have a new police chief. The City has to realize that it's situations like injury accidents or theft when functioning residents of Oakland will have contact with City government. The chief wants to know about ways to improve relations with Police. This case is a prime example.

It's irrelevant that the client's lawyer picked up the tab today for the $1,000 in costs, especially since she might not recover anything since the adverse party's insurance coverage is probably minimal. I beg the City to come up with a more sympathetic system for victims, whether it's auto theft or collision.

Shame on the City and A&B Tow for making money from victims.

Private Eye: Worth As Much As a Good Mechanic

2010-03-09T22:52:00.000-08:00

To become a licensed private investigator in California you need 6,000 hours documented experience in the field and then must pass the examination. Many don't realize the somewhat strict requirements.

I don't know all the particulars but the only states that might have tougher requirements are New York and Nevada.

What triggered my thinking about this was the excellent sting colleague Chris Butler did with the ABC News I-Team going after unlicensed private investigators. When it comes to undercover video, do not mess with Chris Butler. We all did the requirements the right way so we don't take kindly to people who cut corners and who give our profession a bad name. Unlicensed private eyes pose the biggest threat to our earning a living. Butler found a few private eyes advertising on Craigslist who claimed to be licensed but who in reality had no credentials and even had criminal records.

I ask myself that awkward question from time to time: How much am I worth? I find the answer on the wall at my auto mechanic in Oakland: about $95/hour for labor. Our clients have problems or need answers and we get them for them in a timely manner. You have a deadbeat who was skipped town and needs to be located, or you need to find and take statements from three witnesses who could make your client's personal injury case. We fix things or make problems go away.

I may not like all my competition but I have begrudging respect for most of them. They are all good at some facet of the job and they have all been in business for as long as I have or maybe even more.

I tell any client this: If price seems too good to be true don't take it. There's a reason someone is low-balling. Reputation and experience count for a lot in this profession.

Fire and Ice: My Sleuthing Mentors

2010-02-14T21:10:00.000-08:00

"I punched him. His teeth hit the wall like Chiclets." Okay, so maybe my first private investigator boss John Nazarian didn't pull tough-guy stuff like the fictional line above but he wanted you to believe he did.

The year was 1994. I was 29 and had uplifted everything--job, friends and family--to move from Florida back to Berkeley where I had gone to grad school. The plan was to get on as a reporter at the Chronicle or the San Jose Mercury but those jobs don't exactly drop from trees. Time was running out. I wasn't going back to the minor leagues of daily journalism. I started calling private investigators in the Yellow Pages as I was changing careers.

John was a former cop and San Francisco sheriff's deputy turned private investigator. He gave me stuff he didn't want to handle, like stakeouts and lame domestic cases. I more or less took to it like a duck to water. I did surveillance in an old baby-shit yellow Dodge Dart I had bought for $500. The car sometimes stalled when I took corners too fast, orI had to start the engine by connecting the battery points with a screwdriver. And yet I persisted.

John had an office on Townsend in San Francisco in an old garment factory that would now be about a block from AT&T Park. Know what I liked about the life? Weird hours, cash, sleaze, intrigue, goofiness, the pressure, excitement, boredom and getting results. Sixteen years later I still dig the gestalt.

I never thought John's investigative skills were top-notch, and God knows my education combined with report-writing acumen still dwarf him, but you could never compete with John for success or for marketing genius. I tried to learn from him how he handled private clients and from his dealings with attorneys. The one thing you can say about John; he is never cheap. He lavishes gifts on his favorite lawyers and keeps up great contacts with information brokers and other sources.

He is also shrewd about picking the best people to be on his investigative team. He charges around $400 an hour or so but he puts retired L.A.P.D homicide dicks on his cases. He is now pretty much the PI to the Hollywood stars. But he told me that private investigators too often sell their services for cheap. His maxim was always: You get paid to make people's problems go away.

If John Nazarian was fire, then Glen Maxwell was ice.

Glen came up through the Army, Ohio State University and a background as investigator for a major insurance company. While still getting the 6,000 hours to earn my license, I worked under both John and Glen. Maxwell and Associates handled workers' compensation and sensitive investigations for such clients as the Oakland Unified School District, Safeway, etc.

Glen also taught me a ton, like how to take a recorded statement. He used to have us dictate our reports. When you prepare reports in this format you learn to shape your thoughts and words with a minimum of clutter. He taught me that all your stutters, ums, "you knows," etc. can show up in a statement transcript.

Glen was a sharp dresser. He walked into a room and you knew he meant business. I worked for Glen part-time for about two years handling investigations of stress claims and other alleged work-place injuries. He taught me how to be an accurate and fair biller of time and services.

Glen works with his wife Petra. I would drive to their office in Vallejo to turn in reports. They used to have nice, classy Christmas parties for us in places such as Napa. They are good people.

In my practice today I have a foot each in these investigative realms: the straight-forward, more formal cases and mythical stakeouts of sleazy motels and domestic matters.

I can thank my teachers for making me not only a well-rounded investigator but for showing me how to be a solid businessman.

Witness Fatigue: It's Real

2010-01-19T22:36:00.000-08:00

I remind myself that when I contact potential witnesses, that they are doing me the favor. Investigators and attorneys need to be aware that some witnesses should be treated with kid gloves.

Witnesses did not ask to be dragged into depositions, multiple interviews by investigators from both sides, be made "limited purpose public figures" or have their names and phone numbers released to the media. They had the misfortune of seeing something and often came forward on the scene to give information to police or to someone else in authority.

As investigators, we get paid to be the intermediary between the hard-charging attorney and the sometimes reluctant witness. The attorney has the vision for what it takes to win the acquittal, verdict, settlement, etc.

I suppose that one of the reasons why I like doing work for plaintiffs' attorneys is that I am often the first investigator post-incident to interview an onlooker. The bigger the case, the more important it is to shoot-straight with the person and let them know what might lie in store for them. You know what the witness gets for his or her time or aggravation? I think it's about $45 in a civil case and of course nothing in a criminal matter.

I had one case in Berkeley several years ago where attorney Richard Shikman and I pretty much had to persuade an entire neighborhood to give sworn testimony against another neighbor, whose son had shot and killed a teenager across the street from them. I could not blame them at all if they had told us to get lost.

I have an ongoing case where a bartender is a crucial witness in a civil injury case. We know the defense investigators and attorneys are going to do their best to tear apart her credibility.

I recently transported a homeless man in San Francisco to a deposition. He had seen a horrific incident in the street. His take? The standard witness fee, some clean clothes and a meal at McDonald's. He underwent three hours of questioning in a deposition.

One friend was a witness to the incident on BART where a police officer took a crazed man off a train. The fracas made news because amateur video showed glass breaking when the man's hand struck thin glass as the officer put the man against a window. After he came forward, BART accidentally released his name and phone number to the media.

As good investigators, we gain trust by being honest with witnesses. I tell every witness that their participation with me is voluntary. I never suggest that they not participate with insurance defense investigators or the prosecution team. Sadly, not all police investigators and district attorneys live by the same code.

So to all my willing witnesses I say thank you. To the ones who don't want to help? I may not like it but I understand.

My Big Fat Greek Pretext

2010-01-09T00:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's okay to lie in the private investigator business. Let me rephrase, sometimes it's less harmful and you will not be made the fool. The rule is I try like H-E-double hockey sticks to avoid lying on the job. Why? Simple, you don't want to hurt your credibility should the matter make it to court and you might have to testify.

With the disclaimer out of the way, Dear Reader wants the dirt. So, about 10 years ago I had a case with a man going througha divorce. Dime a dozen right? Twist on this one. His wife was alleging a chronic condition or fibromyalgia. She wanted him to pay extra in the settlement because of her alleged disability.

The man had done his homework. He knew she was full of it and liked to get her dance on, weekly, at a greek restaurant in Petaluma. If I could show proof that she was not disabled, then he was going to save a lot of money in the long run.

So, I put on my thinking cap. "I know, I will pretend to be a reporter and get footage of her dancing," I thought. I had the right idea but not quite the right execution.

I scouted out my quarry and the restaurant, getting a bit nervous before I told the owners that I was a freelance reporter writing an article about the place. Shouldn't they have asked, "What's a print reporter doing with a video camera?" I think they did ask and I recall mumbling something about my photographer not being able to attend.

I wasn't trespassing and had great shots of my dancing faux-disabled subject. I think at one point I could not resist having someone else hold the camera to get a shot of me doing some Greek dancing with her. I turned over my footage and report to the client and never heard from him again.

In this case I felt okay-enough about my methods. I did not entrap the subject, did not trespass, just used a lame pretext that worked.

My rule is the more serious or likely your case winds up in court, the holier-than-though my methods. The legal arena is a battle for the moral high ground.

On the other hand, say, like you are trying to locate someone or gain other information, you might have to sell some newspaper subscriptions or pretend to be that delivery person who just can't find where he is going.

In the old days, say 2004 or so, you had unscrupulous PI's pretexting for banking and phone records.( "Uh, my phone bill got rained on in the mail, please send me another.") Those illegal tricks will now earn a felony for the person or private investigator dumb enough to try the pretext route.

SpencerPI says live to sleuth another day and don't cut corners.

The Gift of Strange, a Private Eye Top 10

2009-12-22T10:11:00.000-08:00

Do anything long enough and it becomes a blur. I have worked in the business since 1994. Still, there are those wonderful cases that keep fresh past expiration.

It's the sidewalk slip-and-falls, the auto v. pedestrian crashes and the misdemeanor criminal defense cases that head straight for the temporal lobe trash bin of this private investigator. I do 80-percent of my cases for trial lawyers, mostly for plaintiffs' attorneys and criminal defense lawyers. So it's not exactly National Enquirer material most of the time.

The odd domestic cases, i.e., cheating spouse stuff, still speak to me. They are parts humor, bathos, pathos and adrenaline surge. What follows is a mish-mash of strange. (Thanks to the www.theoakbook.com for allowing me to write about some of them.) What follows are some highlights from 2000 to 2010.

1. Sad man wonders whether his wife was in porn 40 years ago. I think this is my "winner" right here. A perfect storm of weird.

2. Woman severely injured when her leg is almost severed by a piece of guardrail that punctured her car. Turns out, Caltrans contractor installed guardrail incorrectly, putting more rigid parts at the end instead of in the middle.

