Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Case of "2:30 am garbage grab and run"

Client: ex-wife
Subject: male, age 40, 6'0, 175lbs, brown hair

Summary:
Subject is a CEO of a large Electronic firm somewhere in the Silicon Valley. Client suspects that ex-husband (subject) is either selling cocaine or has a drug addiction in access of one million dollars a year. She needs proof of his drug activity as to get full custody of there three children. She doesn't want the children to be around this environment.

Day 1
5:00 am, I arrived at the subject's residence which is in the Los Altos Hills. Residence is ten thousand square foot estate, which is located at the end of a court. He has a six foot iron rod fence with security camera's throughout the property. He can view everything that drives down the court. There are large bay windows throughout the residence with no coverings.

Subjects Porsche, 740i BMW and Lamborghini are parked in the driveway.

No lights are on and no sign of the subject.

8:00 am, subject exits the front door, he is dressed casually. Walks over to the BMW, gets in and drives to the security gate and stops. The gate opens and the subject drives off out of the area.

8:25 am, the subject drives to his place of employment. He drives into a under ground parking struction of his building and out of view.

Client suspects that his secretary is involved also in drugs.

11:25 am, subject exits the parking garage driving his BMW alone.

11:58 am, subject drove downtown San Jose and stopped at a corner, at which time a male approached his vehicle. Subjects window rolled down and a large object was seen exiting his vehicle though the window. The male grabbed the package and walked away. Subject started up his vehicle and drove off.

This is a possible good sign of drug activity.

12:20 pm, subject drove to a up scale restaurant, parked his vehicle and walked inside alone.

I followed on foot and observed the subject talking with two males. They were seated and I sat down at a table close enough to over hear his conversation.

Subject at one point did reference the use of cocaine, but that was it.

1:30 pm, Subject exited the restaurant and drove back to his office.

5:00 pm, Subject exits the parking garage and drives off in his BMW.

5:35 pm, Subject returns home.

Discontinued surveillance.

Day 2
2:30 am, I arrived close to the subjects residence with a good friend Benny, we were there to grab the subjects garbage. Going though someones garbage will tell me what they are doing, receipts, discarded bills, ATM bank statements, the list goes on. I was hoping to find something that would tie the subject to any drug activity.Now the garbage containers had to be on the curb or on the street for me to legally remove the garbage.

Now we needed to do this very quietly so the subject didn't hear us and not to activate the security lights.

We parked at the beginning of the court and exited my vehicle. I have auto censors on my headlights so we applied black electrical tape across the censor so the lights wouldn't go on. We got back into my vehicle and drove to the end of the court very slowly next to the subject's residence. We exited my vehicle and opened the back tailgate when the lights went on, didn't plan on that happening, it scared the crap out of us. The security lights went on, I brought a empty garbage container so we could dump the contents into my container, we ran over to the subjects garbage cans, two of them, picked them up and water came pouring out all over us. It had rained earlier, didn't count on that happening. Dumped the contents into my garbage container, threw it into the back of my vehicle and drove off very fast. As we were leaving lights went on inside of the residence. We placed the subjects garbage containers in the same place as we found them, so the subject wouldn't discover anything unless he lifted up the lid of his containers.

9:00 am, I needed to document this by video so if used in court there wouldn't be any issues as to my discovery.

I set up my tripod and placed a video camera on it and started recording as I opened the garbage bags. After going though the bags, I found needles, white power in small baggies that may have contained cocaine, end of video.

I went back on two other nights grabbing the subjects garbage, never found anything that would connect the subject to dealing drugs. Found evidence of self usage, but wouldn't stand up in court.

Our findings were inconclusive, case closed.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Case "right out of a Perry Mason episode"

Subject: female, age 40, 5'5, 150lbs, black hair.
Injury: back and neck, 100% disabled
Settlement ready to be paid of $600,000.00

This was a RUSH, two day surveillance before the settlement hearing in two weeks.

Day 1
6:00 am, I arrived at the subjects residence which was inside of a mobile home park, somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. Residence is described as a double wide trailer with the front door on the left side in a covered patio. There were tables, chairs and other furniture on the patio. The back door was to the right of the residence with a covered car port, with steps leading down to the driveway. There were three vehicles parked in the driveway, two of which were registered to the subject. The curtains and shades were closed and no visible lights were on. No activity to report.

Parking inside of the complex is limited, luckily there was a empty stall directly in front of the subjects residence.

There is a community club house with a pool and on site park managers than roam in golf carts.

10:00 am, no activity to this point, I made a door knock. The subject opened the front door, she wasn't wearing any form of a back or neck brace. She stood freely on her feet without the aid of any artificial support. I acted as a canvasser, she said no thanks and she closed the door and watched me leave through her window in her front door. I know this because I was wearing my revise sunglasses which lets you view everything that is behind you as you walk forward. I also had my color HD pen video DVR recording video of her while at the door that was in my shirt pocket.

I accomplished three things at the subjects residence.
One, she was home.
Two, she wasn't wearing any artificial devices.
Three, I now have a I.D. shot of her taken by my pen video recorder.

2:00 pm, no activity to report, the subject hasn't moved. Discontinuing surveillance.

Day 2
6:00 am, I arrived at the subjects residence. Same vehicle's were parked in her driveway as yesterday. No lights were on, no activity to report. There wasn't any open parking inside of the mobile home park, so I set up surveillance just outside the front entrance, which was the only way out.

8:00 am, I drove by the subjects residence, no activity observed.

