BANGKOK — Amnuaiporn Maneewan imparts the wisdom of her more than 15 years working as a private detective in Thailand: “The only man you can trust is a dead one.

“If they’re still alive, still breathing, then you can’t trust them,” she says.

With her James Bond-inspired gadgets including spy cameras and tapping devices, Amnuaiporn specialises in digging up evidence to expose cheating spouses for a law firm in Bangkok.

The 42-year-old has become a master at tailing the unfaithful, catching them in compromising situations with the use of tiny cameras and recording equipment hidden in pens, car keys, buttonholes and even calculators.

Her work has made her a minor celebrity in Thailand, where having a “mia noi” or “little wife” on the side of a marriage is seen almost as a right by some.

This “mistress detective” said there are more and more extra-curricular affairs in the country.

“It’s just increasing the whole time; it’s not slowing down at all. Now, they don’t just have one mistress, they have two or three mistresses,” Amnuaiporn said.

“It’s like a fashion. It’s normal. No man leaves the house without a mistress.”

Unsurprisingly then, business has never been better.

Three or four new clients, mostly women between the ages of 20 and 60, contact her every day.

Government officials are apparently particularly likely to have mistresses, traditionally exploiting their positions to net minor wives.

“They have their status, they have power, they have money. It’s quite easy for them to pay for another woman,” said Ronnachai Kongsakol, psychiatry professor at Ramathibodi hospital in Bangkok.

His research on extramarital affairs by officials suggests that opportunity, intimacy and sympathy are the main motives for men to seek mistresses.

But it’s not just Thai men who are tempted to stray.

Amnuaiporn estimates that three out of 10 calls are now from suspicious husbands.

Tales of infidelity abound in Thai society.

Panaa had been living with her partner for seven years when she found out he was secretly seeing another woman.

She tracked down the suspected mistress and confronted her, only to be faced with a surprising revelation.

Her rival produced a marriage certificate that proved she was actually married to Panaa’s partner — meaning Panaa was the mistress.

“I was shocked as I never thought that I would be the mistress. I never had any idea. I thought I was morally superior but it turned out I wasn’t at all,” said Panaa, whose asked that her real name be withheld.

While she did not need a detective to reveal the scandal, many people do seek help to find the truth.

“If there was no one like me, these people would have to suffer for a long time. Me, my job, helps people to open their eyes. I let them see the truth,” said Amnuaiporn.

Her job has got her noticed in Thailand where her good looks, chatty demeanor and anecdotes of sordid transgressions have been lapped up on television and in print.

She has even produced her own book — “The Private Eye: They ask me to investigate adultery” — which is billed as the first in-depth account of the work of a female private detective.

Featuring images of her in various disguises she uses for work — including a native American Indian outfit complete with feathered headdress — the book includes true stories from her years tracking the unfaithful.

In one instance she was hired by a wealthy man who suspected his wife was straying.

When he pretended to go on a business trip, his wife lost no time in meeting a man and going with him to a “short stay hotel”, with Amnuaiporn and the husband in hot pursuit.

He banged on the door of the illicit couple’s room and confronted the wife’s lover, who claimed to be alone.

After a search of several nearby rooms, Amnuaiporn and the husband found the wife stuck to the wall of an adjoining balcony “like a gecko”.

The book also reveals basic tips on how to tell whether your partner is about to stray, such as a sudden upturn in their grooming and unexpected business trips to other parts of the country.

While Amnuaiporn’s career has brought her renown and excitement, her constant exposure to infidelity has given her little desire to settle down.

