In episode 36 of The Real Talk, Raquel Ramirez interviews private investigator, Martin Silber, as they discuss the misconceptions about PIs, the diverse cases they handle beyond infidelity investigations, and Martin's background in the field.
Tune in for an engaging conversation about the complexities of private investigation.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:02] Investigating Over 200 Death Cases.
[00:06:29] Creative Process Serving Techniques.
[00:10:37] Innocence Project and Wrongful Convictions.
[00:13:41] Investigating Inheritance and Wills.
[00:16:24] Financial Forensic Accountants and Colonoscopies.
[00:20:19] The Importance of Details.
[00:23:36] Estate Cases and Domestic Violence.
[00:27:16] Elderly Exploitation and Serial Killer.
[00:30:55] Crime Rates Before Technology.
[00:35:53] Background Checks for Dating.
[00:38:09] Credit History and Renting Challenges.
[00:41:21] Cheating Spouse Implications in Divorce.
In this episode, Raquel Ramirez and Martin Silber highlight how background checks are a crucial aspect of various situations. Martin emphasizes the importance of conducting background checks in different scenarios. One of the primary reasons for background checks is pre-employment hiring. Employers need to know who they are hiring to ensure the safety and security of their workplace.
Additionally, Martin mentions that private investigators serve as valuable resources in legal cases by uncovering information that may not be easily accessible through traditional means. Their ability to gather evidence, corroborate statements, and uncover breaches in agreements can make a significant impact on the outcome of legal proceedings.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Raquel Ramirez
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/featured_properties_intl/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/featuredre
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-ramirez/
WEBSITES:
The Real Talk: https://www.therealtalkpodcast.net/
Featured Properties International: https://msha.ke/featuredre
Martin Silber and Associates Private Investigations: https://msa-investigations.com/
Welcome to The Real Talk. I'm Raquel Ramirez, your host and real estate professional here to bring you insightful conversations, expert advice, and powerful stories about what really goes on in life, love, divorce, and real estate. Are you ready? Let's get real. Hello and welcome to The Real Talk podcast. How are you doing today?
Raquel Ramirez
I'm doing fine, thank you.
Martin Silber
Thank you so much for accepting my invitation to join me for an episode of The Real Talk. For those of you who are tuning in, I am speaking with Martin Silber today. Believe it or not, he is a PI, and by that I mean private investigator, and you have quite the interesting background. I know you and I have had great conversations about your past and how you came to be a private investigator and different kinds of cases you've dealt with, and I think it's Fascinating. It happens to fall somewhat in line with with what I do in the sense that, you know, I work with complicated cases. And so I hear from attorneys having to engage PIs from time to time, either to find someone or to locate something or to tune in to a specific conversation, all manner of things. And I think that we forget, as you know, the typical public, if you will, that PI is a lot more than just spying on somebody who cheated on you. So It's a lot more than that. And you have quite the background and quite the experience. And I can't wait to dive into this. But before we do, tell us a little bit about you and your company. And I guess that would be the best segue into our conversation.
Raquel Ramirez
Well, again, I'm a prime investigator. The company name is Martin Silber and Associates. And I've been doing this for investigations for about 10 years. And prior to that, I was a detective with Miami-Dade Police and I worked for various assignments, including the Robbery Bureau, Public Corruption Investigation Bureau and five years as a homicide detective.
Martin Silber
That's a lot of investigating you've done.
Raquel Ramirez
Yes. In those five years, I I could say I probably investigated over 200 death cases, not just homicide, but including accidental deaths, you know, suicides, all kinds of different types of death cases.
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. That is a lot. You would think in five years. But it's like you said, it's not just homicide. It's it's a variety of different reasons for death that you presume have to be called on the scene to to look at, investigate and figure out if there was foul play or not or what were the reasons for that? Do you think that prepared you for wanting to go into P.I. later on after you're I presume you're retired. You're a retired Miami-Dade Police Department officer.
Yes, I retired in 2013, and I shortly after that, I decided to continue doing something I enjoy doing, which is investigations. And that's why I've been doing this for about 10 years. I find it rewarding and enjoyable.
