[FIND] Vice - NOLA - Clete Purcell

On Clete Purcell: “Insatiability seemed to have been wired into his metabolism...” -James Lee Burke.

Setting: Vieux Carre, the old square, the French Quarter

The old part of New Orleans, the original city, rides just above sea level, peeking over the Mississippi River levee at the silted memories of half a continent roiling by.

In summer, she is unbearably hot and sticky. In winter, just hot and sticky. On a Saturday morning her cobbled streets reek of waste and beer, and the daily early-morning sluicing does little to curb the rankness. She is old. She is tired. But she rides just high enough to not fully sink in the mire. Katrina gave her a good thrumming, but she’s still there, still on the mend, and still a wonderful old soul.

Clete Purcell, the “libidinous trickster of folklore,” divides his schedule between the Quarter and New Iberia. We don’t hear much about his time in the Quarter, but James Lee Burke, creator of Clete and his buddy Dave Robicheaux (Burke’s main character), allows us to draft our own account of Clete’s days in the heart of the Crescent City.

Burke describes Clete Purcell as, “….the nemesis of authority figures and those who sought power over others…a one-man demolition derby.”

Fond scenes unfold in my mind of Clete, pork-pie hat resting on his bald head, slouching in his red convertible Cadillac, waiting outside Coop’s Place for a bail-skip to stroll out onto Decatur Street.

I see plate glass shatter onto the sidewalk. I see a rag-doll body thud to the concrete. Tourists bedecked in faux Hawaiian shirts, cargo-shorts, and flip-flops scatter across the street to the drivelous safety of Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville.

Later that evening, adrenaline buzz wearing off, copper-penny taste dissipating, heart rate subsiding, Clete remembers his planned rendezvous with a couple of kind-hearted twin strippers who work in one of the seedy off-Bourbon joints. Clete needs a cocktail and a nice place to court two sisters.

Clete strolls into the alcove-entrance at Sylvain, just a few blocks shy of St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square. He wears a white linen suit, powder blue shirt, pork-pie hat, cordovan loafers, and a double act of over-blond exotic dancers, one on each arm.

Murf Reeves, betattooed bouncer turned bar manager, glances up from behind a wooden bar, spies the behemoth of a man wearing a duo of honey-colored-entertainers. Murf’s usually unreadable bouncer countenance unfolds into a smile, that furls into an across the bar handshake-man-side-hug, and introductions. “Sit, Clete. I got the perfect drink for you.”

Murf grabs a bottle of Bulliet Bourbon and pours 1.5 oz into a shaker. Tosses in 0.5 oz. Lemonheart 151, 0.5 oz. Carpana Antica, and 0.5 oz. Cinnamon syrup. Tops the whole concoction off with a dash of lemon juice and shakes. He places a low-ball on the counter, fills it with ice, and pours. “I call this the Gumshoe’s Blackjack.” Murf says. “It’s like you Clete, a sweet hearted guy who packs a punch.”

The Recipe:

Gumshoe’s Blackjack

1.5oz. bulliet bourbon

0.5oz. Lemonheart 151

0.5oz. Carpana Antica

0.5oz. Cinnamon syrup

0.25oz. Lemon juice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker, shake well, and then pour over ice into the glass of your choice.

Murf Reeves is not a fictional construct. He is very real. He’s the bar manger at Sylvain, and a brilliant mixologist. If you find yourself strolling the streets of the French Quarter, saunter into the beautiful courtyard at 625 Chartres Street and sidle up to the bar. Ask for a Gumshoe’s Blackjack. Tell ‘em Nashville private investigator Thomas H. Humphreys sent you. You will not be disappointed.

[FIND] Expertise - How to use your PI - Part 2: The How's Background Research

In this episode of [FIND] Expertise, Nashville private investigator, Thomas H. Humphreys, continues his discussion about how to best utilize your private investigator.

Part 2 - The How's - Background Research

In a criminal case, be it white-collar crime or assault, it is often very helpful to construct a detailed background on each of the key players. But painting a true, detailed picture of each character requires far more than a simple criminal records search. A professional investigator digs deep, makes hundreds of calls, knocks on doors, and follows narrative threads that can make or break a case.