“I am afraid that I will face the same problems I’ve seen. I think it’s good to stay single,” she said.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

Trademarks, also called service marks, are a form of intellectual property. Companies who have developed an idea, product, or design are granted rights to their trademark. Trademark infringement occurs when another company uses the same or similar trademark as another company. Sometimes these duplicates will be exactly the same or they may be subtle. Trademarks must be maintained actively; if not, forfeiture of the trademark will occur which gives copy cats a chance to use the mark legally. However, there is typically a 3-5 year period of nonuse of the trademark before it becomes void. Trademark infringement is becoming more popular, and it is easier to accomplish now that the internet is so widely used. China, Thailand, Africa, and part of the Middle East are known to use trademark infringement on counterfeit goods, and China and Russia are known to ignore trademark laws. It is important to use a private investigator with business law knowledge if you suspect you are a victim of trademark infringement since this is a complicated problem that spans globally. Trademark investigations are performed by specialists or private investigators that have knowledge in business law. Trademark infringement is a crime, and criminal actions and civil litigation can be taken against those who steal the intellectual property of someone else.

(1) Trademark Infringement Trends
While humans have always stolen ideas from others, the new age of trademark infringement started with movies and movies. With the internet, users are able to download pirated material also known as, “bootleg,” versions. Additionally, the internet allows users to buy, sell, and distribute fake or counterfeit movies and music. This is a problem because piracy allows users to download and illegally copy products that have been released without permission of the owner. The victims of these types of crime are producers, musicians, authors, composers, creators, and designers whose work is being reproduced without a profit or recognition.

(2) Trademark infringement really gained the attention of the media with the Napster case in 1999. Shawn Fanning developed a website that allowed users to download MP3’s, many of which were hard to find, through peer-to-peer file sharing. Napster was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for copyright infringement. The majority of the MP3’s available were pirated copies available to millions of users worldwide. The court ruled in favor of the RIAA, and Napster was order to pay $26 million in damages as well as block access to infringing material on the website. The company could not adhere to these conditions and shut down the site in 2001. The company went bankrupt in 2002, and was recently bought buy Best Buy in 2008 for $121 million.

(3) The future of trademark infringement will depend on technology. With I-Phone applications and mobile devices, infringements upon corporate trademarks are bound to happen. There is speculation that augmented reality technology will lead to trademark infringement lawsuits. This new technology uses new media advertising that allows images and logos to become triggers for 3D experiences on mobile devices or computers. This could be a problem because these experiences could turn company’s own logos against them, and these companies have the right to protect their image and brand.

(4) With companies now resorting to social media for promoting their business, this can also lead to problems for copyright infringement. Facebook allows vanity URL’s, www.facebook.com/your.company.name, which may allow unauthorized users to obtain a company’s vanity URL and their trademark. Facebook applications may also misrepresent a company or its trademark by misleading someone to believe the company is sponsored by the application. Fortunately, Facebook has a reporting procedure that allows companies to report trademark infringements, and Facebook will disable access to the imposter site. However, since Apps are hosted on developer sites, the company must notify the infringing site itself to engage in trademark disputes.

(5) The alarming and dangerous trademark infringement trend is counterfeit pharmaceuticals. These drugs are illegal and are fake medicine. The medicine could be contaminated, contain the wrong or inactive ingredient, or the wrong dose. The counterfeit drugs look very identical to the legitimate drugs and their trademarks. These medicines are dangerous and could be harmful to health. The FDA, along with private companies, monitors these illegal drugs in order to prevent their use in the US. Due to strict guidelines by the FDA, counterfeiting drugs occurs less often in the US compared to developing countries. The extent of the problem worldwide is unknown since it is difficult to detect and investigate, but the WHO estimates up to 30% of drugs in developing countries may be counterfeit. The FDA is paying close attention to counterfeit drugs because it is a lucrative business. With the current economy and high price of medications, more counterfeit drugs are likely to be produced especially with new technology and the internet. Buying drugs over the internet can be risky because the pharmacy providing the drugs can be located anywhere in the world. In order to verify the safety of prescriptions online, use a site with Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) seal. This means it is a licensed pharmacy where FDA-approved drugs can be purchased. According to a report by Sarah Everts, it is estimated that in 2010, profits for counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs was around $75 billion.

