by admin_lauth | Jan 26, 2017 | Investigations
Jack E. Sandline, an Indiana Senator and owner of private investigation firm Jack Sandline and Associates, shared a post on Facebook mocking the women who participated in the post inauguration Women’s March as being fat and unmotivated. Sandlin shared a picture of the march which read: “In one day, Trump got more fat women out walking, than Michelle Obama did in 8 years.”
The post was quickly deleted, but it was too late. People had already taken screenshots of the post and it began spreading like wildfire. After the post was deleted, a second post appeared on Sandlin’s Facebook wall apologizing, but it was also deleted shortly after. Sandlin told the Indy Star he didn’t make either post, but he allow the possibility that he, “…could have hit something.”
Social media is a powerful tool. It can connect you with your audience directly to strengthen your brand. It can also destroy all of your hard work if you post the wrong thing. Here’s a few times people’s social media posts got them into hot water.
Saturday Night Live Writer is Suspended for Barron Trump Tweet
It’s no secret that Saturday Night Live and Donald Trump have an adversarial relationship. Alec Baldwin has been portraying Trump in less than flattering ways ever since Trump announced he was running for president. While SNL has a history of lampooning anyone and everyone, even they had to draw the line when one of their writers tweeted about Trump’s youngest son, Barron.
On the day of Trump’s inauguration, SNL writer Katie Rich published a tweet that said, “Barron will be this country’s first homeschool shooter.” The reaction across social media was swift and strong in its condemnation of the tweet. People were outraged Rich targeted a child with an insult.
Rich deleted the tweet and even deactivated her Twitter account after the backlash, but it was too late. Executives quickly suspended her for indefinite amount of time for the tweet. Rich’s name was removed from the credits of the following show.
Justine Sacco Caused a Social Media Meltdown and had no Idea
Justine Sacco was the director of corporate communications at IAC when she caused a social media meltdown. Sacco was sitting on a plane waiting to take off for Africa when she tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Sacco’s flight took off shortly after the tweet was sent.
Sacco didn’t have internet access as she flew and had no idea her tweet was causing the uproar it did. With only 170 followers, it’s unlikely Sacco expected any significant response to her tweet. Unfortunately social media is unpredictable and it’s difficult to know what will and won’t blow up. By the time Sacco’s plane landed, there were numerous blogs calling her a racist and she had lost her job.
PacketSled CEO Resigns after Tweeting Death Threat to Trump
In case you thought only lower level employees would lose their jobs over social media posts, Matt Harrigan is here to prove you wrong. Harrigan was the CEO and President of PacketSled, a network security company before resigning due to some ill advised social media posts.
In multiple posts across his Twitter and Facebook pages, Harrigan wrote about wanting to personally kill Donald Trump.
Twitter and Facebook accounts tied to Matthew Harrigan, the President & CEO of PacketSled, included comments threatening Trump Sunday afternoon, according to an NBC 7 source.
“I’m going to kill the president. Elect,” was one of the posts on Harrigan’s Twitter account. It was followed by the comment, “Bring it secret service.”
“…getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts,” reads a post to Harrigan’s Facebook account. “Find a bedroom in the whitehouse [sic] that suits you motherf—er. I’ll find you.”
After Harris’s social media posts began to garner attention, he tendered his resignation to the PacketSled board of directors who quickly accepted. As if losing his job wasn’t bad enough, his comments were also reported to the Secret Service. Harris did apologize for his comments, but it was too late.
David Schroeder, Blog Writer, Lauth Investigations International
by admin_lauth | Jan 23, 2017 | Corporate Investigations
When Hiring a CEO Goes Wrong
Hiring a CEO is a long and arduous process. Companies can’t afford to waste time and money on the wrong candidates. It’s bad enough when someone gets a CEO position and isn’t good at their job. It’s even worse when they have to resign in embarrassment.
More frequently than you might suspect, companies hire someone for a top executive position without doing a thorough background check. Instances like these not only waste company resources, but they hurt the company’s image and make securing top talent in the future harder. Here are a few times a more thorough vetting process could’ve protected a company’s resources and reputation.
Monica Crowley
Monica Crowley was a research assistant to Richard Nixon in the 1990s. She received a PhD from Columbia University in 2000 and was a political commentator for The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and MSNBC, among others. She has published multiple books as well.
When Donald Trump won the presidency he initially nominated Crowley to be the Senior Director of Strategic Communications for the National Security Council. Quickly after her nomination reports began circulating that Crowley had plagiarized large portions of the books she had written.
Initially the Tump administration said they stood by Crowley and that the attacks on her were politically motivated. However more and more evidence of Crowley’s plagiarism began to mount.
Crowley was found to have not only plagiarize portions of her books, but also her PhD dissertation for Columbia University. Harper Collins, Crowley’s book publisher, withdrew her books from being sold and Columbia said they were reviewing their records.
Crowley’s plagiarism went from minor footnote to national spectacle overnight. After standing by Crowley during the initial accusations, the Tump administration ended up withdrawing her nomination. This whole scandal could’ve been avoided with basic cross referencing and data mining.