3. The dog poop trial. My departed friend James Perley had no choice but to go to trial after his client, a yard man, fell from a ladder that had slipped in dog crap. The man shattered his knee on the pavement below and lay suffering in the yard for10 hours until his neighbor found him. He had told the homeowner to pick up after her dog. The insurance company refused to pay anything, forcing trial. Perley and his client lost.

4. What's almost as bad as child molestation? That depraved relative Elder Abuse. A Berkeley couple Silvia and George Yonko ripped off at least a dozen elderly Oakland men for an estimated $5 million. I did some work for the District Attorney and one of the victim's families. The Yonkos did about five or six years in prison but my sources indicate they are still pulling the same old scams. They are evil.

5. I had a woman client who hired me to find her boyfriend, whom she had not seen since about the time she learned she was pregnant. The story itself is not that unusual but the chase for how I found him rates me as on par with Nascar. I managed to follow him in his new Porsche from his venture capital firm in Palo Alto to San Francisco and to his new love nest. I tailed him at speeds up to 100 mph, in my old Honda Civic DX.

6. A valet for a major hotel chain argued with a guest while on duty at a Peninsula hotel. The valet shot and killed the man. Why? He didn't move his car fast enough. I learned that the same valet had a history of on the job confrontations in San Francisco but the employer decided to transfer him instead of firing him.

7. Pot fans won't like this next one. A father in the marijuana trade more or less kidnapped his son from Oregon before winding up in a quiet Oakland hills neighborhood. I confirmed that the father and son were living at the house, and then Oakland police swooped in to rescue the boy.

8. A client in Alameda swore that her husband was smuggling dames into their house while she slept. I told her that this was highly unlikely. She laid some Benjamins on me. I can tell you that few places are quieter than Alameda from 11 p.m to 6 a.m., two nights in a row. With hindsight, she was a member of the tinfoil hat brigade.

9. An Australian businessman came to San Francisco. All fine and well until his Mrs. back in Oz counted some of his boner pills and realized he took a few for his travels. We got some footage of the old guy walking arm and arm through Union Square with his young Asian "business colleague," bedecked in leopard print dress.

10. My old associate Cornelius and I tailed a guy cheating on his wife. The highlight of our case came when we got video footage of them coming out of a van together near the Emeryville Marina and tucking in various items of clothing. The "low" arrived when our target realized he was being followed and chases me through Piedmont Avenue at about 60 mph before I escaped.

Portrait of a Bully: The Dimond District Killer

2009-11-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

(The Oakland Tribune has reported that the suspect has committed suicide in Stockton as a SWAT team closed in on him.)

When a double-murder happens just a half-mile down the hill from me, I pay attention. The daily papers gave it the one-and-done treatment, then it was onto the next "murder haiku," as I dub the increasingly brief articles in the press about Oakland murders.

I knew it wasn't a random act. Three men were shot, two of them fatally, on the evening of Sept. 23 in the normally tranquil Dimond Park area at a house on Canon Avenue. The street connects Dimond district to the back side of Glenview. Locals swim at the park's pool or take their kids to the playground. In short, it's not the typical place outsiders associate with Oakland.

A week after the murders of Michael Caldwell and Damon Wessel, police announced a warrant had issued for the suspected killer: Damon Joseph Ferreira. Police aren't saying what set off Ferreira, only that it was a petty argument.

A review of some of the suspect's criminal files and restraining orders shows that he was a virtual powder keg. What leads to such a tragedy? Could it have been prevented?

In Ferreira's case, he appears to be a habitual bully and meth user with a Napoleon complex, 5-feet 5-inches, 200 pounds, covered in tats and built like a brick shithouse. (He had once stabbed a family pet several times, another hallmark of a deviate.) Did the 34-year-old get lenient treatment in the criminal justice system in the past, freeing him to murder two innocent, productive gay men and seriously injure a third man?

Police said that at the time of the murders, the suspect was on parole for a carjacking incident. He was already on probation in Alameda County in 2004 stemming from several misdemeanor batteries against family members and former girlfriends. I have searched local courthouses and databases but, apparently, the carjacking was out of another jurisdiction. The misdemeanor files show that he was in state prison in about 2006 and 2007. I doubt he did more than two years in prison in the carjacking case.

Oakland police Detective Sgt. Gus Galindo did not release much information today in a phone interview with P.E.C. He said that the survivor will recover physically from his wound(s). He pointed out that the victims are "totally innocent" and that there was nothing to suggest an argument over drugs or anything unseemly going on in the residence. He would not answer how the victims knew the suspect.

Ferreira was born Damon Keen in Alameda County. He grew up in San Ramon and Dublin. He apparently had no ties to Oakland and was hiding out at the Canon Avenue home while avoiding parole supervision. His father, who has since passed, had done time in federal prison in the 1970s after being convicted of beating someone trying to collect a debt for someone else.

Starting in 2003, Ferreira began terrorizing family and girlfriends to the point where he was the subject of constant restraining orders and arrests. In one case, he stabbed a family dog, "Wrinkles" 13 times with a crowbar and knife. One family member told the court in a restraining order: "He gets mad and goes crazy over nothing." He also owed child support, threatening to "choke to death" the mother of his child. His extended family would kick him out of places and he would turn on them.

Relatives believed he was using methamphetamine, aka crank. A Dublin police officer wrote words in a 2004 report that foreshadowed the Oakland killings, "Damon is known for avoiding contact with the police, and has fled from us in the past. According to everyone I talked to, Damon has stayed with whoever can deal with him, and the stay is usually short." He had also made threats to physically harm police officers. And, in yet another incident, he attacked and repeatedly punched a new boyfriend of a former girlfriend.

It appears that the Alameda County District Attorney consolidated several of the misdemeanor battery cases against him. He was convicted of one misdemeanor battery count, given credit for time served in county jail and given a few years probation in Pleasanton-Livermore court by Judge Vilardi.

Of course, on his probation for the misdemeanor he was ordered to complete a "temper-aggression program." In November 2007 he was in state prison in Coalinga, apparently for the carjacking.

Yes, these murders happened in Oakland but it was done by an outsider, a bully who repeatedly terrorized his extended family and his community. Not that it really matters because the two men are dead. It appears that Damon Ferreira was another parolee who slipped through the cracks and who might have received light treatment by the criminal justice system. Remember, the guy who carjacked state Sen. Don Perata a few years ago in Oakland got 20 years in prison. (

America's Most Wanted has profiled the case.

Detective Galindo said that they don't know what, if any, vehicles that Ferreira could be driving. The suspect is a major threat not just to the community but to any law enforcement officer.

"You hope some poor young cop doesn't pull this guy over at night in Stockton or somewhere else," Galindo said. "It's what keeps me up at night."

Want To Get Away?

2009-10-18T23:29:00.001-07:00

I had never thought about it that much, but being "in the wind" is a cottage industry. Desperate times for desperate people, I guess. It makes sense: if industry, lawyers and private investigators are all hot and bothered to find people, then there should be money in keeping people hidden. And there is!

While cutting my teeth in the business as an insurance defense investigator, I had a cool case once where a wayward California parole officer ran off with his police-intern honey to sail around the world. The parole officer, out of Vallejo, was out on a workers' compensation claim. In a bold, bold play, he started applying for and getting credit card advances for over $200K. He hired his parolees to fix up his boat and then one day, poof, he was gone. My job was just to look into his comp claim, not to find him. He was serious and did it right. He got away. Was State Comp Insurance Fund going to hunt him down? Not a chance.

My boyhood friend Jonathan Silverman, Ph.D., got me thinking about this when he sent me this article about private investigator Frank Ahearn, who for a very hefty fee helps people disappear. I read his column. I would just add a few extra points.

For starters, if you want to go on the lam you can't have anything in your name. Don't expect to be tough to find when your name is on the deed where you live. Okay, so put everything worthwhile in someone else's name. That takes a lot of trust.

A quick way to dead-end yourself is get a mail drop using an old utility bill and an old address on a driver's license. (Investigators know that the last thing most folks do is change the address with DMV.) Then, open up a new address at a mail drop every few years. Go live on a goat farm, just don't fill out a rental application.

Go on the offensive. I am blessed with a common name. I have not done the Census stats but I know "Michael Spencer" is the name of thousands and thousands in the United States and world. When I put the initial "J" in my name, I have slightly separated myself and am now easier to find. Private investigators use databases with information provided by the credit bureaus and utility companies. Get that Radio Shack card under a name variation and maybe claim that you live in the biggest apartment complex in town--just don't specify a unit number.

Believe me, most private investigators and law offices are on a budget. I could burn up a lot of time and money tracking down bogus leads. Clients don't like to pay for lots of field work, getting out from behind the desk to go knock on doors, interview friends and relatives, etc.

The part where being the lone- wolf gets really tough is how do you cut your ties to family? You have to avoid relationships if you want to live underground for long. I had a blog last Easter about a guy I had been unable to serve until I staked out his father's place in Union City on Easter Sunday. He let his guard down, and I zapped him before he had his first chocolate bunny. No man is an island.

How many times do you hear about a fugitive being bagged because he came back for a wedding or a funeral? It happens.

So if you want to still live a more or less normal live, there are steps to take to make life difficult for investigators. Just weigh how much your opponent wants to find you.

Mommy Is A Klepto: A Child Custody Investigation

2009-10-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

Why is that 4-year-old girl in a stroller in the mall when the kid looks perfectly capable of walking?

I had reason for my suspicion as I pretended to look at Movados at a jewelry store while keeping one eye on mommy as she fed her two girls corn-dogs and Cokes. I had followed them from school to the mall, two days after finding that the 35-year-old mother had a bench warrant for shoplifting from an incident last year at a mall. I did not see any conspicuous boosting but I know from other cases that strollers make for nice "storage" places for the five- finger discount.

I took the case for the father of the older girl. He is in the courts fighting a long custody battle for his 9-year-old daughter. I like my client quite a bit. He presents as a caring father, now married, who wants a structured environment for his daughter. She is having some problems in school. He craved information that might help him in court.

I gave him good results. In this business I am always asking why some cases have great outcomes while select few don't turn out that great. The biggest factor for success was that he committed financial resources. He did not balk at a $1,000 retainer. All I had on my mind was doing a good job instead of wondering about payment issues. The other big reason was that he knew the vehicle she was driving and the schedule for when she was supposed to pick up his daughter from school. You save a lot of time, and money, when you know where and when to start a surveillance.

I began a dual surveillance and background check probe.

The mother, who does not have a job, had neglected to tell the court and my client where she was living. Any parent would want to know where his child stays. So the first step was going to the old address one night, where I followed her as she moved into a new condominium complex.