Famous Trademark Infringement Cases

* (6) Facebook V. Lamebook:
Lamebook is being sued by Facebook for “attempting to build a brand that trades off Facebook’s popularity and fame.” Lamebook is a humor site that displays hilarious postings of Facebook users anonymously, and claims they are within their 1st Amendment rights. However, Facebook believes their site does not meet the standards of a parody site and should not be protected. This isn’t the first trademark dispute Facebook has been involved in, and they tend to pressure sites to change their names if the word “book” is involved in any way.
* (7) Red Bull V. Bull Fighter
Red Bull FZE in Austria won a case against a local importer who was selling a similar competing product called Bull Fighter. Red Bull claimed the product mislead customers into thinking Bull Fighter was a Red Bull product or endorsed by Red Bull and even had a similar name and packaging. The court ruled in favor of Red Bull and believed the competitor was intentionally trying to profit off of Red Bull’s marketing and reputation. The local importer was fined AEC 15,000.
* (8) Starbucks V. Shanghai Xingbake Coffee Shop
The American coffee company, Starbucks, has won a lawsuit against the Shanghai coffee shop. The Xingbake Coffee Shop used a similar name and logo and must pay Starbucks $61,956 in damages. The Chinese coffee shop’s name translated to Starbucks, and the company is forced to stop using the name and logo. This isn’t the first time Starbucks has encountered trademark infringement as they previously won a case against an individual in Russia who tried to register their name and logo.
* (9) Adidas V. Payless
Adidas won a case against Payless in a federal court in Portland. Payless was found guilty of infringing upon Adidas America’s Inc. 3-stripe trademark logo. As a result, Payless must pay $304.6 million in damages to Adidas.

Deterring Trademark Infringement

(10) When you believe you have an idea or design you would like to eventually use, file “an intent to use” trademark application. This reserves your trademark, but it will not be officially registered until it is used commercially.

If you believe someone is using your trademark, send them a “cease and desist” letter after consulting with a lawyer. If they continue to use your work after receiving the letter, you can then file a lawsuit. Sometimes money damages are awarded to further discourage the offender from using the registered trademark.

(11) If you are not sure whether someone is infringing upon your trademark, hire a private detective to investigate the matter. These issues are often complex, and private investigators often have a team of consultants who have experience in business law. They will thoroughly investigate the situation and determine the appropriate course of action for you to take.

Remember, the best way to prevent trademark infringement is to register you mark, and monitor any suspicious activity that is not authorized by your company. Sometimes infringement is small, such as a change in one letter in the spelling, or other times it is blatant, such as using your mark entirely. If you notice any unusual promotion of your mark, contact a private investigator.

Please contact Indianapolis Private Investigator, Thomas Lauth for further information Call 800.889.3463.
www.lauthinvestigations.com

One bill, approved by the senate, would ensure those who commit multiple crimes pay for each. Often times the crime of first-degree rape, one of horrifying sexual violence, is repeated either against the same victim, or against multiple victims. Under current law, it is possible for a judge to issue concurrent sentences for multiple counts arising from separate and distinct acts. At this time, a rapist convicted of multiple counts could receive as little as five years in prison. The legislation (S.1826) I support would require that the sentences on each count run consecutively to ensure that no rape goes unpunished.

The senate also passed a bill (S.1417A) that would create graduated levels of criminal charges for large scale producers and distributors of child pornography. It would permit prosecution of internet pedophiles in proportion to the scale and danger of their criminal activity.

Anyone who commits a crime against a child should be punished severely. Criminals who prey on a child’s innocence and engage in child pornography on a larger scale should face even stiffer penalties. The current statutory system of “one-size fits-all” has an often unintended consequence of leniency for sexual predators. This legislation would provide law enforcement with penalties that better fit the level of the crime as they work to end this unconscionable abuse of children.

The senate also passed a bill (S. 1423) to expand the unsealing of criminal histories for the purpose of investigating applicants for employment by police departments and other law enforcement agencies. Under current law, law enforcement agencies are authorized to obtain records of sealed acquittals of the applicant, but not sealed convictions.

