March 15, 2023

Disaster Fraud, Moving to a New State, and Percipient Witnesses

This week, Adam answers questions about financial crimes, how a detective could go about becoming a police chief in another state, and he explains what it means to be a percipient witness.

This week, Adam answers questions about financial crimes, how a detective could go about becoming a police chief in another state, and he explains what it means to be a percipient witness.

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Transcript

 I'm Adam Richardson, and this is The Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 131 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. This week I'm answering questions about financial crimes, how a detective could go about becoming a police chief in another state, and explaining what it means to be a percipient witness.

Our first question comes from Jean Hernandez who writes that she's currently writing a screenplay for a procedural detective fiction story taking place in post pandemic Miami, Florida. Though this is more fiction than documentary, I find it difficult to get accurate answers for the information I need online.

Fundamentally. The answer I need is why city police are ineffective against the rise of cybercrime and fraud. Over the past couple of years, post Pandemic Street gangs and local businesses have taken advantage of Covid aid sent by the government. But what that did was shift the crime culture from drugs to one of fraud, as with anything related to fraud.

Miami is at the forefront. Street gangs are buying American identities from criminal Russian websites and killing themselves for the money they get. Though I understand the FBI are the ones capable of going after these criminals, local police seem to have their hands tied. I had the story focus on a financial crimes unit.

I can't seem to find a clear procedure to string the storyline. Any help is appreciated. Thank you. You've come to the right place. Jean, thank you for the question. The reality is that we in law enforcement are short-staffed and we are constantly triaging the calls we prioritize. Since your story is set in Miami, let's look at specifics.

Historically, Miami used to be. Routinely ranked as one of the more violent cities in the United States, but as of March, 2023, as I'm recording this, Miami is seeing the fruits of its recent efforts to partner with community organizations to drive their murder rate and violent crime rates lower, which is amazing, but that is clearly a citywide policing priority.

That is pulling effort and attention away from cyber crime or fraud to add to the triage or the prioritization of cases. Even if you have an active financial crimes unit, they will likely prioritize cases that have victims that are reporting the crimes, which is kind of the rub when we're talking about covid aid fraud.

The victim is the government. If a grandmother has her lifesaving siphoned away, you will likely have a devastated victim that is going straight to the police, or perhaps it's a bank employee that is making the report to the police because she thinks something is wrong. Either way, a real victim is reporting the crime, and in this case, the squeaky wheel often gets the oil.

When I was a property crimes detective, which included fraud cases, I remember having cases where a victim would report her credit card being used or money taken from a bank account, and she'd report it to my department, which is how I got involved, and to her bank or credit card company. What normally happened was the bank or credit card company reimbursed the victim for her loss, which then made the company the victim, and then the company would refuse to provide me any suspect information or pursue any kind of prosecution.

They just ate it as a loss, as an operating expense. But you're right, gene, that local police department is ill-equipped to go after transnational cyber criminals. Now, in the specific case of covid aid fraud, the United States Justice Department does handle those investigations through their National Center for disaster fraud.

In fact, they have a website for people to report violations. The website is justice.gov/coronavirus, which I hope will help your research. Based upon the National Center for Disaster Fraud's website, it looks like their resources include a handful of agencies within the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, such as the FBI, secret Service, who would get involved, uh, from both the counterfeiting aspect and then potentially credit card fraud.

Um, the US Postal Inspector, if anything was done through the mail. The D H s, department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General fema, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Small Business Administration's Office of the Inspector General, which is an OIG office separate from the D H S O I G.

Now I know we're getting into this alphabet soup here. The oig, the Office of Inspectors General is a pretty fascinating concept. Each federal agency has an OIG that has a presidentially appointed Inspector General as its head, the OIG technically falls under the head of its respective agency. But it is considered an independent auditor and investigator against waste and fraud.

And yes, there are sworn federal law enforcement investigators or 18 elevens, which is the Federal Job classification for a law enforcement investigator, like a special agent of the FBI or Secret Service, one of those. So it's the same job class in 1811. So there are 18 elevens in those offices of Inspectors General.

You can see the full list of OIG offices at the inspectors general directory on the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency web website. Man, that's a mouthful. So rather than having to do that, I will link to the show notes rather than having to spell everything out. So if you go to the show notes, writers detective.com/ 1 3 1, that will take you to the Office of Inspectors, general Counsel of the Inspectors General on Integrity Inefficiency website, but to get back to the National Center for Disaster Fraud.

It looks to have 80 investigators in the executive director is actually the current United States attorney for the middle district of Louisiana. Why Louisiana? Because the National Center for Disaster Fraud was born from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thank you so much for the question, gene.

Chris Moody writes, if someone is a detective in a big city, Decides he wants to spend his retirement as the police chief in a small town in another state, which has only officers and no detectives because say a normal Friday night is making sure there isn't any drunk driving. What tests, if any, would he have to pass?