That's awesome. That's awesome. And first and foremost, thank you very much for your service. I obviously say that a lot to my military vets, but I say that also to law enforcement. I'm part of law enforcement family. So I do know what you all go through. And I do thank you for for being in the front lines in our community. So appreciate that very much. So then tell us then, I guess it was a natural progression right after you got out of Miami-Dade Police Department to go into investigations. What What is a typical day for you, I guess, when somebody calls you and says, you know, and where do you normally get your calls? You get calls from just, you know, regular people saying, I have a problem. Is it mostly corporate calls from like attorneys or institutions or a variety?
I get calls from various types of clients I have. I deal with small companies, large corporations, attorneys, private citizens. It's just a mix and it's a mix of all different types of clients.
Yeah.
And I would say that attorneys are usually the ones that I deal most with.
Most with. Yeah. Would that be like on the family side, civil side, like we're criminal?
I criminal attorneys, civil attorneys, family attorneys, estate attorneys and actually other attorneys, too, because one of the things I do is I'll I can I find people, people that are usually hiding or trying to be avoid being served subpoenas and so on. If someone's I will. help them find those people so they can serve them with their proper documentation.
People do some really bizarre things to try to stay under the radar. But I guess, especially in today's age, right, where we have technology, which is a double-edged sword, if you ask me, I guess there's kind of really no way to hide. I mean, if you've been alive at least in the last 20 years, you know, You're bound to have a picture, a thumbprint, a footprint somewhere, whether it's digitally or otherwise. But I would say digitally is probably the biggest antagonist here. Do you find that you use that type of technology maybe to track people down more than anything else?
Yes. I have a proprietary database that I use, among other things, to find people. And it'll give me a list of most likely locations the person might be. That being said, a processor can go to that house, knock on the door, and they may not have a photo of what the person looks like, and that person could say, that person doesn't live here anymore, and just leave it at that. But I have a ways around that as well.
Of course, yeah, you have to get creative. I bet you have to get creative because if you're evading, chances are you've done a good job and you've gotten creative yourself. So you have to kind of think like somebody like that might, right, in order to, you know, figure a way out and identify who they might be. That's interesting.
Well, an example for that, you know, and you're right. I recently had a case where the person was avoiding being served a subpoena. So what I did is I obtained a a t-shirt that showed a delivery service on it and I had a gift basket and I knocked on the door and I videotaped the whole thing and I asked for the person because I have a gift basket I'm delivering and that person did not suspect a process server at that point in time and he accepted the gift basket. I was able to document it was him that he lived there and of course the attorney was able to serve the subpoena now that they knew what the person looked like and I was able to document that the person lived there.
Oh, that's true, because you're right. Now that I think about it, there are some attorneys who might not know who the opposing person might be. They've never necessarily met them. They work for their client. And if they're trying to track them down and they've never met them before, they don't know. They don't really know who they're looking for. Exactly.
Well, needless to say, the person that received the gift basket to this day is probably trying to figure out who sent it.
What would be your most, I guess, your most exciting or your most creative case that you can share? Anything that maybe took you out of the norm?
Well, there's one case I worked a few years ago and it's still pending, but it had involved an attorney who was arrested by the FBI for investment fraud. Oh no. And it turned out that the person used as the key witness was the perpetrator, not the attorney, because they gave him immunity. And this was several years ago. The attorney was sentenced to about 23 years in prison. And after several years, he reached out to us and I was able to meet with the witness that said, you know, put everything on the attorney. And under oath, he gave me a sworn statement because the statute of limitations of perjury had expired.
Oh no.
And he was able to tell me that he lied about everything. So that's helpful in the case. And now that you mentioned that, one of my pet projects that I like to do is deal with people that are innocent in prison that were falsely convicted. And for example, the Innocence Project, they state, you know, their research shows that about two to five percent of prisoners in the United States are totally innocent.
Oh my God.
That's scary. And in my career as a police officer, I put away a lot of bad people.
Mm-hmm.
But nothing's more rewarding than that, than to get someone that's totally innocent, that's in prison, get them out. And that's what I really, that's my most like, the most enjoyable thing that I like to do.
Yeah, that's almost like a passion project.
Yeah, it is.
And you've been successful, I presume.