There is no doubt that before a police department hires an officer, they should be made aware of all previous arrest and prosecution records. Police officers hold a position of immense public trust and full disclosure is vital before they are allowed to put on uniforms and swear to serve and protect. Full background disclosure of a potential police officer ensures that departments are made up of men and women of the utmost character.

In addition, the senate approved the following criminal justice bills:

S.256 would make the crime of surreptitious surveillance a class B misdemeanor. A person would be guilty of this crime if he or she intentionally observes another person dressing or undressing or intentionally observes such person’s sexual or intimate parts without that person’s knowledge or consent when that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Current surveillance statutes encompass the use or installation of an imaging device to surreptitiously view, broadcast or record a person;

S.527 establishes that a person is guilty of grand larceny in the fourth degree when he or she steals property and is in possession of an anti-security item. An example would be possession of an item to remove security tags from clothing in a store;

S.943 increases the penalty for the crime of criminally negligent homicide from a Class E to a Class D felony;

S.487 would require that when a sex offender is sentenced to probation, and he/she violates that probation with another sex offense, that the sentences of incarceration imposed for the probation violation and for the new sex offense run consecutively and not concurrently.

Each of these bills serves to strengthen our criminal justice system by updating laws and closing existing loopholes. The result is a safer New York.

Source

Michael A. Green

He also ponders, he says, whether to take a $2.2 million compensation payment from the State of Texas or file a civil lawsuit in the hope of exposing the truth about the investigation that led to his incarceration. To receive the compensation, he must waive the right to sue.

“What I really need to do is to make them pay for what they done to me,” he says. “Two-point-two million dollars is nothing when it comes to 27 years of my life, which I spent with mental torture and physical abuse.”

Mr. Green, 45, was set free by a state judge two weeks ago after DNA tests on the rape victim’s clothing proved that he could not have been responsible for the crime. His exoneration was the work of a new unit in the Harris County district attorney’s office dedicated to reviewing claims of innocence.

The story of Mr. Green’s nightmarish imprisonment — and how a prosecutor, Alicia O’Neill, eventually unearthed biological evidence that led to the real culprits — throws a harsh spotlight on an uncomfortable reality in American justice: the identification of a suspect in a lineup or in an array of photos is not always reliable.

More than three-quarters of the 258 people exonerated by DNA tests in the last decade were convicted on the strength of eyewitness identifications, according to the Innocence Project, the Manhattan-based organization dedicated to freeing innocent prisoners.

In Texas, the problem is even more acute: identifications by eyewitnesses played a pivotal role in 80 percent of the 40 people who have been exonerated with DNA evidence.

Some states, among them North Carolina and Ohio, have passed legislation changing the way lineups are conducted to reduce the possibility of an error, but similar bills in dozens of other states, including Texas, have failed in the face of stiff opposition from prosecutors and law enforcement agencies, defense lawyers say.

In 1983, Mr. Green was a high school dropout who slept late every day, played video games at an arcade in the afternoons and stole cars at night to make money. “Life was one big party,” he recalled.

He was walking home on April 18, 1983, the night a white woman was abducted and raped in his neighborhood by four black men in a stolen Camaro. He was one of several young men stopped by the police, but the victim could not identify him.

A week later, however, he was arrested after stealing a car and smashing it up. Detectives showed the victim Mr. Green’s mug shot, along with several other photos, and she said he might be one of her attackers. Later the same day, she picked him out of a lineup of five men.

He heard her scream from behind the mirrored glass when it was his turn to step forward in the lineup. He began cursing and yelling at the police.

“I got so mad, because I recognized it was a setup,” he said. “Then one of the police said: ‘I don’t know what you are mad about. I didn’t rape her. You did.’ ”

Mr. Green spit in the officer’s face, the first of many defiant acts.

A few days later, he turned down an offer from a prosecutor to plead guilty and serve five years for the rape, Mr. Green said. He recalls the trial as a surreal experience. It was the victim’s word against his. On the stand, she pointed him out again. He told the jury that he was innocent, but they did not believe him.

