Private Detective Blog - Spy Center.com Call 800-743-2313 or 305-264-7878

Private Detective news - SpyCenter.com

Already facing criminal charges, R. Kelly has been hit with another civil lawsuit.

A private detective from Kansas City is suing the R&B singer, claiming that the singer hired him to locate a stolen videotape and didn’t pay up in full. Charles Freeman filed his breach of contract suit on July 12 in a Jackson County Circuit Court in Missouri. He’s seeking $75,000 in damages.

Last month, the singer pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of child pornography stemming from a videotape which Chicago police and Cook County, Illinois, prosecutors say depicts the singer having sex with a 14-year-old girl (see “R. Kelly Pleads Not Guilty To Child Pornography Charges”). (Click for a full explanation of the charges against R. Kelly.)

Freeman’s suit claims Kelly hired him via private detective Jack Palladino last August and agreed to pay him $100,000 plus up to $40,000 in expenses to recover the stolen videotape, described in a contract as a performance tape.

Private Detective Palladino’s office, which has been working with Kelly on various sex tape and bootleg issues (see “Girl In Alleged R. Kelly Tape Said To Be 14-Year-Old Niece Of Singer Sparkle”), would neither confirm nor deny Freeman’s employment, saying, “That’s not information we could or would give out.”

According to their contract, Detective Palladino hired Freeman on August 21, 2001, and gave him until August 23 to recover and return the sole copy of the tape. At this point, Freeman was to submit to a polygraph test to attest that “the stolen items he has recovered and will be turning over are all the material that exists, and that he knows of no other copies (whether in whole or in part) in any form.” The contract also had one more condition — that Freeman was to keep all information about the recovered tape confidential.

Freeman recovered the tape, his lawsuit contends, and passed the polygraph. He was then paid $65,000, he claims, and was told that the remainder of his fee would be forthcoming.

Kelly’s camp, meanwhile, said that the singer plans to defend himself vigorously against this latest lawsuit. “We’re confident that when the facts come out,” Kelly’s spokesperson Allan Mayer said, “the suit will be shown to have no merit.”

R. Kelly has been hit with four additional civil suits, the most recent of which involved a woman who claimed she was the subject of a sex tape which made its way into the bootleg market (see “R. Kelly Sued By Woman Claiming To Be Sex Tape Subject”). The basis of the other three lawsuits involved accusations that he took advantage of minors and engaged in criminal sexual conduct. Two of those lawsuits were settled out of court, while a third is still pending (see “R. Kelly Sued By Woman Claiming Singer Impregnated Her When She Was 17″). By Jennifer Vineyard

Spy Center.com - full service Miami private detective agency  serving Miami and south Florida.

Fox News 

A private investigator hired by Kate and Gerry McCann believes their missing daughter Madeleine was kidnapped by a pedophile ring in the Iberian Peninsula or northern Africa, and that she will be returned by Christmas, the Daily Mail reported.

Click here to view the full report from The Daily Mail.

“I cannot say who she is with because we are putting together conclusive proof we can present to the authorities so they can proceed with their arrests,” Francisco Marco is quoted telling the Spanish newspaper Metro.

Marco promised last month that he would find Madeleine, 4, who disappeared May 3 from a vacation apartment in Portugal.

Marco heads up the Barcelona-based Metodo 3, which has been working for the McCanns since September, the Daily Mail reported. Metodo 3 has been criticized by Portuguese police as “small fry” and “irrelevant,” the newspaper reported.

“I have always said publicly Madeleine is alive,” Marco reportedly told Metro. “I have to believe it 100 percent because I know how to look for living people, not dead ones. But I have no proof Madeleine is alive.

“We have proof of her movements after her kidnap and we know she was alive the day after her disappearance. We are not certain she left Portugal.

“I talk of certainties because we know which group may have her or could have kidnapped her to then sell her on to others,” Marco said.

Federal agents Thursday arrested three people connected with a Belfair private investigation firm who are accused of gathering confidential information on individuals through trickery by calling the offices of such agencies as the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration.

Federal investigators say they uncovered schemes in which a caller to a government agency, hospital or other office would pretend to be another person, then ask for that person’s income tax return, medical records or other confidential information.

