What are the benefits to having a private investigator conduct interviews when preparing for a case?
Thomas Ruskin, President of the CMP Protective and Investigative Group in NYC, speaks at the American Bar Association (ABA) Family Law Section CLE Conference in Stowe, VT (2014).
Thomas Ruskin, President of the CMP Protective and Investigative Group in NYC, speaks at the American Bar Association (ABA) Family Law Section CLE Conference in Stowe, VT (2014).
Tom talks about the importance of using a private investigative firm that can prepare court admissible evidence.
When we talk about a private investigative firm, what are the benefits to hiring a private investigative firm over a licensed individual?
The benefits of a private investigative firm:
We started in one case, a tremendous case out of New York State, where the husband was arrested. He was returning the kids as per legal and custody visitation, on a Sunday. He brings the kids back to the mother’s apartment at about 1:10 in the afternoon. He returns the kids. One of the kids had forgotten something at his apartment five blocks away. He ran back with the kids and comes back around 1:23 in the afternoon and returns the kids. No event or special occurrence had happened.
That night at 8:12 in the evening, she calls the N.Y.P.D. and she reports that her husband, seven hours before, had assaulted her. That he had grabbed her face and punched her in the eye. She had slight swelling and redness by the side of her eye when the N.Y.P.D. was there, they took a couple of photos.
We were brought into the case shortly thereafter to investigate the criminal side. What happened is that this case blew up, it’s a very well known case of Mehos vs Mehos.
We were brought in on the criminal side. Eventually we proved, on the Friday before the alleged assault, she had botox injections and juvederm. That was the mark on her face where he supposedly grabbed her. The markings and the redness underneath her eye had been caused over two days after bad dermatologist injected her with botox.
Needless to say, this turned into a custody battle. What came out of this case, the criminal side, was a total civil investigation into her drug and alcohol use. We ended up surveilling her for countless numbers of days to show that she was manipulating the drug system. She was going to different drug stores with different prescriptions with different doctors.
Eventually she lost custody of her children and are now living out of state. The judge was so appalled by some of the behavior of this woman they gave full custody to the father. The father is now living with the kids back in his home state of Texas.
Thomas Ruskin 