Posts Tagged ‘Myers Investigative Services’

« Older entries

Alleged Abuser Claimed ‘Ghost’ Attacked His Wife

By Dawn in Crime, Investigations, MSI Detective Services, Violence at January 23rd, 2012 | No comments

 

 

 

 

A Wisconsin man charged with domestic abuse told police that a “ghost” had attacked his wife and was responsible for her injuries.

The weird story by Michael West, 41, did not provide much of a defense as police arrested him for strangulation, battery, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.

After responding to a report of a domestic dispute on Jan. 15, at the West residence in Fond du Lac, Wis., police found West’s wife crying and bleeding from the nose. Drops of blood stained areas of the kitchen and her Packers’ jersey.

The woman told police her husband repeatedly punched her in the face and attempted to strangle her “to the point that [her] vision went black and [she] felt like she was going to pass out,” the report said. In a criminal complaint, the victim says that when she tried to dial 911, her husband punched her in the face.

Police said West appeared intoxicated and was yelling and swearing at the two officers questioning him. The man claimed his wife had fallen several times, causing her to sustain injuries to her face and neck.

When pressed by a cop–who pointed to marks on the woman’s neck–the intoxicated West replied with slurred speech and shifted his story. “A ghost did it,” he said.

After a struggle, he was handcuffed and transported to the county lockup, where he remains in custody in lieu of $1000 bail.

His wife told police the fight was started over the impending foreclosure on their home.

Sources: MSNBC and The Smoking Gun

Tags: , , , , ,

Missing Cruise Ship Passenger Turns up Safe in Germany

By Dawn in Investigations, Missing Persons, Missing Persons Investigations, MSI Detective Services, witness statement at January 18th, 2012 | No comments

 

 

 

 

 

A German woman listed as missing from the Costa Concordia was located alive in Germany.

According to the Associated Press, Gertrud Goergens alerted police in Germany that she was alive and well. Goergens was removed from the official list of missing late Wednesday. There are still twenty-three passengers and three crew members missing.

Eleven bodies have been recovered. Currently, only one has been publicly identified as being crew member Sandor Feher, 38, of Hungary. The adult bodies, believed to be passengers, were all wearing life jackets and were found in the rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point.

Jozsef Balog, a pianist who worked with Feher who was a violinist, told the Budapest newspaper Blikk that Feher was wearing a life-jacket when he decided to return to his cabin to pack his violin. Feher was last seen on deck en route to a lifeboat. According to Balog, Feher helped put life-jackets on several crying children before returning to his cabin.

I believe one thing that caught the attention of viewers as this story aired was how close the ship was to land. Read the full article »

Tags: , , , ,

A Clerical Error Landed Kathleen Casey on the Streets

By Dawn in Background Checks, court cases, Criminal Background Check, Criminal Records, legal papers, MSI Detective Services, Police Records, Private Investigator at December 21st, 2011 | No comments

 

 

 

 

 

If you are an employer needing background checks performed on prospective employees, MSI Detective Services offers this service. Mistakes won’t be make like the ones you will read about in this story because we have the means to accurately check and cross-check information. For example, in the first story, our staff would have noticed that the birth date did not match the age of the individual, and even if it did, one of our Private Investigators would have pulled the police report to ensure they had the right person. Employers should also know that they are required by law to inform job applicants when they have been rejected because of negative information in a background check. This gives the applicant an opportunity to clear up any mis-information. So, unless you want a lawsuit on your hands, you are advised to do a proper background check and follow the law.

Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, Casey applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.

It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.

There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.

Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.

“It knocked my legs out from under me,” she says.

The business of background checks is booming. Employers spend at least $2 billion a year to look into the pasts of their prospective employees. They want to make sure they’re not hiring a thief, or worse.

But it is a system weakened by the conversion to digital files and compromised by the welter of private companies that profit by amassing public records and selling them to employers. These flaws have devastating consequences. Read the full article »

Tags: , , ,

Man Passed Driver’s Test While “Catatonic” – Admits to Workers’ Comp Fraud

By Dawn in Crime, Investigations, MSI Detective Services, Private Investigator, scam, Surveillance Services, Theft Investigations at December 7th, 2011 | No comments

Martin Lobatos must be a really good driver, because he passed his driver’s test with an above-average score when he was supposedly on the verge of catatonia.

Lobatos and his wife, Belen Luna Lobatos, have both entered guilty pleas, after being indicted by a grand jury, in what appears to have been over a year long workers’ compensation scam. The couple live in Aurora, Denver. They are accused of stealing $120,000 worth of workers’ compensation funds from Pinnacol Assurance. Eventually, a private investigator was hired and Lobatos was placed under surveillance. However, before this happened, Martin Lobatos led doctors and the insurance company down a road of twists and turns.

Martin was working as a roofer. On September 29, 2008, he fell six to ten feet from a ladder, face first, causing him to briefly lose consciousness — although that’s in dispute. He was taken to Vail Valley Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with a wrist fracture, two broken ribs and a closed head injury that caused a small abrasion and some swelling. A CT scan on his head and neck came back negative, and he was discharged from the medical center the same day he was admitted.

Lobatos filed a workers’ comp claim on September 30. After returning to work full-time on October 21, he began complaining of headaches, dizziness, vertigo, and blurred vision. An MRI on October 28 didn’t show any reason for these symptoms, but he claimed that they persisted. A doctor who examined him in April 2009 couldn’t find any medical reason for his continuing issues. This doctor determined that Lobatos had reached maximum medical improvement (MMI) and assigning him what the indictment describes as a “zero-percent impairment rating.”

Lobatos was terminated from his job that same month (April) and subsequent to him declining to accept a $20,000 settlement from Pinnacol Assurance in September 2009, Lobatos started to complain of new symptoms, including dizziness, memory loss, difficulty recognizing his own children, inability to use stairs without help, pain caused by eating, chewing, bright lights, and the weather. Lobatos was quite convincing and a second physician rejected his predecessor’s findings, determining that the MMI ruling was premature. Read the full article »

Tags: , , , ,

« Older entries