Gustavo Martinez
Gustavo Martinez was the CEO of J. Watler Thompson, a major company in the advertising industry. JWT has over 10,00 employees working in more than 200 offices across 90 countries.
Martinez is originally from Argentina and became Global President of JWT in 2014. In January of 2015 Martinez was named CEO. Within a year of his promotion, Martinez was named in a lawsuit alleging discrimination by a female employee.
The lawsuit claimed Martinez had made numerous racist remarks during a company meeting. Martinez is said to have told employees to double check their bags and belongings since the hotel where they were staying had so many black people. Martinez is also accused of making comments about raping female employees.
One of the more shocking aspects of this case is the brazenness of Martinez. All of these comments were made in front of large groups of people. His comments about black people potentially stealing employees belongings are even on video. In fact, Martinez had been known to discuss his distaste for Jewish people.
Martinez’s willingness to speak this way publicly surely could have been discovered before he was made CEO. Instead J. Walter Thompson is now engaged in a high profile lawsuit and lost their CEO. Extensive background investigations can protect your company from embarrassing headlines and wasting money fighting lawsuits that should never have happened in the first place.
Scott Thompson
Scott Thompson is an American businessman with an impressive resume. Thompson had a long career in technology before becoming the CEO of Yahoo in 2012. He had been the Executive Vice President of Technology Solutions for Inovant, Chief Information Officer for Barclays Global Investors, Chief Technology Officer and then President of Paypal.
Thompson’s work history made him appear to be the perfect candidate for almost any job in technology. How could he have gotten so many high level technology jobs without any skeletons being rousted from his closet?
Despite his exceptional work history it turns out that Thompson had been falsifying his resume. After six months as the CEO of Yahoo, Thompson was forced to resign after it was discovered he lied about his college education. Thompson claimed to have received bachelor’s degrees in computer science and accounting from Stonehill College.
When Stonehill College was contacted about potential discrepancies on Thompson’s resume, they would only confirm he had received a degree in accounting. Thompson blamed a headhunting firm for the false information, but the firm strongly denied the allegation. Yahoo has been struggling to find stead leadership ever since.
All of these cases share a common theme; they were all 100% avoidable. There is no excuse for hiring a CEO who has to resign in disgrace with a year of employment or even before they begin the job. Private investigation firms like Lauth Investigations International can identity these issues before your company makes a move.
Companies aren’t just wasting time and money on unqualified candidates, but they’re risking their reputations. Appearing dysfunctional is bad for investors and makes it more difficult to secure qualified candidates in the future. Lauth Investigations International has the investigatory skills to protect your business from self-inflicted wounds.
David Schroeder, Blog Writer, Lauth Investigations International
by admin_lauth | Sep 19, 2016 | Corporate Investigations, Personal Investigations, Private Investigations News
1. We Locate People
The individual could be a witness, heir, a missing child, or a criminal. Maybe the individual is a former disgruntled employee who could whistle-blow about corporate misconduct or fraud. You might needing locate a subject in possession of the proverbial “smoking gun”—as in the case of stolen assets. Whether it’s an interview, serving papers, or investigate individuals, a Lauth PI can help you to identify and locate the subject.
2. We Locate Assets
Lauth Investigators are skilled at locating assets such as real estate, unclaimed property, and other valuable property like: artwork, antiques, collectibles, motor vehicles, aircraft, vessels, etc. A Lauth investigator can also help attorneys to identify the location both domestic and offshore bank accounts.
3. We Can Leverage for Negotiations
A Lauth Investigator can pull together key sources and intelligence to inform your side during litigation, in an M&A deal, during an internal investigation, or any other adversarial situation. It can make the difference between a favorable settlement and an unfavorable one.
4. We Can Help Attorneys Enforce Judgments
Obviously, a judgment is only useful if you are able to enforce it. A Lauth Investigator can help attorneys to identify current assets and uncover efforts to hide or misrepresent them through the transfer to family members, friends or other parties.
5. We Can Connect the Dots
Lauth Investigators can help you to know who is actually sitting on the other side of the table during litigation or a potential business deal. You can gain immeasurable negotiation power by identifying who is actually behind a faceless corporation or tying together undisclosed connections.
6. We Can Generate A Historical Reconstruction/Timeline
A historical reconstruction may be helpful in a number of different areas. Perhaps you need to review the history of a family to locate heirs. It could be a corporate history or a chain of title issue in a real estate matter. Whatever the issue, a Lauth Investigator can help to identify and piece together long lost documents, facts and witnesses.
Aaron Snyder — Research Investigator and Blog Writer — Lauth Investigations International
![Workplace Fraud: The Three Types of Employees]()
by admin_lauth | Feb 15, 2016 | Corporate Investigations
There are a few generally accepted types of employees when it comes to workplace fraud and embezzlement. Social science has done a great deal of research on who commits workplace fraud and why they decide to offend. The three most common types of employee, when it comes to likelihood of committing fraud, are: honest employees, generally honest employees, and professionally dishonest employees.