Charged in a multicount indictment with what has become known as “pretexting” are Emilio and Brandy Torrella and Steven Berwick, all associated with BNT Investigations. The indictment is only the second time federal charges have been brought against accused pretexters, according to U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan of Seattle.

Among the charges faced by the three from the Kitsap County private investigation firm are conspiracy, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The first such charges were brought in California in the high-profile case of the Hewlett-Packard corporate board’s starting a leak investigation in which a private investigator used pretexting to gather information about journalists who may have received confidential information from the board. One private investigator pleaded guilty in January to federal charges of aggravated identity theft and conspiracy.

In this case, law firms, collections agencies and estranged spouses involved in divorces hired private investigators, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Katheryn Frierson. Frierson would not reveal the names of the firms or further identify them, saying the matter was still under investigation.

Frierson said the BNT private eyes leveraged information such as Social Security numbers and dates of birth of other people to lend them credence when they assumed the identities of their victims during pretexting telephone calls. Frierson said they might pretend to have a kidnapped child or be a battered spouse to get the information they wanted. “Anything that would embarrass or work on the good will” of the agencies to get them to turn over information, she said.

Sullivan warned the people who hired the private investigators that “we want them to understand that this is a crime.”

He added that “we will take (the investigation) wherever it goes.”

Frierson, in response to a question at a Thursday morning news conference, said any illegally obtained information that was used by attorneys or litigants in a civil lawsuit could potentially affect the course of that suit.

Special Agent in Charge Ron Legan of the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General said the pretexting came to light about a year ago when a state Department of Labor employee received repeated inquiries about the same person.

In addition to the three Belfair residents, seven private investigators from places such as Texas, New York and Oregon were indicted by a Seattle federal grand jury for their alleged involvement in the use of pretexting to obtain confidential information on more than 12,000 people around the nation.

The Belfair residents pleaded not guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma and were released pending a trial Feb. 11. by PInow Staff

The Toronto family doctor whose patient died after undergoing liposuction in September hired a private investigator to pose as a patient and spy on a competitor she alleges in a lawsuit is responsible for her drop in business.

Dr. Behnaz Yazdanfar, a family physician without a surgical specialty or hospital privileges, performed the liposuction.

She has filed a $300,000 slander suit against plastic surgeon Dr. Sean Rice based on a secretly recorded conversation he had with a private investigator who visited him last month pretending to be interested in breast enlargement surgery and liposuction.

Rice was one of the physicians who tried unsuccessfully to revive Krista Stryland when she was brought into North York General Hospital on Sept. 20 after liposuction surgery at Yazdanfar’s Toronto Cosmetic Clinic on Yonge St.

Stryland, a 32-year-old real estate agent and mother, died in hospital.

In a statement of claim filed in court by the Toronto Cosmetic Clinic and Yazdanfar, she says she suffered “a marked decline in profitability and unusual increase in the number of patient cancellations for scheduled cosmetic surgeries” this fall.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The drop in business prompted her to hire an investigative firm “to make inquiries within the cosmetic surgery industry and among competitors to determine if the business decline was related to or caused by competitors defaming (her),” the statement reads.

Yazdanfar did not respond to a request for an interview.

Her clinic’s manager directed questions to lawyer Michael Kestenberg who would not offer comment on the allegations.

Rice also declined to comment and referred calls to his lawyer Brian Butler.

“Unquestionably there will be a statement of defence,” Butler said. “Dr. Rice will defend himself.”

Rice isn’t the only physician to be targeted by Yazdanfar. At least one other doctor has received a letter from Yazdanfar’s lawyers ordering him to “cease and desist” from making critical remarks on the threat of legal action, the Star has learned.

On Oct. 17, just a month after Stryland’s death, investigator Francine Doyle attended a scheduled consultation for breast augmentation and liposuction with Rice at his Sheppard Ave. E. clinic, the statement of claim says.

Doyle, equipped with a hidden audio recording device, told Rice she had already had a consultation with Yazdanfar at the Cosmetic Clinic, the suit alleges.

Rice allegedly provided Doyle with different methods and types of breast implants and explained the differences between products offered by two companies. The suit alleges Rice told Doyle that one manufacturer won’t sell to Yazdanfar and the other would only sell her saline implants.

Yazdanfar said in her statement of claim that’s not true although one of the companies, Allergan Canada, confirmed to the Star last night it only sells breast implants to certified plastic surgeons.