Yes. Yes. And I have a couple of cases I'm working right now. It looks favorable that we're going to be able to get that to happen as well. So I enjoy it. And there's different reasons why people are falsely convicted. It could be eyewitness misidentification. Oh, sure. False confessions, unreliable or false evidence. You have informants or snitches that are willing to lie just to get a better deal. Could be also prosecutorial misconduct. And just to dump a bunch of other things, you know, there's a list of things why people can be falsely convicted.
You know, now that you say that, that reminds me of a movie, which I'm sure you've seen, and it's a very popular, it's an old classic, 12 Angry Men. And I remember one of the things when you said, you know, a false eyewitness, when they started talking about if the woman really saw the guy, or if it was the guy, I can't remember, it's an old movie I haven't seen in a while. But did they really see them? Were they wearing their glasses? Were they not wearing their glasses? Was it dark? Was it too bright? Was it raining? Whatever. Those details do make a difference.
It happens. And it happens a lot.
Sure. And you can be at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person taking a look at you.
And on another note, there's a lot of people that get convicted, arrested and convicted because you're mentally ill. So we have a mental illness issue in the United States that is not being taken care of properly. The system is not geared for that. And we have people that are arrested that are mentally ill and they keep going in and out of the system. It's a revolving door. And that's another issue that, you know, I would wish our government had more attention to resolving kind of a situation.
More resources, sure, more better training, maybe more ways to identify those cases, right, so that you can, what's the word I'm looking for, filter them properly and not misidentify, as you said before. Interesting, interesting. Wow. How long? I mean, well, I guess that's really just dependent. I was going to say, how long does it normally take for any of these, I guess, incidences in which you're hired to find someone? But I guess that's really just dependent on the case itself and where the people are. Are you limited, let's say, to like a specific county area, jurisdiction or state? Or can you go anywhere like nationwide, maybe globally? Are you limited at all?
Yes and no. I mean, we have other states, we have reciprocity that we can travel to and it's not an issue. And the states that do not require that, I can reach out and we have a network of investigators that we can retain to do the job that we need to do. So I've done it both ways.
Well, that's cool. That's cool. I didn't realize that. See, this is the kind of thing that I'm like totally oblivious to, because thankfully, I've always been on the right side of the law. I haven't had any major issues with anybody. And I'm certainly not hiding from anyone because I don't have anything to hide. But so, yeah, this is all really new to me. But I guess it's kind of interesting at the same time, because you watch all these shows, whether they're cop shows or investigative shows or whatever, and you see how some of this investigation takes place, but I presume it's not all glitz and glamour, right? It's not all fun and games like, you know, some of these shows and movies make it seem, right? I presume it takes a lot longer and it's a little more gruesome. Sometimes you go days or weeks without getting any information or finding anything happening, right? Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, it's definitely not glamorous like on TV. No, we don't just kick in doors and check a house without, you know, the proper authorities or warrant or anything like that. We just don't do that. But as far as finding people goes, you know, there's different reasons for that. I had mentioned before, you know, because someone's avoiding being served a subpoena or a summons. But there's other reasons for finding people such as someone might have passed away and they're not quite sure who, and they knew who the heir of that estate is, but they don't know where that person lives. So we do that. We'll find people that are eligible for the inheritance of someone that passed away and the estate attorney may not know where to find that person. So that's another thing we do. So in addition to speaking about estate attorneys, we also do nationwide bank and broker searches. So someone might pass away and the family may not have any idea what financial standings that person had before they passed away. And we can find that and let them know what they're entitled to.
Oh, interesting. That's kind of like the inverse of that. So yeah, I would say there's a lot, I would presume there's a lot of that. You know, nobody ever really stops to think about death and the aftermath of that. And if you have been identified as someone that could be in someone's will, whether it's somebody's, you know, maybe it's your grandparents, your great aunts or uncles or who never had children or who had children and they're just, I don't know, removed from their kids. I get there's just a number of reasons. And you wouldn't know that. That's actually something I don't want to be gruesome about it or. you know, or kind of a Debbie Downer, but I thought about that. I mean, I don't have a lot to give, but what if something did happen to me? Cause anything is possible. I could walk out my door and never come back. And I'm still relatively young and healthy, but what about after, what do I do with what I do have? Like, how do I you know, my sister, for example, or my significant other who doesn't do any of the bills here might not know where to look and they might not know necessarily what is available. So someone like you might be able to help them put all those pieces of the puzzle together to see if there's anything worth, you know, considering or worth saving.