Professionally Dishonest Employees
Often referred to as “professional fraudsters”, these individuals are more uncommon than the other types, but are important to understand and make note of. They certainly do exist, and there may be more of them than you might think. These fraudsters seek companies with weak controls and the inability to detect workplace fraud. These employees move from company to company in order to defraud them. These individuals generally had no intention of working for said company; their only intention from their initial interview is to defraud an organization for personal gain. This type of planned, calculated, and premeditated workplace fraud is one of the most serious types of fraud, and often times they involve large dollar amounts.
Companies can combat these fraudsters by creating stronger controls and implementing a plan to discover workplace fraud. The mere existence of such of a plan to deter workplace fraud can be enough to denture these fraudsters from ever infiltrating the company to begin with—they are looking for any easy payday. Organizations with weak controls and highly autonomous workers should be particularly aware of this type of employee, and take steps in order to make sure they are never hired in the first place.
Generally Honest Employees
The second category of employees is generally honest ones. These employees took the job and, originally, never planned on stealing or defrauding the company. There are two main risk factors that are used to determine how likely a particular employee is to engage in fraud.
The first risk factor is opportunity. If a generally honest employee is given a large opportunity, or many smaller opportunities, to steal from the company they are more likely to commit workplace fraud than an employee with limited opportunity. Limiting the opportunity for workplace fraud to occur may be the single best preventative measure that can be taken to avoid the issue altogether.
The other determining factor is the employee’s perceived need for the money. Employees who are dependent on gambling, alcohol, or drugs are certainly at a higher risk to offend, but sometimes, all it takes for fraud to occur is any level of perceived need and a high level of opportunity.
Honest Employees
They certainly exist, but far too often, employers estimate that they have more honest employees than they actually do. Often times, victims of workplace fraud become victims by believing that their employees are all honest. Other times, employers are concerned about low-level workers while the most likely individual to commit fraud is a long-term, trusted, knowledgeable, and important employee.
Employees that have been around for awhile have a working knowledge of the company, and in turn, understand the best ways that they could defraud the company without suspicion. Companies can help insulate themselves from fraud by understanding that their most likely offenders are also the employees they might least suspect.
Regardless of the character of the workers that a given company employs, it is impossible to completely avoid the possibility that workplace fraud could occur in the organization. Understanding these simple categories can help avoid hiring the wrong people, but because workplace fraud can happen anywhere, it is also important to know how hiring a Private Investigator can help you discover fraud, recover losses, and prosecute offending employees.
Aaron Snyder, Writer, Lauth Investigations Blog
![Workplace Fraud: The Three Types of Employees]()
by admin_lauth | Feb 10, 2016 | Corporate Investigations
Suspect work place fraud? Call Lauth Investigations today.
So you’ve realized that you are the victim of workplace fraud. What now? For many business owners, it can be frustrating trying to figure out what to do after uncovering fraud in the workplace. Here are five options of who to contact when you suspect that you’ve been duped.
1. Many begin by calling an attorney
You certainly might need one at some point during this stressful process, but not all attorneys are capable of assisting in the same way. Different attorneys have different specialties, and their advice on the proper way to proceed will likely vary widely. Calling your attorney could be helpful, and again, may be necessary. Still, it might not be the best first-option due to the high professional fees that attorneys tend to charge.
2. Luckily there is crime insurance, right?
It’s certainly true—crime insurance can help recover funds lost in workplace fraud cases. However, just like most other types of insurance policies, there are countless factors that play into the decision to approve or deny a particular claim. Far too often, a small error or failure by the policy-holder results in the claim being denied. Not to mention, when approved, crime insurance policies usually only cover a tiny fraction of the overall loss. Crime insurance is great, but it is no substitute for a proper investigation.
3. Contacting the police is also always an option.
The police can certainly investigate; however criminal justice is a slow process, and often times workplace fraud cases can be tough to prosecute—especially if the district attorney feels there is an apparent civil agreement that has already been made. But what if the employee agrees to pay the money back, and defaults on their agreement? For several reasons, the police are only limitedly helpful in workplace fraud cases.
4. Often times a small business owner will contact their CPA.
Again CPAs and other trusted advisors could be needed at some point, but the advice you receive may vary a great deal. Sometimes the actions taken can actually complicate the issue—costing even more in professional fees. Take the wrong step, and you may hurt your chances of criminally prosecuting the employee and having a successful recovery of losses. Although involving a CPA could be necessary, it also may not be the best first step.
5. The correct first step very well may be to contact a private investigator.
Many private investigators have experience dealing with workplace fraud cases; they also have experience working with attorneys, crime insurance companies, police, CPAs, and other professional advisors. Working with a private investigator on a workplace fraud case can yield important results while keeping costs low.
A private investigator can examine the case and determine which, if any, of these avenues would be the most fruitful. Getting a private investigator involved in the case, before hiring other professionals, can help simplify the issue while keeping costs for professional services, like attorney fees and CPA costs, to a minimum.
Explore the blog for more about when to call a professional for a corporate investigation and a few ground rules for a successful workplace investigation.
Aaron Snyder, Writer, Lauth Investigations Blog