At 18 years old, he was sentenced to 75 years.

In prison, he fought nearly every day with other inmates at the Ferguson Unit, in Midway, where he earned the nickname “Two-Gun” for his boxing skills. He was filled with rage, he said, and fought often with the guards, too, earning vicious reprisals. In 1985, he was placed in a segregated unit for unruly and dangerous prisoners, mostly gang members. “I was considered one of the bad boys,” he said.

In 1986, a white inmate tried to stab him, but wounded a guard instead. Mr. Green said the attacker, who belonged to a white supremacist gang, had wanted to kill him because he had allegedly raped a white woman.

Confined alone in a cell for all but two hours a day, he would ruminate endlessly about his trial, he said. “I lay back and thought over and over and over again, why did they find me guilty?” he said. In the late 1980s, he began to request books from the law library, looking for a way to overturn the conviction.

But he lost every appeal, and a public defender told him in 1988 that his case was hopeless, given the vehemence of the victim’s testimony. He saw no glimmer of hope until 2001, when Texas passed a statute granting inmates the right to request DNA tests on old evidence under certain conditions.

He wrote the motion himself on a typewriter in his cell and sent it to the trial judge in July 2005. The judge assigned a public defender to handle the request, but the motion languished for three years in a backlog of requests before the Harris County district attorney’s office.

Then in 2008, Patricia Lykos, a former judge and police officer, was elected district attorney, and one of her first acts was to reverse the office’s longstanding reluctance to admit mistakes. She assigned two assistant district attorneys and an investigator to do nothing but comb through about 185 cases involving requests for DNA tests as well as about 75 other innocence claims. So far, the unit’s work has led to the release of three men, including Mr. Green.

Ms. Lykos has been pushing for a new regional crime lab to help expedite the cases. Not only were innocent men imprisoned, she said, but the victims were denied justice and the actual culprits remained free to commit other crimes. “Whenever you have an innocent person convicted, you have a triple tragedy,” she said.

Ms. O’Neill immediately zeroed in on Mr. Green’s tale as one of the few in the stack of cases in which DNA testing could make a difference. “It was just a perfect case to see what the science had to say,” Ms. O’Neill said.

The trouble was that the county clerk said the records showed the evidence in the case had been destroyed, a standard practice for old investigations in which there are no pending appeals. But Ms. O’Neill kept searching, and it turned out one box of evidence had been preserved by mistake, and inside were the victim’s jeans. There were 32 semen stains on the denim.

It took a year and a half for a state crime laboratory to untangle the DNA markers on the jeans, but when it was done, Ms. O’Neill and her colleague, Baldwin Chin, had hit pay dirt. Two of the profiles found on the pants matched those of men who had been arrested for other crimes — Michael A. Smith, who was in prison, and David Elder, who was on parole. What is more, none of the three profiles matched Mr. Green’s genetic code.

Under questioning, Mr. Elder named two other people involved in the rape, writing the names on the back of a business card. One of the men, Lawrence Mosley, was serving time in Amarillo for another crime, and he confirmed that the fourth person was Timothy Washington. None of the four will be charged in the rape because the statute of limitations has expired, prosecutors said.

But the new evidence was enough to persuade a judge to release Mr. Green on $500 bond while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals considers a final ruling on his innocence.

“It’s what you go to law school for,” Ms. O’Neill said of the moment Mr. Green walked out of jail.

Mr. Green, in the meantime, said the experience of freedom had “been a trip.” Just stepping in a grocery store or shopping for clothing at a mall overwhelms his senses, he said.

But the best years of his life are lost forever, he says. He wonders what happened to his girlfriend, whom he lost contact with after being sent to prison. He breaks down when talking about his mother’s death in 2006 and how he missed the funeral.

Then he pulls himself together. He has been offered a job as a paralegal with the Innocence Project of Texas, he says, and will dedicate his time to “getting more innocent dudes out.”