Right. So like I said, we do asset searches.
Right.
And that's one example. Another example is if someone is suing someone else and they want to know, you know, if what they have is worth pursuing in a civil lawsuit. So that's another thing we can do asset searches for.
Oh yeah, yeah, that happens a lot, obviously, in marital cases, unfortunately. Some people try to get smart by hiding assets that they think their spouse never knew about. And yeah, so sometimes we've had to, actually, and that's a question also for you, if you've ever had to work with forensic accountants, because I know that forensic accountants will do kind of like a scrub through finances to figure out what may have been, blurred or erased from the equation. I don't know if you've ever had to work with them before, like any forensic CPAs.
Yes, actually, both before when I was in the Miami-Dade Police and when I was in public corruption, we did a lot of forensic accounting at a very big case back then that I'm not going to discuss because it's very involved in detail. But I did have a forensic accountant that we used back then, and it was very useful and helpful. And we do it now, too. We had a case I will not mention the company that the office manager stole several million dollars from that person. So that's where we use a financial forensic accountant. Yeah, those kind of things.
I met one, actually, I know one from a few organizations that I participate in, and I may have introduced them to you at some point. And he once mentioned that it's kind of having a financial colonoscopy is basically what they offer. A financial colonoscopy, which is, they get really in there to see.
I'll have to write that one down. I like that.
It just get really in there to see if all the sense add up and it could seem like something minor, but I feel like you've got to have a whole nother set of brain cells to focus that deeply into something. Cause I don't think I could do that, but I mean, but that's kind of like what you do say outside of a balance sheet, right? I mean, you might look into some of those things, but you, you basically do that. You scrub really well everywhere you can to see where those missing clues might be.
Right, again, someone might want to hide funds, like we said in the worst cases, one example. And if they're crazy enough to open up another account in their own name, and I find it, then they're basically screwed. And if they put the account in someone else's name, then of course, that's where a forensic accountant can see the transfers as to what account they did go into.
Right, right. That's interesting. So how about like, I guess, like surveillance and things like that? That's something that you also, I guess, have to do, right? To be able to track people down, identify them physically, right?
Right. Of course, the most notorious surveillance is because, you know, cheating spouse and that kind of thing. Yes, we do that. But in divorce cases, there's issues regarding child custody issues and there's another thing where they someone that might have already had a divorce and they have alimony uh contract or agreement where the the the ex-spouse is not allowed to cohabitate with another person other way it voids out the alimony agreement so uh we've done both you know and i'll first talk about the child custody we'll follow the for example someone might have the majority of custody of the child and my client who is not getting the fair share of the custody, they hire me to find out if the main person that has the custody of the child is doing anything that could be inappropriate for having a child and, you know, to take care of a child, anything that might be negative. So I've done of that nature when I was able to catch stuff on that. And, you know, that's just one of the things we do. And I forgot there was something else I was going to say regarding... Regarding guardianship? Oh yes, that's right. About the violation of the alimony agreement. I had a case once where the woman was receiving alimony and she was not allowed to cohabitate with another man, otherwise it's going to avoid the alimony agreement.
Right.
So I found out where she was living and I we had an idea who she had, whose boyfriend, she had a boyfriend, we had an idea who that person was. And I went there and I saw the car of the guys parked in a specific location. And I documented where the tire stems were on that car late at night. And then early in the morning, I'll go back in the morning and notice that the tire stems were in the same place. And I did that for a few days to show that there was a pattern, that the guy was staying there. And that was just one way we were able to prove that there was a violation of the alimony agreement.
The devil's in the details.
Yes.
Yep. That's what it is. I'm a very detailed person, so I notice those things just on a day-to-day basis. I think my significant other probably hates that. I'll walk in through the door and I can see from the corner of my eye if something has been moved, even if it was like, a tenth of a degree. So I presume I mean, I can understand that. Yeah. And I can I can see how those details would make a big difference, especially if you're documenting them properly, because I presume that that's key. I mean, you could see it and you can identify it. But if you don't document it accordingly, then there's no way to prove it.