The next step was a background check for civil and criminal records. I found the shoplifting citation, on suspicion of stealing a $175.00 polo shirt, and the accompanying bench warrant for failing to show in court. She also gave police an address that was about 8 years old.

I noticed that when she drove she would speed and tailgate with the two little girls in the vehicle. A check of her California driving record revealed that she was driving on a suspended license in connection with speeding violations and, you guessed it, failing to appear in court.

The woman is 35-years-old. Adults don't just start shoplifting later in life. Not telling the court where she lives, lying to police about her address, failing to show for traffic violations, etc. show a pattern. I hope the court makes a wise decision on behalf of the client and the daughter.

San Francisco Lawyers Select Best Investigator/Skip Tracer

2009-10-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

Spencer Investigations of Oakland named 2009 best investigator/skip tracer, according to annual poll of Bay Area attorneys who read The Recorder legal newspaper.

It's nice to be recognized. Not exactly sure of voting numbers, but I swear that I did not stuff the ballot box.

You are only as good as your last case or result. If you voted for me, I owe you. If not, give me a try.

The Myth of Internet Investigations

2009-10-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

How many times have I heard this coming from a law office or other potential client, "I'm pretty good with the internet?" More than a few times, and I'm sure you are quite adept.

I have also seen the Craigslist ad telling people "the 7 things private investigators don't want you to know" and the promises of "finding out everything about anyone" for $20.99. You get what you pay for.

Of course, you can find tons of information in internet databases, social media sites and documents galore. And, given the time, you could rewire your house, fix that sewage system and install new brakes on your car. Sarcasm aside, use a professional private investigator for results. Because this is what we do for a living daily, we tend to be very efficient pulling information together and summarizing it. We know what's relevant and what's not, and we know where to look.

Commercial and free databases are useful in most cases. But I will give you a local loophole that most people don't know: You can't access criminal records online in San Francisco and Alameda counties. We are at the computer center of the world yet San Francisco still has an archaic records system. Another aspect of searching for records is what years or time span do the online searches cover?

Professional investigators know to check all the little name variations. Is it Hanson or Hansen? Carl, Carla or Karla? Do the dates of birth match-up and do the addresses match? Anyway, those are some of the quirks of which you need to be aware.

I have had a rash of criminal defense cases lately where precious little is available online on the witnesses. Many databases are based on information that the consumer provides to the major credit bureaus. Those with little money don't apply for a whole lot of Macy's or other credit or charge cards. Someone having a rough go of it will live with a family member or keep using an old P.O. box. They maybe won't even have a cell phone or utilities in their own name.

There are no guarantees when it comes to locating people. The more transient, the harder they can be to find. My one witness still uses an old address every time police stop him. He is homeless so I will have to keep scouring the park where he stays. I will find him. There is no substitute for "on the ground intelligence." It just costs more.

Public Defender Pep Talk

2009-09-16T20:04:00.001-07:00

Every now and then, regardless of your job, you need a jab in the ribs to remind you why you like your work and what you are supposed to be doing.

It's no different for private investigators. If the self-employed are headstrong and independent, multiply the trait a few times more for private dicks. We are the lone wolves' lone wolf, the Rambo's Rambo, etc. So when I heard about a meeting of lawyers and investigators put on by the Alameda County Bar Association, I was a bit hesitant but the idea of meeting new business contacts compelled me to attend the function at the San Leandro Library.

The funny part was that the main talker, James McWilliams, a self-deprecating ex-public defender of more than 30 years, spent 20 minutes trying to get a DVD to play on the projector but the audio and video would not synch. (When you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.) What's the point when you have a man like McWilliams to do a speech instead?

He talked about the "frailty of memory," the importance of character witnesses, being ready with a subpoena before you even approach a witness and how investigators need to cross-examine witnesses in the field. (The Alameda County Bar administers what is one of the last court-appointed defender programs in California's 58 counties. Say you have two co-defendants or multiple defendants. The Public Defender can't represent both so court-appointed attorneys handle the defense for the poor. The court-appointed attorney then selects the private investigator to take the case, with a budget set by the Court Appointed Attorneys Program (CAAP).)

"Get those details that will become gold," McWilliams implored. "The gold lies on the edges." The trial battle is about assuming the moral high ground. He suggested that investigators take a statement back to the interview subject to go over the account with the witness and then have the witness sign the statement.

"You have to assume everything in the police report is bullshit with certain respects," he said, though not intending this as a blanket-slam of police. What he was saying was that an investigator has to approach a case with a fresh view and to do the best to obtain first-hand, original information from a witness

His years of experience taught him that "every witness lies. We all do." He gave an example of an investigator testifying about the number of stop signs along a specific route but then realizing he had omitted a traffic signal. He reminded us that we still have to provide information that might mitigate and how the client still has dignity.

Alameda County juries have changed over the years. "It used to be the blue-haired brigade," he said. But juries are becoming more diverse and professional.

I looked around the room at about 40 or so licensed private investigators and lawyers, including attorneys David Cutler, Edward Holtz, Brian K. Ross, Kennedy Koblin and Roberto Jimenez. I thought we should have ended the meeding with a huddle around McWilliams and a rousing "go team!" And this is from a guy who does not often drink the Kool Aid.

Thanks to CAAP managing attorney Sue Kleebauer and others who put on this program. We should do it a couple times a year.

The Canadian Quadruple Threat

2009-08-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

I make it a point to not envy too many people. I make an exception for Lee Lamothe.

Lamothe, 60, leads a life that I aspire to: successful reporter, "investigative researcher," nonfiction author and best-selling novelist. I had lunch with Lamothe today in San Francisco's Richmond district. The Elmore Leonard-ish dude was in town to unwind and to visit SF-MOMA.

I met Lamothe many years ago when I was a crime reporter at the Sarasota (Fla) Herald-Tribune. I had reported on a rare strain of Italian organized crime, the 'ndrangheta, that United States authorities were prosecuting. It was the first time that the group, also known as the Calabrian mafia, had been indicted in the U.S., alleged to be in cahoots with members of the Medellin cartel. Lamothe included the Florida case in his 1995 book "Global Mafia," co-authored with Antonio Nicaso. (I still remember some of the names of the defendants: Paolo Barranca, Fausto Figliomeni and Vincenzo Lomabardo, Canadians all popped in Sarasota.)

Lamothe, who for many years reported for the Toronto Sun, lately has been hopscotching between genres. Two years ago he wrote The Sixth Family (The Collapse of The New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto) and he just finished another novel, The Finger's Twist. His first novel, The Last Thief, came from researching a money laundering case in the Bahamas with ties to the Russian mob.

"We'll fuck them all, the living and the dead!" and "Give me everything you got and then I want more," lines in his Last Thief novel, came directly from wiretap transcripts in the real life Bahamian money laundering case. (Lamothe found the transcripts and other information in the federal courts in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.)

Lamothe has done some surveillance and other straight-up P.I. work in the private sector, though he keeps this part of his identity more compartmentalized.

His native Toronto is a crime reporter and crime writer's paradise. Why? He explained that lax Canadian immigration policies allow mobsters from across the globe to come roost in the frozen north. "Canada is a haven for organized crime," he says.

Lamothe knows his limitations as an investigator. He does not have a background with "numbers" or accounting but knows when someone is slimy. "I look at the guy who supplies the numbers," he says. "If the guy is crooked, the numbers are crooked."

Lamothe has probably been writing about mobsters and goons for the better part of 30 years. He still as a matter of fairness tries to get interviews with his subjects and have them tell their side of the story. "They tolerate me," he says. "I can sit there all night with them." Some things, like reporting about their family lives or children, are off-limits. He has had his share of threats over the years, such as this charming one:

"Fucking look in here and I will put a bullet in your head," he recalls.

This thought from him rings in my head, music to my crime-reporting roots: "It is the true crime that feeds fiction or screen plays."

San Francisco Fraud Victim About to Lose House

2009-08-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what to do. She is not my client but she is about to lose her home after forking over at least $100,000 over the years to the con artists ripping her off over the internet for the last couple years. I have told her friend that she needs to go straight to the FBI.

I learned of the situation when my client came to me a couple months back. He is the second victim in this situation. The woman, his friend, is 84 years old and bought her 800-square-foot house in 1973. She is retired and worked for the same company for 40 years.

My client loaned her about $90K thinking that she needed the money in order to have some contacts of hers track down her inheritance in Ireland. He forwarded me some of the e-mails that she had received from abroad from those supposedly trying to help her.

She is the victim of what is known as a "wash-wash scam" or a "black money scam." My client got duped too. Here is the scenario: At some point she likely opened an email promising her the inheritance back in Ireland. However, the "money" cannot be used in its current state. It has to be "washed" or "activated" with a specific chemical. I know, I know. How could anyone fall for it?

The fraudsters claimed that while enroute with the chemical on the way to the bank to activate the money, that the two men working for her died in a "fiery" car crash, with "bodies burned beyond recognition." As if to ad legitimacy, the emailing dirtbags enclosed a clip art/stock photo of the purported burning car. The woman apparently still believes all of this. My client is likely going to have to sue her to get part of his money back. She cannot pay her credit cards anymore and her house is aboout to be foreclosed.

There is an on-line form at FBI web site for reporting such cons. The moral of this sad tale is keep an eye on your lonely or elderly relatives. Ask them questions about what they are doing in the real world and in the cyber world. If you know someone who can't handle their financial affairs or is being preyed upon, call Adult Protective Services or your local police department.

Scant Coverage of a "Lesser" Oakland Murder

2009-06-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

Goin' dinosaur on y'all with a case that shows why the demise of newspapers is bad for local news and residents.

The San Francisco Chronicle has now run its second "murder haiku," my name for its three paragraph blurbs about non-sexy murders in Oakland, about the Dimond District slaying of Antoine Crossland, a 23-year-old Castro Valley resident. The shooting death occurred a few weeks ago less than a mile down the hill from me, late at night next to a library in what is a bustling day-time commercial district. This is not in an area known for violence, so it should generate a tad more coverage than murders in other parts of our city.

The news today is that there are a couple photos of people wanted for questioning in connection with the case. Still, it's been more than three weeks since the murder and the combined coverage by the Chronicle and Oakland Tribune, in two articles each, tops out at about 10 column-inches.