The claim further alleges that when Doyle expressed hesitation to Rice regarding the safety of liposuction he made the following statements, “If anything were to happen to you here, we have everything here, a Royal College plastic surgeon, Royal College anesthesiologist, all RN certified nurses and everybody knows CPR …

It continues: “You’re not going to get anybody, who (is) more trained, than what you would get here in the office. Compared to (an) outside clinic, which doesn’t have an RN, a Royal College certified anesthesiologist. Something happens to you there, they are like, and ok what do I (do) right …”

The claim says the Toronto Cosmetic Clinic employs licensed anesthesiologists and “nurses registered with the college.

“Further, Dr. Yazdanfar at all times conducts the liposuction procedure in the presence of and with the assistance of a college certified anesthesiologist.”

Yazdanfar, a graduate of the University of Ottawa who doesn’t hold hospital privileges, said the words Rice spoke to Doyle were “slanderous” and “were calculated by him to disparage and injure the Cosmetic Clinic’s business and Dr. Yazdanfar’s professional reputation.”

Rice is a plastic surgeon, certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, and he has hospital privileges at North York General, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Women’s College Hospital.

Following Stryland’s late September death, Yazdanfar and her clinic were the subject of front-page headlines and broadcast news reports focusing on the lack of regulation around cosmetic surgery in Ontario.

In response to mounting pressure from the media and the public after her death, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons proposed tighter regulations for the cosmetic surgery industry.

The measures include restrictions against use of the phrase “cosmetic surgeon” for those who hold no surgical speciality and proposed inspections of private clinics where cosmetic procedures are done.

Two weeks ago, college officials said they are investigating 16 doctors performing high-risk cosmetic procedures in private clinics that could be a danger to the public because of concerns about their qualifications and training. They would not identify the physicians by name. posted by PInow.com Staff

Like his big-screen hero John McClane, John McTiernan doesn’t like being stuck in a building for very long. And for now, he won’t be.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has allowed the Die Hard director to remain free on bail while he appeals his guilty plea.

In April 2006, McTiernan, 56, copped to lying to the feds about his knowledge of Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano’s illicit wiretapping operation.

McTiernan then tried to rescind the guilty plea for a bevy reasons: (1) he had been jetlagged at the time he was questioned by agents; (2) he was also suffering the side effects of some apparently potent sinus medication during the same Q&A session; and (3) he received some bad advice from his ex-lawyer.

U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer wasn’t buying it. Not only did the judge deny the motion, but, in McTiernan’s most scathing reviews since Last Action Hero,  Fischer ripped McTiernan for his lack of remorse for attempting to deceive investigators.

Fischer sentenced McTiernan to four months in prison in September and ordered him to pay a $100,000 fine.

“When he was sentenced, he made a motion to remain free on bond while the appeal is litigated. The judge granted that motion today,” Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, told E! Online.

As a result, McTiernan will not have to report to jail to begin his sentence on Jan. 15, as previously required. Instead, he was granted a $50,000 bond until the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules on his petition to withdraw his plea.

McTiernan helmed some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters in the 1980s and ’90s. Aside from Die Hard and Die Hard with a Vengence, his credits include Predator, The Hunt for Red October and the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.

Should the appeal flame out, McTiernan would be the highest profile figure to face legal comeuppance from the Pellicano affair.

The so-called Private Eye to the Stars, Pellicano is awaiting trial on a 110-count indictment accusing him of racketeering and wire-fraud charges for allegedly gaining unauthorized access to law enforcement databases to dig up criminal histories and driving records of various individuals.

Authorities also claim the gumshoe led a conspiracy to record the phone conversations of such stars as Sylvester Stallone, Garry Shandling and Keith Carradine, among other Hollywood players, to give his clients a “tactical advatange” in their various court battles. posted by PInow.com Staff

A private investigator told police that a client who was trying to free her son from prison showed up at a meeting with a bag full of fake cash.

Jim Mabry’s tip to Clayton police led them to charge Marcia Grimsley, 59, with possession of counterfeit money. According to police, Grimsley was using her home computer to print imitation $100 bills.

Detectives tailed Grimsley after the meeting Nov. 9 and found thousands of smeared, yellowed mugs of Benjamin Franklin on fake $100 bills stashed in her car.