Yes, absolutely. Documentation is key, and just about anything we do. Yes.
Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. You mentioned the thing about parental agreements. That's actually a huge thing, I would say. You know, when we talk about divorce, you know, I'm part of the National Association of Divorce Professionals, and you are too, actually, now that you've joined recently. So thank you. It's a pleasure to have you. And I'm sure we're going to be learning more and more from you. But you'll come to see, of course, that when in the divorce industry, we talk a lot about families and talk a lot about children because they often fall by the wayside, but they're heavily affected. And when it comes to parental agreements and guardianship and things like that, we do see a lot of mishandling of that situation where, as you said, they might have an agreement where parent A is supposed to be taking care of them and then parent B is for some reason outside of that picture or not getting the custody that they wish they had. And then parent A, for instance, spends most of the time traveling and leaving the child or the children with someone else. Maybe it's a grandparent. And even things like that might prove to be a violation of the parental agreement. And it could be other things, as you said, right? It could be condition, right? Property condition or environmental conditions as to whether or not they're safe for the child, if they're in danger in any shape or form, if they're going to school or not. What other examples can you give me about something like that that could be a problem?
Well, I've seen on more than one occasion, the child would be programmed by, let's say, one of the parents to lie about the other person.
Oh, yeah.
And, you know, and. They get there, they're afraid to say no, and they get they're just programmed and they have a therapist, usually, and they are compelled to lie to the therapist and the therapist may believe that the child and it's it's a hard thing to disprove. You know, it just. They do have guardian ad litems that are overseeing this. Right. But even with that, it's not necessarily going to be enough to prove that the child is being programmed to lie.
I was just going to say that even the guardian ad litems don't always get the full picture.
No, they don't.
And they can't necessarily press too hard, you know, if they have even a hunch that someone in the mix is lying, that's really hard to do. So yeah, that's where you would come in to highlight those details, those clues, right, that might prove otherwise, that could be really telling in a case.
That one, I have to admit, is probably pretty hard for even an investigator to prove, because I would have to interview the child and, you know, it's just hard, you know.
That gets really sticky. How about in those estate cases? You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I had a conversation with someone not too long ago, we were talking about, you know, what are the pros and cons of working, say, or specializing in divorce, because a lot of people think that it's kind of a gloomy topic, et cetera, et cetera. And I had to say, you know, out of, you know, all of the transactions that I've had and the families that I've worked with, the ones where I've seen more domestic violence has been in estate sales. And, you know, the reaction was, no way, you know, the the face of surprise, of shock. Yeah, you would think that there would be more domestic violence and domestic disputes with your spouse. Right. Especially if you're arguing about a divorce. But I've actually seen more of that when it comes to the estate side. And it's really sad because I've seen a couple of elderly people have to file restraining orders. And, you know, for instance, in my particular case, right. People don't know this or I think they don't think about this very much. But in real estate, we walk into strangers' homes all the time. We get into really sticky situations. We visit empty properties. We visit properties in questionable areas sometimes or properties that are not safe and secure. We go in at all hours of the day. We have no idea if there's a squatter or a person behind those closed doors. Sometimes there's no power, sometimes there's no Wi-Fi or any signal for your phone. I mean, so there are dangerous situations when you think about it. And so when I run into cases like that, right, regardless of who it is, you know, I always say, do you have a copy of the restraining order? May I have a picture of the person that you are referring to? Or can you describe them to me in detail? What should I be looking out for? At any point in time, that person knowing that the property is going up for sale, because that becomes public record, obviously, they can easily call another agent and say, hey, I'd like to see this property that's going up for sale and pose as somebody different. Or maybe that other agent wouldn't know any better. And then they show up to my open house or to my showing with somebody that shouldn't be there. And so I say all of that to kind of bring that, you know, all all the way around and say, you know, how many of your cases or have you encountered any cases where you had to? I guess I don't want to use the word spy. Right. Because I don't know if that's if that kind of produces a negative connotation to what you do, but investigate. Right. Any issues with elderly people, whether they're being mistreated or whether they're being, I don't know, taken against their will somewhere. Has that happened to you in the past?