In the mezosoic-era, competing newspapers and their reporters would be checking down at the courthouse for records of Mr. Crossland or going out to find his relatives. Print reporters would have been trying to provide some context and answer the big question: Was Crossland targeted or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? They would have been canvassing for witnesses or getting reaction from nearby residents and merchants. (I was one of those dinosaurs, roaming the Florida cesspools, and I would be damned if I was going to let the Bradenton Herald or Tampa Tribune scoop me on story on my own turf. Is there still any pride left in being a good police reporter? I don't know. )

Bloggers in big urban areas do a fine job when the cases and stories get big enough, say the Oscar Grant shooting, Chauncey Bailey's murder or the horrendous slayings of four Oakland Police officers. But for lesser crimes, there is not exactly a rush to fill the reporting void. Staffs have been slashed. Heck, if I wasn't trying to grind out a living today, this blogger would go pound the pavement to try to fill in the blanks on Mr. Crossland's downfall. I still might....

Henry Lee of The Chronicle and Harry Harris of The Tribune are both good, experienced reporters. However, with the layoffs and shrinking staffs, I'm sure these two hardly have the time for more than churning out more murder haiku or just doing a lot of their reporting over the phone.

Get used to it. We will all have to hunt a bit more to find aggressive police and crime reporting.

Money Grab Behind Continuing Education for PIs?

2009-05-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Orwell said, "Insincerity is the great enemy of language." His sentiment should also apply to legislation. Did you know that California already has some of the strictest requirements for becoming a licensed private investigator?

I sense that behind this legislation is a half-baked effort to remake the image of private investigators. This just in: We are not Boy Scouts, never have been and never will be. People come to us because they have unusual, private problems. The other motive, I suspect, is for a few people to make money at the expense of hard working private investigators.

You are either professional and ethical or you aren't. I am professional enough to know that if I want to learn more about a specific field, I have to plunge into it. No one else can do it for me.

I have cut and pasted PI Robert Scott's eloquent rebuttal to this proposed law:

MCE stands for mandatory continuing education. MCE is now being hotly debated in California, where legislation is pending that will force ALL private investigators seeking to renew their bi-annual P.I. licenses to attend 12 classroom hours on a variety of subjects including privacy law and ethics.

In addition to the fees for these classes, licensing fees will also rise and there will be new paperwork requirements to keep track of and file MCE credits with the state.
Although CE (Continuing Education) is applauded, MCE is not. In fact, it's a stink bomb waiting to explode.

The problem is the MANDATORY part. Why? Because it penalizes the majority of licensed private investigators who are solid professionals. They stay up to date with legal, ethical and other advances. They read professional journals, subscribe to listserves and attend association meetings. To get their licenses in the first place, they had to have 6,000 hours of experience, undergo a background check, and pass a written exam. Why should they be FORCED to attend weekend or late night classes about something they already know? Just so a few stragglers who haven't stayed current can be pushed into a forced learning environment?

In addition, the proposed law (SB 202) places new costs and administrative burdens on private investigators. As we speak, many are struggling to stay in business. Asking more of them now is tantamount to a new tax. Sadly, this will only serve to put some of them out of business.

The proposed new law will also create a new mini-bureacracy of MCE providers as well. For investigators who live in remote areas away from urban centers, long drives and overnight stays in hotels may be required. And once it does become law, it will be virtually impossible to undo.

CALI - the California Association of Licensed Investigators - strongly supports MCE at the leadership level. But even they know they're trying to sell something that's not wanted -- discussion of the topic has been banned on the association's main listserve. Why, if MCE is such a good idea, are the main proponents of it afraid of an open discussion?

MCE is an unexploded stink bomb that can still be defused. If you're a licensed private investigator in California, please make your voice heard in Sacramento against MCE!

My Work For The Lavatory Lawyer

2009-05-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

It used to be that foot tapping just meant keeping time to a catchy tune.

But former Senator Craig of Idaho changed the connotation in his infamous 2007 arrest in the airport bathroom and subsequent guilty plea. It was as if the whole world awoke to bathroom subculture and "cruising" rituals. The senator earned the nickname "Wide Stance."

Attorney Bruce Nickerson of San Carlos, who is openly gay, has been practicing lewd conduct criminal defense and civil cases for his clients for thirty years. Nickerson, for whom I have done investigations, told me that he offered his services to the former Republican senator but that Craig's office would rather have inferior legal representation than hire an outspoken gay attorney.

Nickerson said that he recently beat a nearly identical case on appeal. He said that a key part of his argument is that if the conduct does not take place in front of a third person, i.e., other than the decoy cop and the subject, than it is "not offensive to the persons present." He offers a primer on lewd conduct defense on his web site.

What I admire about Nickerson is his courage battling for a traditionally unpopular clientele, gay men charged with sex crimes. He time and again has exposed (the first of many awkard puns) police anti-gay bias, and he has won civil cases against municipalities whose police forces arrest solely on the basis of sexual orientation. My role in many of his cases, from Bakersfield to Gold Country, was to document lewd heterosexual acts in public.

Nickerson outlined many of the issues of these police decoy operations against gays in a classic dust-up with host Bill O'Reilly. He gave it right back to the host when O'Reilly asked him "if he had any proof" of lewd heterosexual conduct in public. (Mr. O'Reilly must not get out of the studio much.) He brought up his "investigators." And oh yah, I have a shoebox of some steamy tapes that I shot. (I could sell the footage of the Fresno one.....) When you live in the Bay Area you forget that not all places are so tolerant.

So I spent a few weekends hanging out in parks with my video camera. I was a paid pervert, documenting heavy petting. Naturally, Nickerson used the footage to show that police have a double standard. Nickerson also told me that police would base these decoy operations on "public complaints." Yet when Nickerson suboenaed police for such reports of prior complaints, lo and behold, the law enforcement agencies couldn't find them. From a practical standpoint, I think police should use resources on more serious matters. I am a man of the world, been in a healthy cross-section of public toilets, yet have never been solicited for sex in a men's room.

Nickerson said that he must be having an impact on governments, at least in Northern California, because he has not had any sting clients lately and therefore has not had as much need for my services.

One of my all time favorite probes for him was "the case of the replica porno booth." It all started when his client, a successful software executive, got busted for lewd conduct at the Not Too Naughty Bookstore in conservative Livermore, California. The undercover cop wrote in his report that he had seen the man exposing himself while watching some cinema in a little booth in the store.

So the case went to trial. For the jury we made a booth of the exact dimensions. I testified that with the low light conditions in the store, angle of sight from the officer to our client's, um, lap area, that there was no way the officer could have seen the defendant exposing himself. The jury agreed and the accused got off.

We Miss James Perley: Defined by So Much More Than The Law

2009-04-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

It was only yesterday that I learned of the unexpected death of friend and client James Perley, East Bay criminal defense and civil attorney who died in his sleep at home. He was only 46 and leaves behind four young children and his wife.

I, like most in his orbit, had a heck of a good time around him. I had talked to him on the phone the afternoon before he died. We talked a little business, a case in which an SUV ran over his client in a Newark, California parking lot, and argued and jibed each other about rugby. He was planning his strategy on the case. "I just want to make millions and get out of this business," he said, pausing for a beat, "Just kidding, man, just kdding!"

What was great about James was his passion to hurtle into everything he did: family life, starting a rugby club for his kids, drumming in his band Hanzoff, hunting, diving, following Nascar, battling for his clients, going to an A's game or just hanging out. He was a fun machine. My wife and I had gone to Pleasanton last month to watch his band. It was all very James Perley at the gig in that kids ran amok, grandmothers in tight pants gyrated on the dance floor, an overflow crowd just had a great time and it only made sense that he presided over it all --keeping the beat on AC/DC and Van Halen.

Most of my relationships with clients are strictly professional, phone exchanges, emails back and forth, "you got that yet?", "this witness is awesome" or "did you get my invoice?" James liked to come with me on some of the work that I did. He had a great touch with witnesses, a friendly but persistant man-mass with an intense ruddy complexion and close-cropped blond hair.

We liked to do the work but have fun on the way. He lost one case, the only one I knew him to lose, that I refer to as the "dogshit case. " His client, a landscaper, hurt his knee when he fell off a ladder in a customer's yard. The client had told the customer repeatedly to clean up the dog crap in the yard, but the customer never did and the injury occurred just after the ladder slid in "it." James scoffed at the homeowner's insurance company's weak offer and felt he had no choice but to go to trial. We yukked it up about having the dog testify or maybe having a laboratory test the "co-efficient of friction" on the turd in question. (James blamed the loss on his client getting diarhhea of the mouth on the stand.)

We loved to rib each other. I especially liked to get on James that he was the only pro-gun, personal injury attorney who voted Republican. I told James that the GOP would like to put plaintiffs attorneys out of business. He would say that the Demos wanted to take his guns away from him.

James started the Danville Oaks Rugby Club about five years ago. James never played the game but grooved on the primal violence of the sport. I used to go to his house late-night to catch games on cable with him, stereo blaring and his kids running in and out of the room. ( Even his dog, the enormous chocolate lab Cerberus, pulsed with life lust)

James frequently left his office in Fremont early to return to Danville to hang out with his wife and kids. Fellow coach Jon Straka and I, joined by James, would get big games of touch rugby going with 12 or so kids at Hap McGee park or one of the other schools. After practice, James would have the "team" over to The Crown where it was ice cream for the kids and pints for "team management." James even sponsored B.A. Baracus men's rugby club, which has his name on the jerseys. James was all about inclusion.

I could go on and on. Oh, my wife and I had a housewarming party and James and his family brought me a gag gift. He knew how bad I wanted a dog. They bought one of those "half-dogs" with batteries in it so you can see the rib cage rising and falling. I thought for a second it was real. It cracked James up.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to: James C. Perley Children Memorial Fund, Bank of the West, 307 Diablo Road, Danville, CA 94526.

Spy Before You Buy

2009-04-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

It happened again. A client calls to say that a man who bought his business has ripped him off for $100,000. The sad part is that for about $250, I confirmed that the client never should have gone near him with a 10-foot stick let alone put scads of cash at risk.

The buyer approached the client, a bar owner, with a seemingly impressive list of businesses he had owned, several references, etc. The buyer had also been in the bar business for years and said all the right things. A tentative deal was made but the buyer helped himself to a lot of cash, a credit card and failed to pay many employees.

The buyer had concealed a personal and business bankruptcy from 2004, really not that long ago. He did it by: not providing a true SSN, lying that his past business simply closed because the lease ended, using a variation of his name and providing a bogus name for his wife.