Thomas Lee Goldstein

In 2004, Mr. Goldstein was freed from prison after the Los Angeles district attorney dismissed all charges against him in the 1979 killing of a Long Beach drug dealer. The move was based on new evidence that the police had coached the only witness in the case by pointing Mr. Goldstein out in a photo spread as a suspect who had failed a polygraph test.

Lawyers also presented evidence that the police had offered Eddy Fink, a heroin addict and police informant, leniency in a grand theft conviction if he testified against Mr. Goldstein.

At the trial, Mr. Fink told the jury that Mr. Goldstein had confessed to the killing when the two men briefly shared a jail cell. Mr. Fink, who has since died, lied in court when asked if he had made any deal with the police before testifying, Mr. Litt said.

But Monte Machit, the Long Beach deputy attorney who defended the city in the case, said the police had not provided Mr. Fink “with any benefit in exchange for the information he offered.”

“We don’t believe there was any wrongdoing” by city officials, Mr. Machit said. “This is a lot of money, but in light of the potential verdict,” which could have been $24 million to $30 million and lawyers’ fees, he said, “we thought it better to get it resolved.”

Mr. Goldstein, 61, said the settlement was the end of a 30-year-long “painful chapter” in his life.

He said he would spend his coming years trying to “rebuild my life, prepare for retirement and help others who have not been as fortunate as I am today.”

State Sen. Patricia L. Miller, R-Indianapolis, plans to introduce legislation that makes background checks mandatory for Indiana nurses.

Miller said she has asked the Legislative Services Agency to draft such a bill in response to an Indianapolis Star report showing Indiana is one of only a handful of states that do not require background checks for nurses.

The Star’s investigation found nurses who had been charged or convicted of crimes involving prescription drugs, alcohol and violence. Licensing officials did not find out about those charges or convictions, however, and the nurses’ licenses were not affected.

“There ought to be a simple way to do this that is really fair and effective,” Miller, a registered nurse, told The Star on Tuesday. “Often the information is available; it’s just not getting to the state.”

Miller, who chairs the Health and Provider Services Committee, plans to introduce the bill in the next legislative session. She is gathering suggestions from nurses and others but is considering three main provisions:

Requiring hospitals, nursing homes and other kinds of health facilities to conduct pre-employment criminal background checks on nurses. They are currently required to perform such checks only on unlicensed professionals.

Requiring employers to pass information they learn about nurses’ criminal activity on to licensing officials.

Requiring law enforcement officials to pass information about nurses’ criminal history on to licensing officials on an ongoing basis (rather than checking nurses’ backgrounds only when they change jobs or renew their licenses).

“If something happens the day after you have your last criminal history check and the police know it,” Miller said, “they ought to report it then.”

A few months ago when I was researching on the Net to find out about important tips on a site to investigate someone on the internet consequently I come to know that a lot of on the internet directories are obtainable on the Net which keep the records data for the individuals against their contact info or social security number. So if the public have the contact info like phone number, address or the social security number of any person consequently the public can use these things to locate the person the public have been hunting for. Numerous reverse address research services and reverse phone number research services would be helpful for the public to look up out the new contact info of any old friend or lost relative.

By discovering important tips on find out about someone, the public would be able to know whether your lost friend or relative is alive or not likely because these on the internet databases keep the birth records data and death records due to the fact that well. Moreover the public would also be able to locate the marriage and divorce records data of any person with the help of on the internet databases. The on the internet databases would be helpful for the public to obtain the records data of any person immediately then again for that you would involve paying the payments specified by the aid.

By discovering important tips on a site to investigate someone on the internet you would be able to become a great person who specialized in private investigations. This would be helpful for you in your own life and even if you intend to become a professional investigator consequently you can also do it. If you intend to become an investigator consequently you would have to register yourself on a couple of resources which you think are reliable and you also can use for getting the records data for your research. Most for the resources charge you between $20 and $50 for buying its membership for a specific time period. The paid members of different resources also enjoy other facilities offered by the resource to its paid members.