Not necessarily taking where they don't belong, but I've had cases where they were called elderly, elderly exploitation, where and they have someone that might be a guardianship and they have stolen from the elderly. And so that's elderly exploitation. I've had cases like that. And it's unfortunate and it's sometimes it's even hard to prove because they're authorized to access the accounts, but you have to show that they use those funds for their own personal gain and not for the gain of the elderly.
So we have teachers like that. That's super sad. That's super sad. I've seen that a lot. I've heard about it. I mean, we've even seen, I think there's a Netflix show. What was the name of that Netflix show? I don't know if you ever came across it. It was this woman. She was, she was out of control. I don't remember her name and I don't think it wasn't here in Florida. I don't think it was near Florida. Anyway, she poses this caretaker and she started taking applications, I guess, from elderly people who couldn't live alone or who wouldn't live alone. I don't remember the details of that. And she would basically have them hand over everything that that they had. And she would take all of that stuff. And whether it was, I guess, funds and assets and trinkets, whatever, anything and everything, she'd get her hands on. And then she would eventually kill these people and bury them in the backyard. She was the serial killer. Yeah, she was like the serial killer nanny or whatever. And I think they finally uncovered her. And I don't remember how that happened. It's actually a super fascinating Netflix special. One of those documentary series. I haven't seen it. This was a few years ago. But the point is that somebody finally, I guess, blew the whistle. And then there were some, you know, investigators who came, who went by. And I think after they They got in the house and they arrested and all that. I think they uncovered dozens of bodies in the backyard, dozens of these poor elderly people, some of whom were in their 50s and 60s. I mean, we're not talking about 90 year olds necessarily, but they were taking advantage of and nobody was the wiser to realize that this person was posing as someone that she wasn't and was just stealing hand over fist.
Well, imagine if these if these people died and it was not reported and then their social security net income was collecting checks. Yeah. So that's probably what that person was doing. But.
That is the most heinous thing, I mean, to take advantage of and she was poisoning them. It was it was this horrible, horrible thing. I was in shock when I saw that that special I got. I'm going to.
Was this an actual documentary, a true story?
Yeah, a true story. A true story. And I'm trying to remember the name of it. And it was a Netflix special. I'm going to see if I can dig it up and I'm going to find it. I'll send it to you so you can tune in and see that. But the point is that those things do happen in real life. And if you're not careful with your family members, your friends, even your neighbors, and you're not, you know, alert to your surroundings and aware of those things, then you might never really notice when somebody goes missing or something goes awry.
Unfortunately, we have what I refer to like a parallel universe. We have, you know, when I was as a police officer, former police officer and I currently a private investigator, We have a world of criminals going out there more than we really know. And it's like almost like a dual universe going on. You know, we live, you and I live a nice, you know, legal, lawful way of doing things. And there's a mass of people that are out there to take advantage of us and everyone else. And it's just and it's just the world we live in. It's unfortunate.
Now, I have a really interesting question for you. Now, this might be more of an opinion, maybe, and I'd like to hear what you have to say, because you were obviously in law enforcement a long time. So I'm thinking this was probably in the 80s, maybe. So, you know, I'm going to take back a little bit more, but you obviously have a history, right, in law enforcement and all of that. Do you think that prior to all of this technology, the internet and social media and all that stuff, do you think there was perhaps more crime way back when, before people could document, before cameras, before, you know, iPhones, before any of that, right? Were people committing more crime and maybe getting away with it and nobody knowing any different than now where everyone has a phone in hand and there's always like every two inches, you know, you walk out your front door and somebody's got at least a ring camera pointed in your direction. Do you think anything has changed or people have gotten smarter about it?
I don't think we had more crime then than now, but I think we have more closures now because of technology.
Ah, very good. Very good. I can see that.
So I think we have more resources to solve crimes today than we did back then. So that's the difference.