It reminds me of another case, where an attorney hired me after his client had been scammed for several hundred thousand in an investment/loan deal with an "artist." The problem? The artist was an outright fraud. A relatively quick and easy search of San Francisco County Superior Court and some other public records on Black Book Online would have revealed about five other past fraud suits against the scalawag. (One of my fave details was that the "artist" liked to rock an ascot. What, no eyepatch?)

Back to the bogus bar buyer. The first step in checking the guy out was coming up with his past address history based on a known or given address. That database search yielded variations on his first name that I had not initially checked. It also showed the true name of his wife. Once I had his variation and his wife's true name, I could then run them both through the excellent federal records pacer system. I learned that they had no real assets. (Searching for bank accounts is a whole other deal to be covered in another entry some day.) I could then check the names and addresses in the court papers against the addresses in databases.

It's hard to go through life paranoid. You don't have to. The Spencer rule of thumb: If a deal is worth more than $1,500 or $2,000 spend a little on a professional private investigator and check it out.

Easter Service

2009-04-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Where was Michael Buffer, fight announcer, to introduce me like this, "At 5'9, 184 pounds from Oakland, California, undefeated at locates and process serving, let's hear it for Mike Spencer!"

Easter Sunday brought me to Union City trying to find a subject who had evaded me for two months. Anyone who knows me has pegged me as a sore loser. I am. I hate getting beat. I knew that if he was a traditional Filipino Catholic that my subject would come home to his parents.

I saw his black Audi TT with no license plates pull into the driveway. I rushed up but he pretended not to hear me. He claimed his name was "Tim" and that he was the brother. I wasn't buying. His sister took the trial subpoena from me. It was a good personal service because the two criteria had been met: Awareness and Proximity.

I so badly wanted to do the Tiger Woods fist pump or find someone to chest bump. In the end I just drove away with the satisfaction of a job well done. In the words of coaches, I acted like I had been there before.

Case Studies in Commitment

2009-04-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

What went right, what went wrong? I apply this to cases good and bad. Let's take a gander at success and failure.

I had two recent successful outcomes in surveillance. One case was a client wanting to know what her husband was doing when he withdrew a couple hundred bucks from the bank at ATMs in San Francisco. She had previously hired an investigator who illegally used GPS on her husband's work vehicle. (California law only only allows for someone to use GPS on a vehicle if the reg and title is in their name.) The other PI used the real-time GPS and still could not get results.

I told her that this would require two separate PIs, me and another detective. The first time he drove like a madman from the East Bay into SF and we lost him. The second time he never left work. The third time, we followed him into San Francisco and found that, during the day, he was going to one of his old haunts where he scored drugs. She heeded my advice and we found what he was doing. We could not have followed him without the second investigator. She/we committed and got results.

Another case was a woman wanting to know whether her partner, the father of their child, was being faithful to her. I went out on him three or four times, no activity. The final time she called me a couple days ahead of time. I followed him, to the cheating side of town, after he dropped off thier kid to her place. He drove like a demon but I went bulldog-mode. It was a sushi date!

Another case involved a divorce matter from Missouri. A PI in Missouri brought me into the case, and I contracted with another investigator for the three of us to follow the woman when she and her paramour arrived at San Francisco Airport. We could not have followed them from the airport without the three private dicks working as a team. The client back in the Show Me State took the advice of the first PI and committed the necessary financial and manpower resources.

The bad. I had a family law case. The client wanted me to follow the spouse , a convicted drug trafficker, to see what he was doing when he was with their child. I got on his tail when he dropped the child at daycare one morning. It was rush hour and I had no choice but to cling tight. He made me and gave chase. My mistake? I was not forceful enough with the client to insist on a second or even a third operative. Police use rolling surveillance teams but budget is an issue in the private sector.

I had a case to serve deposition subpoenas on two witnesses in a civil action. The client offered a small retainer. I put in multiple hours, well over the retainer, to try to get the one witness. The roadblocks were twofold: the witnesses were looking over their shoulders because of what they had done and the client had previously unsuccessfully used a process server. I had the client pay another retainer but it was more of the same. People who are guilty and who know they are going to be served will go to great lengths to avoid service. My mistake? Not telling the client the potential for how hard this was going to be.

One of my former bosses, Jack Immendorf of San Francisco, once told me, "When you work a case, you don't want to be thinking about the money and should only have doing the job right on your mind." Jack is a wise man and in many ways the dean of San Francisco private eyes. True dat, Jack, true dat!

Commitment is a two-way street, from the client and to the investigator. The phrases I dislike most from clients: "It shouldn't be that hard" or "It will be easy." I have done this work long enough to assume nothing. I will listen to my inner-voice more and steer clients away from attempts on the cheap.

Mr. Corvette Meets the Ultimate Fighters: A Reno Tale

2009-03-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

"You are only as good as your client," goes the adage about civil law. I learned that the hard way on an epic civil case in Reno that covered from 1999 to 2003. Along the trail I chased after UFC (Ultimate Fighting Champions) fighters, drove all over Reno looking for witnesses, came to like my deeply flawed client, had an awesome time, learned a lot and, sadly, never saw a big pay day on case that once looked like gold.

I knew my client, Steve Khera, legal name Khamiljit Singh Khera, for a couple years before I started working on his big civil case. He was a flamboyant manager of "Mr. Corvette," an auto dealership in Fremont that used to promote by having bikini babes parading out in front of the shop. I met him on a criminal defense case for one of his body guards, who got arrested over an issue with a firearm at a San Francisco night club. I knew Khera was shady and figured he might be into loansharking or other forms of "collections." I had also heard that there were always cops snouting around his car dealership.

Khera called me one day in 1999 to say that he had just had the crap kicked out of him up at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nevada. He needed an attorney. I thought about it for a bit and took him to Eric Safire, a successful San Francisco attorney. We came up with a plan: Safire would pay my costs on the investigation but I would only get paid for my time after a successful trial or settlement. I essentially agreed to take the case on contingency, decent for attorneys but very bad for an investigator without deep pockets.

Khera had the misfortune to run across some very violent and liquored-up Ultimate Fighters, including but not limited to Frank Shamrock and Jerry Bohlander of Lion's Den Mixed Martial Arts. It seemed that the fighters had been upstairs at a bachelor party in an Atlantis night club, where witnesses told me that they were grabbing women's asses and generally acting like jerks.

You might recognize the Shamrock name as Frank's brother is Ken Shamrock. (I just noticed in Ken's bio that Ken omitted his being sued in connection with a 1987 lawsuit in Reno in which he was alleged to have stomped and beaten then BYU football star Trevor Molini. Ken went to train in Japan and a judgment could never be obtained from him.)

But back to the Atlantis incident. Khera and his date Renae were just coming into the Atlantis at about 1 a.m. on a Saturday from another casino when the fighters accosted Renae. Bohlander was heard to remark to Renea: "Hey, you look like a hooker!" Renae went to slap him and he put her in an armbar. Khera saw his date being manhandled and proceeded to throw a Nolan Ryan fastball with a cocktail glass, which bounced off the fighter's head.

Bad move. For the next few minutes, with no hotel security in site, the fighters proceeded to chase Khera around the hotel lobby until they got him on the floor. When Khera tried to defend himself with a stanchion, one or more of the fighters stomped him until they caved in an eye socket. Khera and his date flew home and he went to a hospital the next day.

How could you have a donniebrook in the lobby of a major hotel, on a weekend night no less, with no security in sight? Didn't the Atlantis or any other business owe a duty to protect its customers?

Hotel cameras apparently captured footage of the van where the fighters fled to and drove away. Police finally got involved in the case but no arrests were made because no one would cooperate. But I had the names of a few of the staffers at the Atlantis. Several of them game me recorded statements in which they acknowledged that they knew the fighters were drinking and being jerks but that they just did not want to remove them or keep them separate from other patrons.

We needed to partner with an attorney in Nevada, and I found the right man, Joseph Cronin. I picked him because he had been successful in another "inadequate security" case against the Atlantis. So Khera and I would fly up to Reno for me to work on his case, chasing after witnesses. I toiled while Khera and his roll of $10,000 in cash worked the blackjack tables of Silver Legacy and the Peppermill.

Things were looking good on the case. There was no sense in chasing after the Ultimate Fighters as defendants since they did not have deep pockets and would be moving all the time. Witnesses were falling into place and giving me names of other witnesses. Safire and I sweated Khera about his own background, trying to make sure he didn't have too many skeletons in his closet that would make him unsympathetic to a jury or for a settlement. Khera had a juvey robbery beef that he beat and some reckless driving stuff but nothing major.

But like the dice hitting craps or that doubledown that loses to the dealer's six-card 21, the case against the Atlantis began to fizzle.

The first setback was the death of Nevada attorney Cronin. We had heard that it was a suicide, which meant we had to find and partner with another Nevada attorney. Meanwhile, I had racked up more than $20,000 in billing and was wondering if I would ever get paid.

More bad news. Medical experts found that Khera had a pre-existing brain condition. The doctors said that if it weren't for the beating and the examination, his main injury would never have been detected. In essence, the fighters had done him a favor by smashing his eye-socket! (I had taken photos of Khera's wounds, nasty. The whole side of his head had to be repaired and stapled shut.)

With settlement talks looming, I got a call one day from Eric Safire. It seemed that Khera had just been picked up on several federal drug charges. Bye-bye payday.

I knew Khera really, really liked to gamble. Court documents show that over several years, Khera had become involved in dealing MDMA, pot, cocaine, methamphetamine. I knew he liked to hustle but wow.

The feds raided his home in San Ramon in 2003, where they found $35,000 cash and several handguns. Khera was essentially a middleman in a drug organization. The court records mentioned that he had a "sizable surgical scar" on the right side of his head from the beating at the Atlantis. One Sacramento County jailer wrote a letter of commendation to the federal court outlining what a good inmae Khera was being, from translating Punjabi to alerting jail staff to a suicidal inmate.

Khera turned down plea deals. After being found guilty he was sentenced to 360 months in federal prison, or 30 years. (Jerry Bohlander is now a Napa County sheriff's deputy.)

Cyber Maps Track The Auto-Theft Plague

2009-03-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

I had one of those "only in Oakland" experiences last month. Car headlights lit up my lower hills street at midnight. I peeked out the window to see and hear an old red Toyota blocking the street, engine running. Problem was that there was no one inside the car.