“She swore she’d just gotten it out of the bank,” said Clayton police Capt. Jon Gerrell.

No one answered the door at Grimsley’s home Wednesday afternoon. Her attorney, Barry Winston, said Grimsley maintains her innocence.

Grimsley captured headlines in 2004 after Virginia prosecutors charged her with conspiring with her son to hire a hit man to kill his wife. Grimsley, then a first-grade teacher at McGee’s Crossroads Elementary School outside Benson, is the widow of Joe Grimsley, a political heavyweight who twice served as a Cabinet member in Gov. Jim Hunt’s administration.

After Grimsley spent 10 months in jail, prosecutors let her off the hook because of her health problems. Grimsley promised to stay away from her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Her son, David Ashford, is serving life in prison for his part in the murder-for-hire plot.

Grimsley has worked to free her son since her recent return to Johnston County.

For months, Grimsley has been stopping in the Johnston County Courthouse disguised in a wig and sunglasses, asking for help in her son’s case, according to several clerks.

She hired Mabry, of Kinston, in October to dig up evidence in the criminal case against her son. Mabry said the relationship began to sour when Grimsley asked him to pay people to recant the testimony that helped convict her son. He hoped she was just joking.

But on Nov. 9, Mabry said, she met him at a Cracker Barrel with a satchel full of fake cash.

“She had a fit trying to tell me it was real money,” Mabry said. “She’d been sitting up night after night, getting no sleep to print it.”

Mabry challenged her to prove a bill was real by using it at the Cracker Barrel. Grimsley then jumped in her car and left, Mabry said.

Mabry phoned Gerrell at the Clayton Police Department, worried that Grimsley would go on a shopping spree on her way home.

An officer’s question

Clayton police Detective John Coley spotted her car about 20 minutes later near her home on Fayetteville Street. He followed her and asked whether she had fake money in her car.

According to a search warrant, Grimsley showed him the fake cash, then brought him inside to see her equipment. There, Coley spotted three genuine $100 bills taped to a sheet of paper face down on a copying machine.

The Secret Service confiscated $218,000 in imitation cash, along with Grimsley’s computer equipment.

Federal charges are pending against her, said Robert Trumbo, resident agent in charge of the Secret Service in Raleigh. Grimsley could spend up to 20 years in prison if convicted of manufacturing counterfeit money.

Clayton police charged her last week with possessing the tools to make fake money. Grimsley posted a $5,000 bail and went home, according to court records. She paid in cash. posted by PInow.com Staff

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – A Detroit man was arraigned at the 41-B
District Court on multiple charges, including manslaughter with a
vehicle after police said he hit a pedestrian with his car and dragged
his body nearly four miles.

Arthur Bishop Haynes Jr., 24, faces multiple charges including causing
an accident with a revoked or suspended license, manslaughter with a
vehicle and failure to stop at the scene of the accident that caused death.

Police said Haynes struck Joseph Candela, 53, of Harper Woods with his
car at Gratiot Avenue, near Metropolitan Parkway, in Clinton Township
Saturday morning and dragged him to a Fraser neighborhood near 13 Mile
and Kelly Roads.
Click Here

Police said Haynes was driving a Chevrolet Lumina, and fled the scene
of the accident.

Candela was dead when police arrived.

A tipster, who is also a private investigator, led police to arrest Haynes.
The unidentified tipster told Local 4 News that he followed a
suspicious-looking vehicle with a hole in the windshield to a Detroit
location and called the Michigan State Police.

The arraignment was an emotional scene on Monday as both the victim’s
and defendant’s families there.

“The family didn’t do anything. The young man made a mistake, but he
compounded it by leaving the scene of an accident. Somebody died­this
is serious,” said the victim’s brother Frank Candela.

Haynes entered a mute plea. When you stand mute, it means you concede
nothing, and it’s as if you entered a not guilty plea.

Haynes bond was set for $10,000 cash.

“He murdered somebody and carelessly drove away, and for
$10,000­that’s ridiculous,” said the victim’s brother Tony Candela.

Haynes could face up to 15 years in prison, if convicted.

The judge will set a preliminary examination date within the next two weeks.

Hanceville hires private investigator

By Noah Chandler
The Cullman Times

The Hanceville City council is currently paying a private investigator to look into activities that happened under former Fire and Rescue Chief Mike Watson.