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) was accused of rape in May of 2010, his defense team hired professional investigators. Media outlets decried the practice of “digging up dirt” on the victim, claiming that this would turn a jury against the defense. However, in the end it was this very research into the credibility of the victim that lead to the dismissal of charges by the district attorney.

The investigators in the DSK case didn’t just poke around; they hauled through every point of interest exhaustively, chasing down countless leads. At the end of the day, they painted a picture of a woman who had been turning tricks in the hotel for months, an opportunist with sketchy associations. Her credibility shot, the case went away.

Your client doesn’t have to be a public figure to justify the services of a professional investigator. A case we just finished up last year involved an older gentleman who had filed a workers compensation claim against his employer. Our background investigation turned up a pending bankruptcy, filed just prior to the "accident," and two (count them, 2) convictions for fraud (making false statements), both fraud convictions were insurance related. Short story, case was dropped, post haste.

From simple assault to rape to fraud, a detailed background investigation into all of the players can make or break a case. Done properly and in a timely manner, this type of investigation can many times even avoid a trial altogether.

Background Research – The Experts

You know the state is going to parade out a troupe of experts, recognized professionals who will testify for the prosecution. These experts have, in theory, been vetted by the court.

The term vet, as a verb, is a vestige from the horse track. A thoroughbred must be checked for health and soundness by a veterinarian before it is allowed to race. Vet, therefore, simply means to check, to analyze and evaluate prior to a performance. In this situation, it is imperative to thoroughly vet all experts, the ones the prosecution is putting forth as well as the ones you plan to use.

A local law firm decided to rely on an appraisal report, prepared by a highly credentialed appraiser, in a fraud case involving eminent domain. The appraiser prepared the report using sales that occurred after the taking had been announced, a factor that greatly impacted real estate values in the immediate area. This is improper methodology, and it is potentially misleading. Had the law firm thought to vet the expert, they would have learned that he had been – in a very public way – excused from a previous court case for this very same practice. Since they relied on credentials alone, they ended up in a bit of a pickle when their expert was exposed as not-so-expert after all.

The Case of the Inexpert Appraiser was one that any professional investigator, especially one with experience in real estate and fraud, would have discovered in relatively short order. It was reported in a local newspaper. There are countless such “experts” who, if properly vetted, could be excused.

Use your investigator to do the homework. Paying an investigator to do the research is much less expensive than taking your time to pore through the Code of Professional Conduct for Professional Engineers. 

Tune in next week for Part 3, The How's - Locating Witnesses...

Book Cook Cook Book - Public-Sector Accounting Tricks

Some thoughts on public-sector accounting by Nashville private investigator, Thomas H. Humphreys, CFE.

As a Certified Fraud Examiner, I am often asked to take a look-see at balance sheets, cash flows, and profit and loss statements, budgets, etc. There are tried and true methods of identifying book cooking. We check figures horizontally and vertically against established criteria. We search for anomalies. We identify oddities.

This week's (April 7 -13, 2012) The Economist ran an article on page 84 titled "Book-cooking guide," a brief piece about public-sector accounting practices, practices that wouldn't stand up in the private-sector.

Corporation realizes the sale of an asset on this month's books, but doesn't get paid until next year. It's a simple, yet fraudulent, way to make the numbers look better today.

Company defers the cost of an asset they just acquired until the next accounting period, again fluffing the books. But apparently in the public sector, these tactics are generally accepted. 

Portugal effectively lowered its deficit in 2010 and 2011. Did they do this through fiscal responsibility? No. They cooked the books, "...by taking over pension assets from private companies without recognising the new public liabilities." Here in the good old US of A under the leadership of one of our most beloved fiscal heroes, President Reagan, we cooked the books to meet a deficit target. How? We just delayed military pay and Medicare payments for a bit. 

Down here in the real world, there are accounting standards to meet. Shell games and sleight of hand are not at all encouraged and are generally treated as fraud. However, in the world where a couple billion here and a couple billion there add up to real money, freely adjusting the books is commonplace.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) apparently are asking that public sector shenanigans be placed under more scrutiny, something along the lines of asking governments to follow private-sector accounting rules. The IMF has also chimed in with their own, "...laundry list of ways to keep sneaky politicians in check." 

As the writer of the article in The Economist says, "Don't hold your breath."