10:00 am, I exited my vehicle to stretch my legs, and decided to walk past the subjects residence to observe if any activity was going on. As I approached her residence, I observed the subject walking down her back door steps with a rake in her right hand. I couldn't let her see me as I knocked on her door yesterday, so I hide in some brushes while observing. I very quickly walked back to my vehicle and drove inside the park. I doubled parked my vehicle at the end of her street, put up my surveillance curtains, set up my video camera on a tripod and started shooting video of the subject, bending at the waist to the ground, twisting her neck, making left and right motions with her arms as she held a rake in her hands. She continued to perform these activities for about thirty minutes when I looked out my right window and saw three blue haired little old ladies, sitting in there rockers watching me. Now I know they couldn't see me, but if they were there while I drove up, they never saw me exit, and my mini van was moving from me moving around inside. Just as I saw the ladies, I observed a golf cart coming at me with two little old men inside. I decided it was best not to mess with them and leave, so leave I did. As I drove away, the ladies were pointing there fingers at me and as I passed the security force, they were yelling at me, saying there's no double parking in the park, funny as heck.

I exited the mobile home park and resumed surveillance from outside the park. The video I recorded was enough evidence to disprove the subject's claim of being 100% disabled, she has been on disability for the past ten years. This will be interesting to see how this plays out.

2:00 pm, Discontinued surveillance due to inactivity.



Workers Comp Hearing
8:00 am, I arrived at the State Workers Comp building with my video and portable DVD player. I placed my very small player inside of a very large box, 3 feet by 2 foot moving box. I carried this inside of the building and placed myself just outside of the doors of the courtroom. The subjects attorney doesn't know I will be here neither does the subject, they have no clue a P.I. was observing her. I did this because the visual effects of not knowing what could be in this huge box, how much evidence do they have against my client, this is what I wanted to create. Boy did it ever work.

8:45 am I was approached by the subjects attorney. He asked if I was here for the ******* hearing, I said maybe. He said are you ******* the attorney for the Insurance company, I said no I am not. Now there's only one reason why I would be standing here this early since there was only one case calendared for the morning, that was the settlement hearing for $600,000.00. He approached me again and said, are you a private investigator? I didn't say anything, he looked at my huge box, he said what's in the box, I said something. This really pissed him off when I said this. I picked up my box and moved to another bench just outside the court doors. Remember he thinks that this hearing is about the settlement of $600,000.00 which the insurance company has agreed on paying until now.

8:55 am, The subject walked in with a walker,walking very, very slowly, walking inches at a time, I WAS BUSTING UP INSIDE. She walked passed me and paused, I was thinking ya remember me!!!

They don't know who I am and I wanted to keep it that way. I picked up my box and walked right by them. At this time, the subject is talking with her attorney, I look right at them and walk into the cafeteria which was just down the hall.

Her attorney walks in and demands that I tell him who I was. At that moment our attorney walks in and he backs off. They shake hands and he introduces himself, he said who's he, our attorney said he's our private investigator who observed your client for a couple of days. He went ballistic. He said, I want to know whats in the box, our attorney said, evidence, he went ballistic again. I was laughing so hard I had to remove myself from the cafeteria. I watched the subjects attorney walk out, then I entered and walked over to our attorney, he said what's in the box, I laughed and told him just a small DVR, he started laughing and said good job for the visual effects, it worked.

9:15 am The subject walked in very slowly and sat down at a table, with two other females, all staring at me. If looks could kill, I'd be dead and buried six feet down.

9:30 am The subjects attorney walks over to me and kicks me out of the cafeteria. He said that since she's handicapped and can't move, you have to. besides I don't want you to listen in to our conversation than run to your attorney telling him what you heard. I thought to myself, this isn't kindergarten dude. He walked toward my box and said let me help you. I picked up my box and walked out. I sat just outside the cafeteria so he would have to walk past me and the box.

10:00 to 11:45 am, the Judge told the two attorneys to try and come to a settlement. This morning the settlement was for $600.000.00. Subjects attorney wanted to know what evidence we had on his client. Our attorney said the only way that you will get to know what evidence we have is for your client to take the stand so I can ask her what activities she can perform, then I will put my private investigator on the stand and show our evidence against your client.

The BOX was the biggest trump card ever

The attorney went back and forth from the client to our attorney, the client won't settle, she wants the $600,000.00 or nothing and wants to go to trail. Now the amount on the table for settlement was $125.000.00 for the subject to take and go home with money in her pocket.

Hearing is set for 1:30 pm today. I left to have lunch.

1:15 pm I arrived at the state board courtroom. The attorney's and the client and her friends were their already. The subject looked at me as if she wanted to kill me.

The court was in session, the subject was called up first. She stood up with help from her attorney and walked over to her walker. She said in a loud voice, "it's really difficult for me to move". Then put on a show for everyone to see, walking very slowly and making grunting sounds as she walked inch by inch until she reached the stand. She was asked questions by her attorney, he sat down, took maybe twenty minutes.

Our attorney crossed examined her and really leaned on her, asking her questions about what activities she can do. She said she never leaves her home and when she does go somewhere it takes several people to help her into a vehicle. Our attorney said in a loud voice, on this day do you recall bending at the waist to the ground while raking and performing yard work without the help from anyone or your walker that you performed so well for all of us to see.

The subject lost it, she stood straight up out of her chair, while standing on the stand, she looked at me, then walked toward me shaking her fists in the air, yelling, "your a lair, your a lair, your a liar, I am handicapped, why are you telling lies about me, when she discovered that she was off the stand, leaving her walker behind and walking normally before the judge and everyone else to see. OOOPPPSSS she forgot something!!!! BUSTED

I left the court with my box never taking the stand. The subjects attorney never got to look inside my box, how sad.

Instead of a settlement of $125,000.00, the District Attorney is looking into criminal charges against her for insurance fraud.

All she had to do was take the money and run.

Case solved