America's Criminologist 10 28 25 Guest Fred Graessle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Costal suits.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Just listen as a fac shadows a secret love, Doctor
Curry last do the sa amer scramologist.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Sales of the law.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
In the Alasys Crime Brak and Jay Bruce start the frame.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Kerry Myers. All right, all right,
all right, it's a beautiful day. Welcome to America's Criminologist,
where truth meets justice through the lens of timeless values.
I'm your host, Doctor Curry, Myer's former sheriff, state trooper,
and special agent, now professor, ethicist and applied criminologists. On

(00:58):
the show, we confront today's criminal justice issues with moral clarity,
data driven insight, and an apologetic common sense. From the
collapse of the family to failures information, and the slow
erosion of faith in our institutions, we uncover how these
elements create fertile ground for criminality. Each week we bring

(01:18):
you conversations with frontline experts, law enforcement professionals, victims, thought
leaders who understand that the fight for justice isn't just
about laws, It's about virtue. This is America's Criminologists, where
we speak boldly, stand firmly, and seek the truth. Compromise, subscribe,
today at doctor Currymeyers dot substack dot com and join

(01:39):
a growing community that refuses to be silent in the
face of chaos. That's doctor Currymeyers dot substack dot com
to view all my published works. Today, we expose the
quiet crimes that destroy lives from inside out, fraud within families,
from the mob wars of night time seventies Cleveland to

(02:01):
modern day divorce, court betrayals and inheritance scans. Our guest
has seen it all. With virtue breaks down, deception steps in,
and when we trust is shattered inside the home, the
damage can be devastating as any street crime. We're diving
deep into how formation, faith and family are the ultimate
crime prevention tools and how their absence fuels the rise

(02:24):
of feral man. Our guest today is retired FBI Special
Agent Fred Grassel, a man who's battled crime from both
sides of the ledger, from taking down organized crime in
the bombing capital of America which was Cleveland at that time,
to helping victims uncover white collar betrayal. As a forensic CPA,
Fred brings a rare perspective. He's here to walk through

(02:48):
the stories of mobsters and embezzlers and fraudsters, and how
even family can become the battleground for deception. Fred my friend,
welcome to the show. Hope you're doing all right.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Thank you very much, thank you for having me on
the show.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
An FBI agent with a that is a CPA. Man,
that's deadly.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
That was a that was a very valuable tool before
my thirty years as an FBI agent, A white color
crime was always has been the top criminal priority of
the FBI. And it was very, very interesting, great career.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Before we get going, I'd like to know what kind
of was in your mind. So did you did you
get the CPA prior to joining the FBI.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I I passed the CPA before I got into the FBI.
I got my CPA certificate shortly after I joined the FBI.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
Did you always want to do it to become in
law to go into law enforcement?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
I took accounting at Indiana University specifically to qualify me
for the FBI, and just I was just very lucky.
I was very young when I got in. I was
twenty four years old when I got into the bureau.
You have to be at least twenty three, and very
few agents get in at twenty three, and I was very,

(04:08):
very lucky to get in so early.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
And that's back when the FBI was doing incredible work
and there were really three categories. I mean, they did
more some specialization, but really they were looking for former
police officers that may have specialty in certain areas. They
were looking for people with law degrees, and they were
looking for people who had great accounting background. And I'm

(04:31):
sure CPA's was even a plus. Wasn't that the case
back in those strong days of the seventies and eighties.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yes, And just before I got in, the categories expanded
to language agents for criteria countries and a lot of specialties,
metallurgy specialists for the labs. DNA was just me on

(05:00):
at that point. So they were looking for a lot
of specialties at that point.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Right, which makes total sense. I mean, the FBI is
a specialized unit that needs to have certain expertise that
other law enforcement doesn't have, and they were able to
go out and get it. So and I'm glad that
we're seeing a return. In my opinion, we're seeing a
strong return back to those same values that the FBI
was holding back in the in the in the nineteen
eighties in the early nineteen nineties, and we're getting away

(05:27):
from the kind of the more political research and and
you know, intelligence gathering. Those play important roles, there's no
question about it, but they're they're not the main emphasis
for criminal investigations. Do you do would you agree?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Absolutely? One hundred percent?

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Okay, we get into I'm sure people are aware of
the of Danny Green, a famous Irish mobser that came
out of Cleveland in the nineteen seventies. There's a couple
of documentaries on that's fantastic. There's a movie about him
as well. Fascinating figure certainly, and I'm sure that you

(06:08):
know the the movies make him in a much better
light as a human is what the truly is. But
tell us about that era. Cleveland was really the center
the mob violence in Cleveland just became synonymous there for

(06:28):
quite a number of years, and you are thrown right
into the middle of it, right.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
My friend I landed there in December of nineteen seventy five,
and the following year Cleveland was named the bombing Capital
of the United States. They had, i want to say,
thirty six bombings that took place, largely centered around the
mob wars between the Italian mob run by James T.