“We were aware that there was probably some equipment missing,” councilman Hubert Jones said, explaning why the council hired the investigator.

Mayor Katie Whitley said private investigator Daniel Howell started work Sept. 26 and as of Friday, Nov. 3 has earned 8,455.84, including a 500 retainer fee. She said Howell is paid 40 per hour and gets reimbursed for fuel costs.

According to pay records turned in by Howell, he worked a total of 80.5 hours from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 earning 2,720. From Oct. 3-19 Howell worked 111.5 hours earning 4,460. Howell was reimbursed 775.84 for mileage from Sept. 26 to Oct. 19.

Whitley said the council voted Sept. 24 to hire Howell, who started work two days later. She said Jones introduced the motion at the city council meeting.

Jones said he did not want to involve the police department in the investigation out of fear they would “be conflicted.” He said a friend had referred Howell and after speaking with him, Jones presented the idea to the council.

Whitley said the motion to hire Howell passed unanimously without discussion.

Jones said the investigation would not be a long one and might be completed within the next week.

“I think he (Howell) has some loose ends to tie up, but it won’t be a long-term deal. I would think he has another 3-5 days left.”

According to pay check stubs signed by Whitley, Howell has worked a total of 192 hours and driven 1,939.60 miles during the six-week period. Whitley said the city will continue with Howell’s service until all evidence is collected regarding Watson and his dismissal.

“As soon as the investigation is finished we will send out a press release disclosing his findings

Parental alienation is a growing form of child abuse occurring in the world that is rarely addressed.

It affects a child’s mental and emotional well-being and creates a world of hatred toward a parent, typically in a high-conflict divorce situation. It deprives children of being loved by both parents, according to Sarvy Emo, spokesperson for Parental Alienation Awareness Organization.

Courts around the world aren’t recognizing the issue. Children are influencing court decisions after being manipulated by one parent, then leaving the other parent feeling abandoned.

Michael Peterson, Plano father of Katie and Emma, said he has been a victim of this growing dilemma.

After a custody battle in March 2005 didn’t go the way his ex-wife, Tedra Erickson, intended, the story began.

Collin County Judge Curt Henderson ruled Peterson and Erickson were required to meet at the Plano police station to exchange the children. In April, Peterson went to meet his girls, and they never showed.

After a year of no word where his children were, Peterson hired Private Investigator Phillip Cline.

In September 2006, Cline located his girls in Tralee, Ireland, a remote town of 2,500. They were living with Erickson and her mother Kay.

It finally became Peterson’s time to see his girls.

Peterson said a trial took place in Ireland under the rules of the Hague Child Abduction Convention. Those rules help prevent international child abduction and provide a secure legal framework for cross-border contact among children and their parents when families separate.

He said a psychologist interviewed Katie and Emma together for 45 minutes.

“Through testimony, both girls said there was nothing in the United States they ever liked,” Peterson said.

He had one afternoon alone with his children in the foreign town of Tralee.

“They were both acting defiant,” Peterson said. “My oldest, Katie, was very angry at me, saying that I was terrible and had done everything bad in the world.”

Peterson said he attempted to buy Emma an iPod, and she wouldn’t accept anything from him.

“It was terribly hard to hear,” Peterson said. “They told me they hate me and never wanted to see me again. Tedra told them lies and bad-mouthed me.”

Peterson was left with a difficult decision. He said he didn’t want to force the girls to be miserable so he sent them home.

Erickson was unavailable for comment.

His one afternoon alone with his girls was ruined.

“It breaks my heart,” Peterson said. “All I wanted to do was take them away with me.”

Peterson came back to Plano, where he awaited the judge’s decision to send his children back under the Hague Convention.

Peterson said the judge’s ruling was shocking. The judge said his children seemed settled in Ireland, so he wasn’t going to force them to leave.

“They don’t believe in parental alienation,” Peterson said. “They wouldn’t even let us bring it up in court. What Tedra has done is illegal.”

A Collin County grand jury indicted Erickson and her mother on Interference with Child Custody, a state-jail felony.

Now, Peterson’s only hope to see his girls is through extradition.

Cline said out of 16 years as a child rescue investigator, this is one of the most aggressive cases of parental alienation he has seen.