Specifically thinking about a city like Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show. Thanks for the question, Chris, a former partner of mine actually did exactly this. She retired from my department as a detective and then became the chief of a really small town. I think there were only a handful of officers, uh, somewhere in middle America.

But from a strictly bare minimum legal standpoint, the detective needs to become certified. In that state as a peace officer or whatever the legal title is for that state. Here in California, we're all peace officers, whether we are police officers, deputy sheriffs, highway patrol officers, fish and wildlife wardens, whatever.

Legally we are all considered peace officers. It's kind of a catch all term. To become certified in that state, you either need to attend a police academy in that state, or in some cases, uh, other states may recognize your existing training from your home state and issue either a waiver letter or some sort of, uh, equivalency.

Essentially something that shows that your previous training has been considered equivalent to what their state requires, and there is often some sort of state exam in order to show that you have that competency. Most often though, there's some sort of a abbreviated course for out-of-state peace officers followed by an exam at the end.

Just because I'm fully trained to be a peace officer in California does not mean that I know what. The criminal code or the vehicle code sections are in some other state that I moved to. Depending on which states you choose, Chris will determine the specific route that your character needs to take. I'd Google the name of the state that your character will become chief in, and then search for the terms.

Post P O S T, which can stand for either peace officer standards and training or police officers standards and training, depending on which state it is. And then I would also search for peace officer out-of-state reciprocity, out-of-state peace officer eligibility or peace officer training equivalency, and see what the results say about the state, where your character had been a detective, and what it says for the state of where your now chief is going to be.

But that's just the bare minimum. To get certified to become a chief, you have to get hired by a city or township, and that can be a very competitive process. And there are specific classes cops can take to better prepare themselves for the role of becoming a police chief. There are also professional organizations that provide.

Ongoing trainings as well, such as the I A C P, the International Association of Chiefs of Police. If your character had been in middle management, so let's say a rank, um, certainly higher than detective, but usually a lieutenant or above, they might have had an opportunity to attend the F B I National Academy at Quantico.

These are not necessarily required. Training courses, but they would certainly improve the likelihood of your character winning out that job over somebody else to become a police chief. Thanks so much for your question, Chris.

Joan Raymond sent in this next question, and I wanna mention real quick that Joan has a wonderful YouTube channel all about writing, which you can find by going to youtube.com/at a heart for writing. So it's the at symbol a heart for writing. If you weren't aware, YouTube is now. Taken on just like everyone else, the at symbol for usernames, so youtube.com/at a heart for writing.

I'll also link to it in the show notes writers detective.com/ 1 3 1. But Joan writes in my story, a detective and ex-wife are seen arguing. Later, she turns up dead. They questioned him and his alibi checks out. Would he be able to work the case or would it be a conflict of interest? How much leeway do I have on keeping him on the case?

Uh, the old loved one involved in the investigation trick, the answer is not much leeway at all. Having him involved in the case at all would jeopardize the case if and when it goes to trial with the real suspect. As the defense attorney could rightly argue that the police inserted a potential suspect, one of their detectives into the investigation, which brings the entire investigation into suspicion.

How can my client get a fair shake when the victim's ex-husband is involved? Any chance of the ex being shown to be the real suspect was swept under the rug. By his having access to the investigation and the evidence. To avoid this, the police department would not allow the ex to be involved other than being a witness.

The fact that he may have been the last one to see her alive would likely make him a percipient witness anyway, which probably begs the question, what is a percipient witness? According to Cornell law, a percipient witness is a witness who has obtained knowledge of an event directly through their senses, generally through sight.

An eyewitness or hearing an ear witness. So an eyewitness is obviously the most common example of a percipient witness. Could also be an ear witness, someone that heard the argument or heard the gunshot, but it's any of the senses. So if you write a story where a husband is poisoned at a cocktail party and the wife happened to taste his drink and later testifies that she tasted almond flavor, does that make her a tongue witness, regardless of the sense or the organ she used to detect it?

She is a percipient witness, which is any witness that has obtained knowledge of an event directly through their senses. Which begs my question, what is your question? Send it to me no matter how small the question by going to writers detective.com/podcast. And huge thanks to my Patreon patrons for sponsoring this episode, especially my Gold Shield patrons, Deborah Dunbar from Deborah dunbar.com.

CC Jameson from cc jameson.com. Larry Darter, Natalie Burelli, Craig Kingsman of Craig kingsman.com. Marco o' Carroll Ka of Marco o' Carroll ka.com. Rob Kerns of Knights fall press.com. Robert Mendenhall of Robert j mendenhall.com Kayleigh and the Puget Sound chapter of Sisters in Crime for their support.

Along with my silver Cufflink and Coffee Club patrons. You can find links to all of the patrons supporting this episode in the show notes@writersdetective.com. Slash 1 3 1. Thanks again for listening. Have a great week and write well.