My inner-paranoid ran through the scenarios: Body in trunk, shooting victim slumped in back seat, front seat full of dope, automatic weapons and cash (if only!), perp playing 'possum waiting to blast first curious homeowner brave enough to come to car. I knew full well that it was a ditched stolen car but I still did not feel like leaving the house.

So, in the next two hours I called Oakland Police non-emergency five times. The second time I called, the dispatcher claimed an officer had come out and not been able to find the car with lights on, engine running, etc. (I figured it was just a case of inadequate staffing and not exactly a priority situations.) I gave up, went to bed, awoke seven hours later to find the same car with engine still running, still blocking the street. I called again and cops finally came to tow the car.

Auto theft intrigues me. (For the record my Oakland tallies in 14 years: two cars and one motorcycle stolen. All recovered in varying degrees of disrepair.) It's one of those crimes that is staggeringly abundant. Just read the crime blotter section of the Montclarion or the Piedmonter to see about 30 to 35 thefts per-week for a relatively small geographic area. Oakland's annual auto thefts were showing nice gains for a decade until 2008 when there was a dip. Keeping tabs on auto break-ins would be next to impossible since likely half of auto-burglaries are likely not reported.

There are two excellent web sites for local crime maps. The first is from the Oakland Police http://gismaps.oaklandnet.com/crimewatch/ Pick your crime category (ies) and see the tallies for up to 90 days at a time. The City also allows you to sign up for crime notification emails based on parameters you set, say within 1/4 mile of City Hall or 500-feet of a school.

The next is the entertaining Oakland Crimespotting http://oakland.crimespotting.org/crimes see little green dots all over the City representing auto thefts. I can break it down six ways to Sunday, by crime, by police beat, by time period, etc. I see that there were 67 auto thefts last week, which seems a bit low.

In my next installment you will read about four Oaklanders caught red-handed dismantling a stolen blue Honda, ratted out thanks to a Lo Jack. All four have pleaded guilty to auto theft, and all four have received no jail time but three years probation. The police caught them in the 3700 block of Lyon Avenue, where a search shows that there have been 269 reported auto thefts in the last three months within a mile of the address.

Cool Free Sites for Playing Amateur Detective

2009-03-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

Like pro baseball teams do, I am going to open a "fantasy camp" to make a few bucks. Bored housewives and executives can pay me $5K per-week to come to "private investigator training."

I will show them how to rise at 5:00 a.m. to get out to to San Ramon to serve the shady lady dodging the depo subpoena, or take them to that park in Hayward looking for the homeless witness to that girl-brawl outside the 7-Eleven. Or, they can learn the finer art of the "collection call" making it seem like they are interested in things other than getting paid.

They will wear a non-descript uniform of jeans and a sweatshirt. Campers will receive electric shock if they are caught on surveillance reading, playing with a Blackberry or otherwise averting their eyes from the target. They will see how the master "plays dumb" when looking for people or otherwise stirring the pot or bringing bad news.

And, they will get some free detective sites on the Internets, using the internet of their choice. My favorites for address histories are:

http://www.411.com/ and http://www.zabasearch.com/ These search sites are decent but they do not attach dates to when addresses were reported. These sites tend to work well for finding stable people.

Another site that I have used for a long time is Robert Scott's Blackbook Online at
http://www.blackbookonline.info/ This handy web site is a clearing house for all free court sites and other public records, such as professional licenses and fictitious business names. If a county or agency has records available online you will find it here.

And campers, just remember that the internet and sites such as these are merely tools. There is no substitute for a professional private investigator with a wealth of experience.

A Haunting Murder in San Francisco

2009-02-14T22:18:00.000-08:00

Let's face it: Most of my cases are snoresville. Party A ran over Party B; Bouncer A might have punched Patron B, or Driver A collided with Driver B. At times I feel like an insurance adjuster.

The longer I do this work the more it takes for a case to linger in my brain. The one with staying power though is the case of Gary Murphy, a man I followed who was later assassinated in a San Francisco half-way house in June 1998.

The case served as a wake up call for me to screen my clients better. I was green at the time, and it was my first doozy of a caper. A woman, Bonnie Ford, hired me to follow and get the goods on the father of her grandchild in a nasty child custody case. I brought in a more senior, and notorious private eye, John Nazarian to help with the client and the case.

What a nightmare of a client, a nightmare of a case. I learned Gary Murphy had been murdered about three months after I stopped working for Ms. Ford. I had a little solace because Murphy was killed in a place where I had previously not tracked him to, and therefore my client did not know about it from me. I also later found out that my client had a restraining order against her.

Investigative reporter A.C. Thompson, formerly of the Bay Guardian, did a great job reporting the story. Check it out at http://www.sfbg.com/38/22/cover_murphy.html

It was a wild case. Nazarian received the bulk of the payment for the case, paid to us in a Ritz cracker box pulled from the freezer and stuffed with cash, about $15,000. The last I heard, my former client had gone back to Canada. It also bothered me that San Francisco police did not do much. I recall talking to people involved in the case who had not even been interviewed by police. Nazarian and I had each other, protecting us from the scrutiny of cops after we voluntarily went to police to give statements.

ABC's Noyes Annoys Oakland "Mystery Gypsy"

2009-02-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

For a good laugh but also solid content check out the ABC I Team's probe of a couple of psychic shops in Oakland.

The laugh comes when reporter Dan Noyes confronts shop owner Peter George with an undercover recording of George and a woman in the shop trying to hit up a decoy customer for $5,000 for a life-size candle that, when burned, will rid the customer's husband of cancer.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=6643960

When the shop owner froths at the mouth and threatens Noyes, the reporter has a smirk and look on his face like he has been through this a thousand times. (Think Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes in his early years...) The shop owner, who dared Noyes to come back inside his Dimond District parlor, later apologizes in the I-Team blog section.

It might be tempting to dismiss Noyes for his aging pretty-boy looks, or his arrogance or his smugness, but he and his I-Team do very good work. He has been the only Bay Area media person staying on top of the latest wave of psychic scams. In case you haven't noticed, Oakland/Berkeley are home to a growing number of psychics. One disturbing aspect of these shops is the lack of local and state regulations. We license dog groomers but no background checks or requirements for fortune tellers.

DA's investigator Kathy Boyovich, who I once assisted, makes the point in the I-Team video that it's not just the elderly or mentally-impaired who fall prey to con artists. ( I chronicled my work with her in a piece for http://www.theoakbook.com/ http://www.theoakbook.com/MoreDetail.aspx?Aid=1675&CatId=108 ) The I-Team found and interviewed a victim in the South Bay taken for $130,000.

When The Chronicle ran a recent article about an elderly victim, the comments section posters made fun of her for being "stupid" or a "sucker." Cons don't just hurt people in the wallet, they hurt their pscyhe and dignity. As a private investigator I have looked into the sad eyes of more than a few victims.

If you look around Oakland you see psychic shops all over the place, on Grand and Piedmont avenues, down on Frutivale avenue, a new one on Park Boulevard, etc. It would be a cheap shot to suggest that all these enterprises have criminal intent but I would rather see other businesses flourish around town. Let's look out for each other.

Congrats OPD: You Shot and Killed a Dog

2009-01-30T15:10:00.000-08:00

Spencer Investigations tipped the press to this sad story, covered in the East Bay Express:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/the_case_of_the_murdered_dog/Content?oid=912738

I know the attorney in the story, have done work for Portia Glassman, Esq. and find her to be unusually principled. Ms. Glassman tells the truth as does her client.

The key fact in the article, perhaps buried too much, is that Mr. Proudfoot offered in advance to take his dogs out of the house. This is digusting that Oakland Police shot the dog.

"One of the first things I asked them, 'Let me take care of my dogs,'" Proudfoot recalled. Both of his dogs, Jade and Bear, were inside the home. "I'll put them away in the bathroom or somewhere so they're out of the way. I told them at least half a dozen times."

The connection between animal cruelty and barbarism towards humans is well-documented. And Oakland Police wonders why it has a bad reputation in the community...

As long as I am casting opprobrium, I have a big sharp dart for the usually sound Channel 2 News, http://www.ktvu.com/news/17543189/detail.html Glassman was quoted on air and in the story as saying that the cops shot the dog. Yet, the TV "reporter" never followed up. I called the news desk three times to point out this unanswered question. Thanks to the East Bay Express for exposing this.

A Cornucopia of Sleuth Blogs

2009-01-25T20:54:00.000-08:00

Stealth has never been so abundant, at least in the blogosphere. Every swinging private dick has a blog these days, which is a good thing as the public starts to see and read the work we do.

The following is a compilation of some PI blogs:

http://www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2009/private-eye-reading-the-top-50-detective-blogs/comment-page-1/#comment-1026

America's Spy, aka Spencer Investigations, garnered this blurb: "This private investigator from California blogs about such interesting topics as Facebook as an investigation tool and surveillance success."

Private Eye Confidential offers unflinching, candid, robust portrayals of the PI world and its creator's takes on a bunch of stuff. Stay tuned, dear readers!

Let's NOT Get Physical on The Job

2009-01-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/01/22/SPNV15EG24.DTL&o=2

( I would rather get physical in rugby than at work!)

I have had two physical confrontations on the job in nearly 15 years of doing this work, the last one being about seven or eight years ago. I do not carry a gun or any other weapon in the line of duty for several reasons. The first reason is I do not put myself in harm's way. If I have to go to a dangerous part of town I go during the day, announce myself and am super-polite. I know, certainly not a guarantee given the way things are going.

I am not adequately trained. People without training should not be running around with weapons, seems more likely you will get hurt if you don't know what you are doing. I include myself in this category.

Confrontation 1 was a long ago. I squared off against a guy who had just caught me taking some photos inside his business. He tried to prevent me from leaving. I knew that I had not trespassed or broken any other law. Police arrived, arrested me but all charges quickly dropped. I so badly wanted wanted to elbow my way through the guy's throat but thought better of it.

Confrontation 2 was also long ago, about seven years. I had to serve some garden variety papers on a woman, whose husband was a cab driver of Nigerian descent. Nationality had nothing to do with his attitude; he just saw me as someone bringing trouble to the Mrs. This was in a not so nice part of Brisbane not too far from SF Airport.

Mr. Nigerian grabbed me, and I countered with the bearhug of my life about to hip-toss. I broke contact and ran for it. Maybe he was going to stab me or go Mike Tyson and bite off an ear. I charged the attorney extra for combat pay.

Be prepared, know your surroundings and live to work another day as a private investigator.

National Stalking Awareness Month!