Yeah, I know that we watch those unsolved mysteries, unsolved murders, unsolved cases, cold cases. I wonder, actually, do you know, maybe, and this might fall outside of your purview, but for cold cases, I know that police departments have cold cases. Do you know what the, I guess, the closure rate has been since then, now that we have new technology? Have there been more cases that have been able to settle and close out with some identification of Perpetrators or or no, you don't know.
I don't I don't have the percentage of that. I can tell you that I'm working on a case, a murder case, and right now I'm on the defense side and. But and I can't even discuss the case because it's still pending. But it's one of those cases where that I told you at the beginning of this podcast that I enjoy getting people that are falsely arrested or falsely convicted. And this is just one of those cases I enjoy work with, but I can't. Unfortunately, I can't discuss the case. I'm dying to talk about it, but I can't.
I bet you it's a good one, too. Wow. Yeah. But I guess that goes back to is it something that is. Can you tell us that if it's something that was dated like like really, really long ago? Was it something that was over 10 years ago that occurred over 10 years ago? over 20 years ago. Yeah. See, that would make sense. Yeah, of course. Cause now it's what you said, actually, that goes back to what you were saying. Now we have more technology, more tools and resources at our disposal to be able to come to a better conclusion than we did 20 years ago.
Right. And of course, some cases are just purely circumstantial. Sure. And without any real technology that can, you know, you're talking about DNA and we're talking about videos and eyewitnesses and things like that, you know, but there's some cases that are just purely circumstantial. And then the question is how valid is that circumstantial evidence? So that's where I come in as a private investigator.
Have you ever served as an expert witness?
No, I've never been actually certified by a judge as an expert witness. I believe I qualified as one. My experience is I just haven't had the opportunity to be certified as one yet.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a process to that and all that. Yeah. But you're behind the scenes anyway. So you're the person collecting all the evidence they need to discuss and mull over. So I can see that. I can see that. How interesting. So typically I ask some of my interviewees, you know, if there are any tips and things that they want people to know. But that's really not the case here. We don't want to give any criminals any good information as to how to avoid being caught. So how about we do how about we do something different? How about. if there is maybe like a list that you can just come off the top of your head of reasons that you might need to hire a private investigator. And I think the reason why that's helpful is because, like we said, you and I, we live pretty normal, civilized lives by whatever the definition might be. But the truth is that we don't know when we're going to need one because for those same reasons, right? We try to do things right, but we never know when we might need to call someone to help us dig some information or find somebody. And so what might be those examples like to recap?
Well, the most asked for service for me is background checks. And if people that are about to be hired for pre-employment, it's really important to know who you're hiring. And I do background checks. In fact, I do all the background checks for Burger King for Central Florida, you know, from Daytona Beach all the way through Orlando and Tampa. And it's amazing the things I find, you know, when I do background checks. And it's an important thing to do, not just for pre-employment hiring. If you're going to be having a nanny taking care of your child, you want to know anything about that person. You have your young daughter, that's going to be dating some guy and you want to know. Sure. There's all different reasons for that.
Sure. Maybe that guy came out of nowhere and, you know, decided to swoop your daughter off, you know, her feet and she's in college. And of course, you know, I'm sure you would agree with me that you don't know anything about anything when you're like 21 years old, 22 or even 23. You don't know anything and you find the right, you know, not to be weird, but you find the right Ted Bundy, you know, and he says the right things and. There you go. So that's an interesting one.
That being said, I must add that some people, when they're young, they're just stupid and make mistakes. Yeah. And they commit a crime because they're young and dumb. It doesn't mean they're bad people. Not all people that commit crimes are bad people. They just made mistakes. Right. And one of the things I look at when I'm doing a background check is how long ago was it? Was it 10 years ago or 15 years ago or 20 years ago that they committed a crime? And what kind of crime was it? And that's something to take into consideration, you know, before you hire someone, you know, this person now a regular law abiding individual. Right. But just because they may have a criminal history doesn't mean they're bad.