(06:53):
Luckaboli at that time and the Irish mob that was
run by Danny Green and a defector by the name
of John Nardi sighted up with Danny Green at that
time to UH to try to gain control over some
of the criminal areas between Cleveland and Youngstown and UH,

(07:14):
and they took care of their problems by using bombs
at that time, and a lot of the public was
getting very concerned about the potential for collateral damage with
with those bombs.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
And you were you had some direct involvement in the
that was tied to the to the famous mobster John
Curley Montana. Is that Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
That's correct. Interestingly, James Lickovoli got convicted of the conspiracy
for killing Danny Green UH. He was replaced by Angelo Leonardo,
who big Ange at the time, who was ultimately convicted
and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.

(08:00):
He later eventually cut a deal and testified before the
Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations and provided testimony a significant
amount and part of it involved a statement that the
bomb that killed John Nardi in the Teamster parking lot

(08:21):
was set by John Curlely Montana and Russell Popoloto. And
those are the ones that planted that trojan force bomb
next to the John Narty's car, which was which included
reportedly sixteen sticks of dynamite. When that bomb went off,

(08:41):
that's a that's a that's a big bomb.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah. Where most of those car bombings was the accelerant
was it was? It dynamite was.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
The main dynamite with remote remote detonation.

Speaker 4 (08:55):
And back then did the FBI work those crime scenes
as well? Was the ATM much of a figure at
that time.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Or those crime scenes were worked by several different organizations,
including some on the FBI. Certainly atf was a part
of it, The local law enforcement was a part of it.
It was a concerted effort by a lot of groups.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
Tell us a little inside information on Danny Green. He's
if you look at his movies, even the documentaries kind
of hold him in a in kind of a light
of of a guy facing the enemy, you know type
situation where he's the good guy and the mobs the
bad guy. Tell us a little bit about some inside

(09:41):
information on Danny Green and really what kind of person
he was in his in his in his background.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
I wasn't that close to the actual Danny Green aspects
of it, of the of the investigations, but Danny Green
used used the bombings to destroy uh and to kill
members of the Italian mob in in very high numbers.
He was one of the main main forces behind that.

(10:15):
But the but the at that point in time, you've
got you've got labor, control of labor, you've got control
of gambling, you've got control of vending machines and drugs,
and and it was a it was a serious uh
fight to try to gain control over that corridor from
the Cleveland to the Youngstown area. Uh. And that's what

(10:39):
that's what the big battle was between the Italians in
the in the Irish.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
Now they had lawn shoremen too. That it was is
that part of part of Cleveland because it's close to
the lake, the Great Lakes.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Well, they certainly had a long shoreman contingent uh Cleveland,
but uh uh that was not as big of an
elements as some of these other areas.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Right then, you worked a pretty significant kidnapping and murder
case that occurred during that time period, and you were
able to use in an interesting way. You were able
to use really white collar tactics to be able to
focus on that actually kidnapping and murder case.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Sure, so I started out with a Czech fraud case
white collar that turned into a kidnapping murder case. So
you never know where a case is going to end
when when you started it out. So it turned out
that John Curley Montana was a part of the planning
stages of this kidnapping murder and it was the kidnapping

(11:47):
and murder of the Berwin, Illinois businessman who was trying
to reconcile with his estranged wife who was living in
Cleveland at that time with her daughter from a previous marriage.
And Montana played some significant roles in the planning stages

(12:08):
of that, including the development of an of an alibi
letter that he wanted to have mailed, which he did
from Buffalo, New York, that indicated after Henry Podborney, the victim,
had been killed, that he was still alive in Buffalo,

(12:28):
looking for his estranged wife and wanting to get together
to make it look like he was still alive. The
participants in this particular scheme involved a couple of just
street thugs from from Cleveland, two Hells Angels, John Montana
got convicted twice, his estranged wife, his daughter, and three

(12:53):
other commons. We ended up with eleven convictions in total.
In the case his absolutely a spectacul Her case no
go ahead. But John Montana's role in this thing was
to was not only to help planet, but to help

(13:14):
clean out this guy's bank accounts and his uh yeah,
the assets that he had hidden in his home and
his business in Berwin, Illinois. And h Montana saw a big,
a big payday coming with this, with this particular process.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
So what's the relationship with the wife? How did what? What?
What really caused this to kind of get to the
mob level with this situation? Was it was she sleeping
with somebody with you know what? What kind of occurred there?