2009-01-17T17:20:00.000-08:00

And you thought January was a big deal just because we are getting a new president.

In looking for some information about the Pleasanton, California police department, I learned that it was National Stalking Awareness Month. Spencer Investigations of the San Francisco Bay Area uses surveillance but it is never meant to harass any subject. But some might say we private investigators aren't much different than stalkers.

I toured the site, took a quiz and spied on some merchandise http://www.stalkingawarenessmonth.org/order

I scored a pedestrian 70% on the quiz. I am still laughing, but maybe I shouldn't. I love the poster "Every(sic) Get The Feeling You Are Being Watched." And who wouldn't want to adorn themselves with the "stalking awareness pin." I am not making this up. And for the collector who wants the definitive stalking poster/statement: "Beware of Strangers."

Facebook: Not Just Fun And Games

2009-01-14T23:12:00.000-08:00

For most of us Facebook is a way to keep in touch and have fun.

What's not to like about Facebook's "SuperPoke" or "Texas Hold'em," where it's all in all the time? I like to keep up with the nieces and nephews, boyhood chums and friends as much as the next bloke. I have yet to discover Twitter but enjoy Yelp, Linked In, some blogs, etc. (I still have a Myspace page to keep in touch with some high school rugby players I coach.)

As an investigator Facebook has saved my bacon at least twice. If you are Luddite P.I. who hates newfangled social networking and computers, you need to adapt. Become Cyber Dick! The "internets" is just another tool, like your buddy in the detective bureau before you were asked to leave the force.

The first great Facebook locate occurred when an attorney in Hawaii asked me to locate a young woman, a paid girlfriend some might say, who was friends with a certain wealthy octogenerian. All the traditional locate searches and databases had failed. Facebook to the rescue. She had an unusual name and was on Facebook. She responded to my email and got in touch with the attorney.

The second FB breakthrough happened when I had to locate a woman with a very common name who had worked for a cement company. There were 30 Mary Jones in the geographic area, but this one had listed in her Facebook profile that she worked for Acme Cement Company. Like the other case, I dropped her a message and she responded.

People might not change their addresses on their Driver's License. Or maybe they are couch-surfing, but the younger generation likes its online presence. And, as a paid private dick, you better adjust to these realities.

Surveillance Success (And Failure)

2009-01-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Of all the jobs that I do as an investigator suveillance is far and away the toughest. I hate to lose, which I do from time to time, and lately I have been thinking about the factors in surveillance that lead to triumph or despair.

Reality is that everyone seems to be on a budget. Clients rarely want to spring for using two licensed investigators but that's what needs to be done to improve the odds of a successful outcome. When I do the work alone, there are just too many variables that can wreck my day, some of them of my own doing.

I define success on a surveillance by not losing my subject. (Whether he does anything "noteworthy" while I peep is out of my control.) I would say that when I do surveillance solo I win about 70-percent of the time. I would tell any client that if you can't devote the time, money and resources to a surveillance than just don't do it.

Planning is the first step. I need to know when to start, to scout out the area before hand, where the person will be, the license plate, where the car might be parked, the license plate, any telltale bumper stickers, the driving habits of the person, the person's paranoia level, etc, etc.

I have had some great success solo. One weekend when I was breaking into the business I followed a married lawyer and his mistress all weekend long in San Francisco. I didn't even have video then but snapped some great shots with a mirror lens. A couple years ago in a Honda Civic, I managed to follow a venture capital dude in his Porsche from Palo Alto to San Francisco at speeds up to 100 mph. I did it with nerve and a sense of desperate determination.

The failures hurt. I once managed to follow a couple on rush hour Friday from Martinez into San Francisco. I would lose sight of them but then somehow always manage to find them again. But, as a result of being glued to them, they made me along the Embarcadero. I have lost people due to getting cut off or hung out at a light. It happens. Some targets are just more observant or nervous.

The best hedge for success is getting on a subject once they leave their neighborhood. I can look out my door right now and pick out every car up and down the block that belongs. Start slow and learn a person's habits and schedule. When I blow it usually is because I was too aggressive or trying too hard, taking out the video camera too soon.

I have had some great results when the client opted to pay for an extra investigator. That second car gives you the option of trading off tail vehicles to avoid detection. IN congested areas, two PIs is a must. What do you do if you follow someone solo and your target gets the only parking space and is then away on foot? You're screwed. With two PIs on a case you can just cover so much ground and recover and react that much faster. It's not foolproof but when you consider that police use task forces on mobile surveillance, two sleuths are better than one.

I ended up getting chased in a car one time by a subject after an assistant and I had followed him for a couple weeks. He came after me but by then we already had our "money shots" of him and his girlfriend down at the Emeryville marina tucking their pants in simulateously after a little romp. I once followed a deputy in training but never could have done it without the help of PI Ed Crame.

Using the second investigator costs about 50-percent more but if you want to improve the odds from 70-percent to about 95-percent it's worth it. I am not a great surveillance person but have had some good moments. (And I will start passing the costs along to clients if I get a moving violation on a case.)

Guilty Pleasure Time with Hall and Oates!

2008-12-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

You know it, sing along with me.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anLfoy2XsFw

Christmas Sleuthing: A Joyous Juxtaposition

2008-12-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

Private dick work is usually fun but Christmas gloriously highlights the split between the work itself and the ideals of the holiday.

I have always liked the opening scene in L.A. Confidential where the Russell Crowe character yanks down the Christmas lights from on top of the house then handcuffs the wife beater to the railing. Then, there is the glorious brawl at the police station with all the boozed up cops. My line of work is not quite like LA Confidential but it has its holiday moments.

What better way to say good will towards mankind than spying on a woman's boyfriend in Stockton or tracking down a witness in a criminal case in a dingy apartment in Livermore?

Last year it was Christmas eve surveillance in Stockton, an armpit of a city south of Sacramento and east of Oakland. I followed the guy as he was supposed to be with his elderly parents but was really cavorting elsewhere.

Even on the holiest of all eves, Stockton couldn't keep from being, well, Stockton. Trunk speakers blasted out the ghetto thump-thump all over the mall parking lots as reprobates scurried to do last minute shopping. I got the video I needed and knocked off just before midnight. As domestic cases go this one was not all that....

This Christmas eve I located a witness in Livermore who is tangled in an Oakland murder case. The guy came to his door in boxers, unshaven and smelling of the previous night's booze. He is not a big witness but can attest to the Oakland police's overzealous habits.

It was then back to Oakland trying to get another witness in the murder case to talk. He was on his cell phone in front of his house, with his pitbulls dancing by his side. He couldn't talk to me then but I told him I would be in touch.

Finally, I could have capped my Christmas eve by serving a lawsuit on a wheelchair-bound woman but even I have Karma concerns. I'll get her the day after Christmas.

Part 2: Newspaper brass muzzled probe

2008-10-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

(This is the second part of the previous post about how the Sarasota Herald-Tribune spiked its own investigation into the role an anchorman played in an international pot ring.)

I took a job at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune as a police reporter in 1992. I had toiled at some other daily newspapers but obviously lacked a certain tact or ear for corporate politics. (Journalism school didn't offer classes in brown-nosing or how to feign laughter at the City Editor's bad jokes.) Silly me, I thought it was enough to be very good at one's job. I was about to swallow a big bitter pill that had fallen to the floor and gathered hair and lint.

A virtual thunderclap detonated over Sarasota when a sheriff's press release announced in October 1993 that the ABC-affiliate anchorman/weatherman Jim Jackson had been arrested on an old felony warrant issued out of Miami in 1986. In the old case, when James Jackson Minard, true name, was a mere lad of 38-years-old, he and his brother-in-law Richard Barrett were stopped near a phone booth with about100 pounds of pot in their car. (As you will read, it wasn't just the anchor's name but his brother-in-law's name that should have set off alarms with those looking to connect the dots.)

Like many frauds who seek shelter, Jackson had enmeshed himself in charitable causes and Sarasota society circles. (Sarasota likes to think of itself as a beacon of culture in a redneck landscape.) In 1993, for what it's worth, his newscast had the highest Nielsen and Arbitron ratings for the local market the previous six years. The station had hired him in 1986.

Jackson, ever the self-effacing one, told the Sarasota Magazine just before the 1993 warrant arrest:

"The camera can pretty much spot a phony right away. For some reason--and for the life of me I don't understand it--television carries this aura of stardom.And we're not stars. We're just workaday stiffs like everybody else."

Deputies served the 1993 arrest warrant on Jackson while he was at work and took him back the four house to Miami. There apparently had been a big mistake, as Jackson and his supporters spun it. For the 100 pounds of Mary Jane in his truck, Jackson had been sentenced to five years probation but it was supposed to have been lifted in 1988. However, someone in the Dade County courts made an entry in the computer system in May 1993 that Jackson had missed a court date, thereby triggering a notice of a probation violation and the ensuing warrant. It could never be explained.

Jackson's employer was working overtime to defend their star, and it was working. The rival Bradenton Herald blared the headline: "TV Figure Mistakenly Arrested." Jackson, with his wife at his side, went on TV the next day to say that "a long time ago" he "had made a mistake with marijuana. " His station general manager said they knew about his arrest when they hired him in 1986.

I smelled a rat. With the permission of then City Editor Eddie Robinnette and Assistant City Editor Tom Buckingham, I had the green light to learn about Mr. TV Star. I couldn't have been happier.

I soon started receiving phone calls from various characters associated with Mr. Jackson from the not-so-distant past. They told me that they did not believe in a "computer error" and that someone had made the entry to get even.

But what had Jackson done to deserve such a fate?

Meanwhile, the paper had also been reporting the last few years on the exploits of the Sarasota Police in a case known as "Operation Cuisinart," which took it's name, I would later learn, from gourmet chef Richard Barrett, Jackson's brother-in-law.

This drug and money laundering probe netted 60 defendants, almost all of whom pleaded guilty for their roles smuggling 23,500 pounds of pot from Jamaica to Sarasota and then in to Canada. At the top of the food chain was Pierre Doyer, a Canadian who with his partners laundered the drug profits buy buying a Quebec ski resort and other real estate. Police in both countries seized about $210 million in assets -- cash, houses, a Rolls Royce and other bootie--related to the case.

Sarasota Police detective B.J.Sullivan, an Illinois country boy, had won numerous investigative honors for his work in Operation Cuisinart. When you talked with B.J., you knew you were dealing with a sharp, credible, principled man who downplayed his intelligence behind his folksy persona. He had spent more than five years doing the hard analytical tasks on the case.