[FIND] Expertise - How to use your PI - Part 1: The Why's

This series of posts is exerpted from an article produce by Nashville private investigator, Thomas H. Humphreys for Pursuit Magazine. Thomas H. Humphreys holds the CFE designation from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He is [FIND] Investigaitons' lead investigator.

How to best use a private investigator Part 1

If you're a busy attorney, and you've never considered hiring a private investigator, you're throwing away money. No matter how skilled, experienced, or efficient you are, you can't possibly get to all the work that crosses your desk. You can't do the fishing for case-making facts as thoroughly as you would like. And you can't be an expert in everything.

What if you could outsource some of that time, shoe leather, and expertise, bill for it, and say yes to a wider variety of cases? How smart would you look if you had a savvy private eye in your rolodex, a gal with a hefty rolodex of her own?

The Whys:

Outsource Work

The May 5, 2011 edition of The Economist printed a two-page story about the legal industry in America. They use Howrey (one of the world’s top 100 law firms) as an example of sea-change facing the profession. Aside from bankruptcy, securities litigation, and regulation issues, the world of 700 member law firms has been hit hard. Gone are the lucrative mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and it seems that clients are seeking, even demanding, alternatives to the ubiquitous billable hour.

One point The Economist makes: Clients are demanding “…that their lawyers pass certain routine work to cheaper contractors.”

Should lead counsel be in the field interviewing witnesses, canvasing neighborhoods, and personally vetting experts? Someone must, but these things take a lot of time and often lead to endless cul-de-sacs of evidentiary dead ends. Why not pay a professional investigator to track down hard-to-find witnesses, canvas the area, and vet experts?

Outsource Expertise

It used to be that an associate could read up on a topic and brief the partner, each being paid handsomely for the private course of study. Now, more often than not, it makes more sense to bring in a qualified expert in certain fields, pay her a flat fee or lower hourly rate, and likely be better informed in the long run.

The Economist points out that law firms can guarantee themselves work by becoming “…experts in other industries, not just areas of legal practice.” An alternative to this, The Economist points out, would be outsourcing the expertise.

That’s where professional investigators come in. An attorney can leverage expertise, an investigative firm’s collective experience, to his own benefit. A true professional investigator either maintains expertise in various areas, or maintains affiliations with industry specific experts. Either way, an adept lawyer will realize the value of knowing a professional investigator, the consummate information professional, the guy who knows a guy.

First and foremost, attorneys are experts in the law. Some lawyers also craft themselves into industry specific experts: real estate, finance, criminal defense, aviation, medical malpractice, etc. The lawyer/expert is usually a person who takes on one type of case and charges top-of-the market fees for his niche. However, for the majority in the legal profession, criminal defense work can mean anything from a criminal charge for inadvertently carrying a four-inch pocketknife through airport security (a misdemeanor in Tennessee, apparently) to first-degree murder (widely accepted as felonious activity anywhere in the country), and literally anything in between.

Experts in the law, a general defense team should be well equipped to argue legal points; but what about specific issues in obscure cases from various disciplines in which they are not schooled?

Can, or should, counsel review a real estate appraisal report for a fraud case? It seems easy enough, but what about making sure the report follows Uniform Standards of Appraisal Practice? What are the four forces that are required to create value? These are industry-specific issues in which most attorneys do not (nor should they be expected to) have any competency.

Would it be advisable for a lawyer to analyze blood spatter in a crime scene photo? Should an attorney be expected to break down a financial statement and explain in detail whether it is misleading or fraudulent?

Why not hire a professional investigator knowledgeable in that field to bring one up to speed? By delegating work to experts in various fields, counsel makes his firm look savvy, connected, and thorough.

In the end, law firms must decide on a case-by-case basis whether to add a PI to the defense team. If your client left his cheese knife in his backpack after a weekend of hiking and finds himself in the clutches of TSA and airport police, an investigator probably isn’t necessary. If, however, your client has been charged with fraud in conjunction with an eleventy-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to consider hiring a professional investigator. Client is a local charged with DUI, no real need for a PI. Client’s an international banking mogul charged with attempted rape, you bet a PI is one of your first calls.

Part 2: The How's will post next week.

The Sartorial Sleuth - Bow Tie Season Is Upon Us...

Image from I, Sensualist via Nantucketyouth.