“I bring kids back from all over the world,” Cline said. “In this case, these children are going to need extreme psycho-therapy. I believe the children will come back to their father, but it won’t be kisses and roses. It will be a long, hard road for the entire family.”

Dr. Richard Warshack, author of “Divorce Poison Protecting the Parent-Child Relationship,” a best-selling book on parental alienation, said in most abduction cases children are easily convinced the other parent is a bad person to be around.

“It can happen very quickly, and it’s very distressing,” said Warshack, who is also a clinical professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “Families need a psychologist to heal the damaged relationship.”

He said parents go to many lengths to undermine a child’s love and respect toward another parent. He said the “favorite” parent lies and exaggerates and speaks badly about the “rejected” parent.

“I’ve seen children grow up and be depressed as a result of parental alienation,” Warshack said. “They feel used by the parent they favored, but also angry with the parent they rejected because they think they didn’t try hard enough.”

In most cases the parent that was favored tells the children the other parent doesn’t want to see them anymore.

“I want my girls back,” Peterson said. “I’ve looked into intense therapy. It’s going to be hard on the kids and tough on me.”

Peterson said he is frustrated with the amount of time it is taking to have Erickson and her mother extradited and his children’s safe return home. He said he is unsure if Ireland will fight extradition.

“I know if I would have done the same thing, being a male, I would have been brought back a long time ago,” Peterson said.

Curtis Howard, Collin County assistant district attorney, said his side of the paperwork to complete the extradition process is complete and he is waiting on the Department of Justice and the State Department to do final approval. He said he is unsure what the status is in Ireland.

“It’s hard to tell when they will be extradited,” Howard said. “I’m hoping it will happen in the next couple of weeks.”

Cline said there have been some communication errors between Collin County and the federal government.

“This has been unusually long,” Cline said. “They are working very hard, but there has been a lot of confusion on statute.”

Jeff Rich, Plano Police detective who helped locate the children, said this case isn’t over.

“My goal is to make sure the children are safe,” Rich said. “We want the offenders brought to justice. We are working toward extradition, but at this point it is out of our hands.”

Peterson said he is surprised more charges have not been filed on Erickson. He said she forged documents in order to take the girls out of the country.

“Kidnapping is exactly what it is,” Peterson said. “The D.A. should indict her on everything under the sun.”

Rich said indictments are a matter of the elements of the offense.

“We fit the offense for the crime committed,” Rich said. “Interference with Child Custody is the crime that occurred.”

Howard said Erickson will be extradited on the single criminal charge. He said any federal crimes she committed are out of the state’s hands.

Cline said he has seen courts up charges when parents run away despite a court order.

“I would not be surprised if Howard ups the charges,” Cline said. “This is really egregious what this mother has done. She has poisoned the brains of her kids.”

Cline described parental alienation as an epidemic.

“It’s time to start sending a message,” Cline said. “You do it — you’ll go to jail.”

By Stephanie Flemmons, Staff Writer

In a follow-up to this week’s story “A Dick Move”, private investigators won a battle—but not the war—to ensure all their travel expenses are paid by the state when they do public defense work.

Washington County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Kohl ruled in a hearing May 10 that the state Office of Public Defense Services should pay all travel expenses for Tillamook P-I Dave Panter while he investigates an aggravated murder case for a public defender in Hillsboro.

The OPDS, which pays public defenders and the investigators they hire, had refused to pay Panter $34 an hour plus gas to travel to Hillsboro. They told the public defender, Ray Cassel, to save money by hiring a local investigator instead. Cassel challenged the decision in court and won, saying Panter was the best investigator for the job.

Private eyes from around the state were watching the case. They say in capital murder cases like this one, it’s important for public defenders to hire the best investigators available, regardless of where they live. The difference could be life or death for impoverished suspects who rely on public defense.

Investigators hoped the challenge would set a legal precedent, but Judge Kohl said his decision applies to the current case only. Cassel is defending Ricardo Serrano, a 31-year-old Aloha man accused of killing Melody Dang and her two sons in suburban Washington County last year. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Panter told WW he’s pleased he can help defend the case, but he had hoped to accomplish more by challenging OPDS. Instead they could try to deny travel expenses for investigators again in the future.

“I was kind of hoping it would be a cause célèbre for the entire investigative community,” Panter said. “But it didn’t go there. It kind of left the door open.”