One day, after the Jackson tempest, I was sitting in Sullivan's detective lair interviewing him about his work. (The case generated 50 filing drawers.) Near his desk, a baby blue bed-sheet covered a section of wall. With me standing right next to him, Sullivan lifted up the sheet to show the dates of the eight pot voyages from Jamaica and who had crewed the ships. With my own eyes I saw James Jackson Minard listed as a crew member. Sullivan would not discuss Jackson's involvement but others more intimately connected would fill me in.

From one local officer, Jim Sweeting, I had heard that Jackson got stopped one night while under surveillance. Police found cocaine in his car and took him in for questioning. This was after his 1986 arrest for 100 pounds so he was still very much involved in dealing marijuana. And for any of you thing pot is just a harmless drug, maybe it is. But any time you have enough money involved you will have the collateral guns and violence no matter what the commodity.

But I wanted on-the-record confirmation. As FBI agent Rod Huff told me on the phone in a polite brush-off, "I wouldn't quit your story."

Sources such as former brother-in-law Barrett called me as I also tracked some other Jackson associates from his not so distant past. I could hardly wait for the page one expose. . Barrett had pleaded guilty to trafficking charges and served a few years in a Florida prison. But it was his own extended family member, Jackson, who started the party by snitching on him. An associate of Barrett's "snitched off" the Canadians.

Barrett said that when authorties detained him he saw the FBI-302 form. "It was Jim talking to the Feds. It was a debriefing form. All I had to do was corroborate the story." Barrett admits that he also cooperated with police. He knew that Jackson had been meeting daily with Sarasota police Captain Al Hogle. Jackson was supposed to have unloaded one of the vessels. Barrett had also seen on the form that police tried to make it look like a tip about the operation had come in through "Crime Stoppers," none other than a Channel 40 show. "It helped me put it together real quick." He thinks Jackson's "help" lead to more than half the arrests in the case.

A former roommate of Jackson's at the time, who happened to be a TV camera person, told me then that Jackson had a cocaine habit and was dealing blow out of their condo. Jackson knew all the drug players in Sarasota, many of whom had come to his wedding to Barrett's sister. The ex-roommate knew something was up because their was a boat at the place and a Jamaican guy once came up in the middle of the night.

The former roomie was listening to the scanner the night the cops popped Jackson. "I started listening and when I heard that it was a white Fiero I knew that it was Jim. I heard them say they had found a white substance in the car. Over the air I heard them say, 'Jim Jackson Minard.' " Like a good roommate, he immediately drove back to the house to clean up drug paraphernalia because he knew police would be visiting soon when they were done with Jackson. Sure enough, police came to look at the vessel Tenacious at their place.

It was shortly after the traffic stop on Jackson that the arrests started to occur faster than snowbirds arriving for the winter. Another former Jackson roommate at the condo, Joe Bruno, made no bones about his anger for anchor. Bruno too did federal time.

"The guy essentially rolled over on me and all my friends," he said. "All during those years that he claimed that he turned his life around he was selling coke out of my house." He said that Jackson on one mission had run aground a boat with a 300-pound "stash compartment."

"When they grabbed him in 1988 they knew they had the weak link to break this thing wide open. I don't have any real strong vindictiveness towards him but he is a public figure. He affects people's lives and they should know who the hell they are dealing with. Jim hasn't paid anything as far as I can see."

And one person who knew Jackson back in the day, April Ramsay, said that he used to put a penny in a dime bag of marijuana to make it weigh more before sale.

And so it went. More sources went on the record about Jackson's conduct while he was still on probation and working at the station. He would have been about 40 or 41 years old when involved with the pot smuggling.

One day about three weeks after the Jackson hoopla broke, Executive Editor Diane McFarlin got wind of my reporting, marched up to myself and my two supervising editors and promptly killed the story. I can't be sure on McFarlin's exact words but it was to the effect, "He's too popular." The air left me. The other editors didn't utter a word. Since the story was killed I never bothered to seek comment from Jackson.

I muddled through my final six months at the paper, banished to the Bradenton bureau. I was also on the outs with my then girlfriend, who also was a reporter. When my friend called me one day in 1994 to say that she was leaving her apartment in Berkeley, I jumped at the chance to move back to the Bay Area even though I had no job. I wanted to get on at the Chronicle or Mercury but those jobs didn't come around that often. I answered an ad for an investigator, earned my license in 1997 and that's what I have been doing.

About three years ago I wondered about the Canadian, Pierre Doyer, allegedly at the top of the food chain. I knew that Doyer had fought extradition for about five years and had finally lost in a historical legal decision. (Detective Sullivan had once told me that there were bigger fish than Doyer but that Doyer refused to play ball.) I made a Freedom of Information Act Request on Doyer to the Federal Burea of Prisons. I just couldn't help wondering what happend to Doyer if Jackson had sailed right along in his career, albeit likely looking over his shoulder time to time.

About six months ago I got a big huge envelope in the mail on my FOIA request. Doyer, a father of two, had been transferred to Raybrook prison in New York. I learned that Doyer had a heart condition and had died of heart attack playing tennis in prison on July 4, 2000. He was a year older than Jackson and was 54 when he died. Doyer had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for running a "continuing criminal enterrprise."

Jim Jackson in 1995 moved across the state to take an anchor job in West Palm Beach. I read that he since left that gig to become a morning radio disc jockey and had also started a couple of legit businesses unrelated to slinging or humping dope.

Who said life was fair?

Newspaper protected anchorman/dope smuggler: Part 1 of 2

2008-10-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

(This is the first of two parts. I still have all my original notes for the reporting that I did while at the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune.)

I have held this story and accompanying grudge for 15 years. It's about fundamental unfairness. Why did one pot smuggler rot and die in a federal prison and the other flourish and advance his "legit career"?

Hey, 1992 called. Whoa, it's Mike Spencer, police reporter with a poker up his ass in Sarasota, Florida. Six months out of UC-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, I left my job with the Contra Costa Times to fulfill a fantasy of covering police and crime in Florida, at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. People had told me that if I wanted to get my crime-reporting freak on, then head to the sunny state for shady people.

In what should have been one of my biggest stories, an executive editor, Diane McFarlin, now publisher of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, spiked it because she deemed the subject of my reporting "too popular." I had dared to bring down a local television weather/anchorman. (I am a man! I am an ANCHORman! [...] ) I learned that this pillar of the community, "Jim Jackson," real name James Jackson Minard, had played a large role in one of Southwest Florida's most notorious dope investigations, "Operation Cuisinart." (A TV station poll once named him "Most Influential Person in Town." )

Jim Jackson not only snitched off his own brother-in-law, a chef for whom the case was named, but helped set the massive investigation in motion.

I was a brash, ambitious punk unwise to corporate politics. In front of me I saw a gig at the Los Angeles Times or The Philadelphia Inquirer. I had replacedKaren Dillon, the reporter who covered the PeeWee Herman "bust" in Sarasota. (We all remember the infamous mug shot taken after he had watched Nancy Nurse at the South Trail Triple XXX theater.)

I broke stories with unconventioanal methods. I hung out at a few strip clubs from time to time and got tips (uh, and gave them too). I knew to check the court for returned search warrants. Police would forget that those warrants were public record. I rummaged in police personnel records snouting for tidbits of bad joo-joo and complaints about certain officers. I slept next to a scanner in my apartment. I rode my motorcyle through the swamps to get to car crashes before paramedics. I got off work at 11 at night and liked to shoot pool and drain pitchers at the 8-Ball Lounge or swill Mai-Tais at the Ba Hai Hut, aka the Bye Bye Hut.

I knew the lay of the land. I called out the Sheriff for trying to pass his golden retriever off as a legit campaign supporter in a newspaper ad. I cracked the Sheriff just before election time for a lie that his deputies had interdicted a boat full of cocaine in the Gulf. (The reality was that his deputies and informants had controlled the delivery and were on the vessel. ) I knew the DEA trucked with the sheriff's office while Customs and the FBI swung with the more professional Sarasota Police Department.

Diane McFarlin could afford to go after PeeWee Herman. She said nyet to his attorney's attempts to keep his client's indiscretion out of the paper. Weather/anchorman Jim Jackson at Channel 40 WWSB was a different, protected class around the mid-sized city. Channel 40 used to run these schmaltzy Crime Stopper pieces stroking the local cops and never did any real reporting. Channel 40 might just as well have read police press reports verbatim. Channel 40 was all about perpretrating the Florida fun in the sun myth.

Jackson had an oily unctuous persona on TV, reminscent of Eddie Haskell. We knew that he was an Ohio native who "had fallen in love with the Gulf Coast." We knew he liked boating. In those days Jim was a happy bachelor around town. Southwest Florida in the '80s and early '90s was awash in a lot of cocaine and weed. It was party central and Jim was a popular party boy, dealing cocaine not only out of his swinging condo in the late '80s but down at the TV station, according to his former roommates.

Until 1993 I had no reason to associate Jim Jackson with anything unsavory, other than working at a mawkish TV station. It was my reporting on some new wrinkles in an old drug case and a bizarre incident involving Jackson and an old arrest warrant that made me realize Jim Jackson was a snitch and a fraud. I had on- the -record sources about Jackson's role in the criminal enterprise but the Sarasota power structure, embodied by Ms. McFarlin, apparently did not want to hear the bad news.

(Check back in a few days for Part II, when, dear reader, I will reveal how the popular TV celebrity dodged media shame and went on with his life while others went to prison.)

My first blog....

2008-10-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

Years of journalism and private eye work lead me to this debut blog. I will share insights of all sorts, silly, profane, raunchy, informative and, hopefully, honesty in exposing you to me and some of my work. This blog will be for old friends and strangers alike. I will take you from my days of getting paid by the inch, grinding articles about high school sports at The Wilton Bulletin, to my current state as CA PI 18828.

I try to find something fun about my work every day. The longer I stay in the business, the more it takes to find that sense of amusement. Half the fun of my work is never knowing what's around the corner.

Private eye work has to be the strangest collection of folks. From ex-cops booted off the force for God knows what, to more academic types like me, to some whom I wonder how they ever get dressed let alone passed the state PI exam.

Buckle your seatbelts and put in those gum shields, it's Spencer PI at the keyboard!

(Coming soon: The true account of how the Sarasota Herald-Tribune squashed my investigation of a local anchorman who was a major marijuana trafficker!)