That is a very good point. I actually use that to my advantage also when I'm dealing with, say, divorcing couples. It's very normal for a divorcing couple, if it's been a contentious divorce, to run into a situation where someone forgot to pay the mortgage or someone resisted and not paying the mortgage and whatever. They have all these disagreements. Fast forward six months, eight months, a year, two years, three years, however long it takes them to get out of that situation, a lot of times they might find themselves unable to purchase a new home. And even when they're going to purchase a new home, the topic of credit comes up in conversation. But I'm not going to get into the lending side of things, but something as simple as saying, I need to rent a new place. you know, landlords typically ask for, you know, a variety of information. And some of that is a credit history report. And your credit might be 500 points because, you know, you were just fighting, spent the last eight, 10 months fighting and not paying your mortgage. And so your credit now is shot. And that may not be representative of who you are as a creditworthy, trustworthy, responsible person. You were just in a very difficult situation. So I take those situations case by case, obviously, and I do everything I can to prove that that individual, he or she or whomever it might be, is a creditworthy individual and that that 580 or 500 or whatever non-existent credit really shouldn't say anything about them as potential tenants for the future. So that's a very good point in bringing that up because that affects us in a variety of ways. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so we talked about children, parental agreements, divorce, of course, you know, spying on your soon-to-be ex who has been cheating on you for the last 15 years or 15 days or whatever. We talked about estate cases, of course, background checks. Estate cases really on both sides because you might not know that you might be entitled to something or you might not be able to find someone. So really there is a long list of potential avenues for which you might need someone who has an investigative background as you, somebody who is a private investigator to be able to find those missing clues, those missing pieces of the puzzle to move forward.
The point of mine is I am a source of obtaining information that you can't find anywhere else. That's what I do.
That's a good one.
And when it comes to surveillance, I jokingly say I'm a professional stalker. But I'm licensed to do it.
That's right. That's funny. That's really funny. So good. This was actually this was pretty informative. I wasn't sure where the conversation would lead. I knew it was going to be interesting. And I know that off air, we've been able to talk about a few cases here and there, and there might be some details we can share. But that's irrelevant, because I think the point of this was to show that there are more reasons than one, right? The typical one that someone might have at the back of their mind for using investigative services. And as you said, you are the person to find anything and everything when you can't otherwise.
And one more quick thing that we didn't discuss is I will meet with people to like witnesses to obtain sworn state, you know, formal statements or sworn statements for a case, whether it be a civil case or a criminal case. I that's one of the other things I do. to help attorneys, you know, build their case.
Oh, yeah, sure. I can see that. I actually know of somebody who had to hire a P.I. many years ago to sit in. I think it was a conference call. Was it a conference call? I think it was a conference call. It was a really contentious situation. And they needed somebody to corroborate what was being said in that meeting because they were entering, I guess, some form of litigation. And and they had hired a private investigator to be that that witness, so to speak. So there are just so many, so many ways in which, you know, somebody could benefit from investigative services. Yeah. That's really, it's mind blowing because until you talk about it and you start, you know, unpacking it as we did earlier, you really wouldn't know that.
Yes. Bottom line, we're not just surveillance for cheating spouses like a lot of people. We do a lot more than that.
But if you do suspect that your spouse is cheating, this is of course the right avenue.
Yes. And just, you know, I might be mistaken, but it's my understanding that catching a cheating spouse is not necessarily, this is a no fault statement when it comes to divorce. Am I correct on that? Correct. Okay. So even if you find someone, a spouse cheating on, you know, it's, that's not the, it's a 50, 50, regardless of whether someone's cheating or not, correct?
You're absolutely right. So for that reason, you have to really think about if you really want to know. Do you really need to know? Do you really want to know if your spouse is cheating? Now, it might be what you're waiting for, you know, to say, I'm calling it quits. You might have, you know, a really rocky relationship and you need to know if that's the case so that you can take that step. And if that's what you need, then that's what you can get. But as you said, it's a no fault state and it makes no difference. However, to take that one step further, as we mentioned earlier, if there is an alimony agreement or a parental agreement that does require that spouse to behave a certain way and they're not, and you have reason to believe that they are hiding some information or being untruthful and breaching that contract, then yes, then that information would certainly make a huge difference in a court of law. That is correct, yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Martin. This was really cool. This was very different, very fresh from other interviews that I've had. So I do appreciate your time. I know you're a busy man. You probably got to go professionally stalk someone at this moment, but I will leave you to that. And I do thank you once again for joining me.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
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