Benken is the most sought-after private investigator in Houston for criminal cases from murder to health care fraud to financial scandals. He’s a blond mix of obsessive attention to detail and laid-back calm. He’s a hybrid — an attorney and private investigator who looks like a classy cop but thinks like a criminal defense lawyer.

“He has this gift. He makes people so comfortable they want to talk to him,” said Kent Schaffer, a criminal defense attorney who recently used Benken on the R. Allen Stanford financial fraud case and attributes some 10 grand jury no-bills of his clients to Benken. “He’s unassuming, low-key and likeable and he gets turned away very rarely.”

Benken won’t do divorce cases, he’s not interested in what he calls “fighting over salt and pepper shakers.” This sometime sleuth and sometime criminal defense lawyer likes to take a police offense report and dissect it to find more about everything such as puttied-over gunshot holes, alternative ways the drugs might have gotten in the car, why witnesses might lie, Facebook photos that tell a different story and on and on.

Lawyers who hire him these days praise his ability to get more detail than the police did, to zero in on lying witnesses and to unravel discrepancies, as he did in the Galveston case of Robert Durst, the eccentric millionaire who tossed a neighbor’s body parts into the Gulf but was acquitted of murder.

In that case Benken test-fired a gun inside Durst’s duplex to find that it was loud enough that more people likely heard the fatal shots than had admitted it. He also found South Carolina witnesses to detail the threatening nature of the man who died, bolstering his client’s self-defense claim.
A career in curiosity

A graduate of Sam Houston State University, Benken landed a job as a financial investigator in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in 1983. He was interested in what the lawyers did, so he went to law school at night to become one in 1987. He was curious about what police officers did, too, so he went to the police academy and became a peace officer in 1989.

He also became a prosecutor, then a criminal defense attorney, often defending police and deputies. Then he started doing more private investigations. Right now, sometimes he’s the attorney, more often he’s the investigator, but often he uses both his law and investigator licenses.

“People sometimes ask ‘What are you today?’ ” said Benken. His Heights Boulevard office is furnished with antiques, but features a little red chalk-outline-like dead body, stabbed in the heart with a pen.
‘I just like the hunt’

Benken said putting the puzzle together is more fun than arguing in court. He favors murder cases because “there is always something to work with” — like alibis, witnesses who haven’t yet told all, and accidents. He carries a gun but doesn’t feel in danger, except from the occasional growling pit bull.

“I just like the hunt,” Benken said. And many of Houston’s best criminal defense attorneys — Schaffer, Mike Ramsey, Chip Lewis, Dan Cogdell and George “Mac” Secrest among them — like sending him after quarry.

Between his time in the DA’s office and his time out of it, he has quietly gotten his hands on many of the biggest criminal cases in Houston. They range from investigations into corruption at the Hermann Hospital Estate and construction contractors paving private roads for a county commissioner in the 1980s, through the Enron and Stanford financial scandals, and to high-profile cases such as what turned out to be false charges against police in the death of Pedro Oregon, who was shot 12 times by police in a highly publicized and controversial drug raid.

His methods are often creative. In one case, in which a 280-pound client was accused of assaulting a woman in a Suzuki Samuri, Benken taped a re-enactment that showed how difficult it would have been for his large client to maneuver inside the cramped vehicle.

In another case he played a female laundromat owner in a courtroom re-enactment that helped convince the jury she was shot in self-defense.
From client to colleague

When Benken suspected a testifying witness really needed a wheelchair though she said she didn’t, he got video of the FBI wheeling her from her home the next morning to bring her back to court.

Cogdell said that when other investigators come back with a sentence or two saying someone worked at a restaurant, Benken reports on their shift hours, their favorite customers, work enemies and the kind of detail that can make a cross-examination work.

“A lot of investigators are ex-cops, many in the twilight of their careers, and they don’t really believe in the innocence of their clients. Their attitude is: ‘I’ll get around to it when I finish with my cheeseburger and beer.’ But Benken is uniquely reliable, professional and helpful. He gets into the weeds,” said Cogdell, who used Benken to investigate the case against fallen judge Don Jackson and to look into health care fraud by a doctor couple who pleaded guilty last week.

It was in winning freedom for accused Houston police officer Jim Willis in the Pedro Oregon case that Benken found the Dr. Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. The men bonded during the ordeal, and Willis later started investigating with Benken.

Willis says his years as a policeman and his understanding of being wrongly accused makes him a good complement to Benken’s legal mind. “We don’t have to be good cop-bad cop when we interview people. We show them all respect,” Willis said. “I’d say it’s more like good cop-better cop.”

1.) Avoid Danger. By putting yourself in the position one needs to be in to be a private investigator, you are exposed to grave danger. This is because you are unlikely to know how to master the art of surveillance or counter-surveillance – a sure way to get caught early in the investigation. Secondly, the subject you are following may realize your presence and may respond with violent behavior.

2.) Skill and Experience. It is likely that your skills will not match those of a good private investigator. Although the role may look quite easy on television, private investigation is a real art form that requires the utmost dedication and training. Private investigation is much more than simply following a car and taking photographs. Additionally, private investigators of today need to know how to: use overt and covert cameras to their ultimate advantage; install and download GPS tracking devices; use trace mail systems; use the Internet to obtain information; and most importantly, undertake threat assessments and risk management profiles. They also must think many steps ahead in regards to the investigation, and be versatile enough to not only change clothing and/or appearances during the course of surveillance, but also their vehicles.

3.) The Art of Investigation. The work involved with investigation is not simply asking a lot of questions. Although interviewing is a crucial skill for a private investigator in Connecticut and other private investigators to have, more importantly is the manner in which the private investigator asks these questions. For instance, a private investigator may use different probing techniques, or ask certain open-ended questions that will provide leads and answers. Several investigations of today require knowledge of forensic accounting, or, in other words, following a paper trail and discovering the stages of a fraudulent transaction.

Private investigation work also involves highly specialized and often expensive equipment.

4.) Knowing the Law. A professional private investigator is highly familiar with laws and abiding by them. He or she will know the proper way to gather evidence for possible court proceedings, and will never take the risk of losing evidence or disregarding court evidence rules. Police and properly registered private investigators are also the only people that are exempt and allowed to follow individuals and record their movements.

5.) Time and Evidence. As we can all imagine, the time it takes to do the work as a private investigator in Connecticut and other states is considerable. Private investigation is a full time job, and unless you are willing to devote that much time to it, it is very likely you would be able to adequately handle all of the obligations necessary for carrying out the investigation.

And even if you did spend an enormous amount of time on the project, you may come to find out that it was wasted if none of the evidence you gathered is admissible in court. The money you would then have to pay for an attorney could have been invested wisely into the services of a professional private investigator.

The worst part about shady behavior on the Internet is it not only affects innocent partners and causes them to catch a cheater, but when serious problems arise in the relationship over online infidelity, it also has an impact on the couple’s children.

It is no wonder that online infidelity causes concerns for a majority of individuals today, especially when you consider that many of them have no choice but to catch a cheater because up to 2.7 relationship end up being affected by the devastation of problems cause by social networking sites on the web.

Just like continuous changes made in the field of technology, countless private investigators have also made many advancements in the services they provide to innocent partners that would like to catch a cheater. For example, one very helpful service they provide to individuals that have endured painful situations of a cheating partner can benefit largely from an online infidelity investigation. All this service requires is providing the PI with the suspected partner’s email address. Then, it can be matched up to thousands of online social networking sites where your spouse may have registered and become an active member. In the case that an individual suspects a problem with porn, escort, and cam sites, an online infidelity investigation that concentrates on these types of social networking sites is also available. After these investigations are performed, you are then supplied with links to any websites that your spouse has become involved in behind your back.

Just as with any other type of professional that you select to perform a service, it is also important to ensure that the private investigator you hire has an extensive knowledge in performing the services on online infidelity investigations. This will ensure that you are able to catch a cheater and obtain the most successful results.