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Well, she was, uh, most of her time was spent
in the Berwin, Illinois area, and she was very disgruntled
because her husband, who actually was in addition to running
a palette company, was also running a loan sharking business
in the Berwin, Illinois area, and she knew that he

(14:06):
had access literally to hundreds of thousands of dollars, but
there was no way she could divorce him and get
loan sharking money because that wasn't going to come up
in a in a divorce arrangement. So the idea was
when once she got to Cleveland, the discussion was the
way the only way for her to get her hands
on the money was to was to get her husband

(14:29):
to Cleveland. They grab him, kill him, and then they
go and they clean out the bank accounts in the
house where he was hiding the money.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
Well, what was the direct relationship with the wife to
be able to reach out to the mob was? It
was that.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Was that was through an individual by the name of
Jim McLean. McLean was a was an associate of the
daughter in law and he had he had he'd been
a long standing organized crime associate where he had worked
with with different members over over the years. So when
it came time to come up with a better plan

(15:05):
for how to make this work, they called Jim McClain
and once McLain learned about what they were planning on
wanting to do, he reached out to John Montana who
had the real hardcore hands on process with kidnapping or
with murders.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
So during this the the wife actually reached out to
their to her own family members to help her with this.
At some point she confided in her daughter in law
and was it was his son involved to or would.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Do absolutely the Uh. Yeah, they had a step son
who was a member of the Hell's Angels group, and
once they learned of the the initial plan was just
to kidnap him and drug him and and and finally, uh,
the son said, wait a minute, you have no idea
what this guy is going to be able to say

(15:59):
or not say. We've just got to kill him. And
then the immediate decision at that point was to switch
it over from a kidnapping to a murder, which it did.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
So at some point the marriage between the Hell's Angels
and the mob, how did who came first? The kind
of the chicken and an egg there on this case,
who who came in came came first? And why did
they reach out to the other for help?

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Very very close to being the same time. One was
the the uh, the son and the Hell's Angels, and
and he had he had another Hell's Angel with him
on that decision. Uh. That came about in the initial
planning stage of this is what we're going to do.
The John Curly Montana comes in when the decision has

(16:44):
been made of what they're going to do, and now
how do they implement it? And that's where they needed
somebody with with his level of experience and and and
keep in mind that alibi letter was was based on
the premise that we were never going to find the
body of Henry Podborning. And we had we had all

(17:06):
of these people charged in this case, We had three
trials set and we were eight days away from the
first trial and we still didn't have the body. And
then we got the body just in time for the
first trial. And once we found the body, the alibi

(17:26):
letter was no longer relevant because the alibi letter was
an indication that he was still alive after he had
been killed, and he was in Buffalo, New York. And
so that letter was going to be used by some
of the defendants in that case as a as an
explanation that he was that we had everything wrong, that

(17:49):
the victim was still alive. Well, now they can't use it,
but that letter became critical. So we indicted Curly Montana
on mail fraud, and then we subpoened that alibi letter
from the defense and they had to turn that over
as a part of the the Grandeuriy subpoena and so

(18:11):
we got that letter, and that's part of the key
part of the key evidence against Curly Montana tell us.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
The fascinating story of the discovery of the body.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
I received a radio message to return to the office
as quickly as possible. When I got back, they had
a recorder set up on the phone, and I was
told that an anonymous caller had called in and wanted
to talk to the case agent on the Podborney case,
and that they would only talk to the case agent,

(18:46):
but that they knew where the body was. And so
right on, right on, Mark, I get a phone call
from the UH from this anonymous caller who tells me,
I know where that body is. I know it's I
know it's who you're looking for, and I want ten
thousand dollars to tell you and show you where the
body is. So here are this guy's now trying to

(19:10):
extort ten thousand dollars out of the FBI to tell
us where the body is. So I told him that
all I could get.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
In my hand I didn't think that was against the law.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
So I told him at the time, all I could
get my hands on was one hundred dollars, and then
I would do everything I could to get the rest
and he goes, okay, any names the gas station that
we met him at, and we within a half an
hour we were out there, and sure enough he was
there waiting for us, and it took us and showed

(19:44):
us right where the body was.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
Well, how do you think he knew?

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Well, he found out he was a building inspector and
the body had been been placed under a mound of
rubble in between these two old apartment buildings and the
uh so he gets out there. There have been a
complaint about the smell and the so the body had
been there almost not quite ninety days, but it was

(20:11):
it was very close to that. And so he goes
over to the guy, the head of the maintenance of
one of one of the buildings, one of the apartment buildings,
and and he says, hey, what's the deal. There's a
dead body out there underneath that pardler rubbish. And the
guy says, I know. I got called by Robert O'Neill,
one of the guys that was in jail for the murder.

(20:35):
He called me down to the to the to the prison.
I went down there and he said I got to
move that body because if they find it I'm dead,
and uh, he wanted him to move that body that night,
and so the the the the guy in the apartment
building asked the the inspector if he would help him
move the body, and the inspector says, yes, yeah, no problem,

(20:58):
and then he says, I'll be back tonight and we
can move it. And that's when he leaves and he
goes and he calls the FBI to try and get
ten thousand dollars. Wow, the body unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Whatever happened to those two, well, one of.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Them turned out to be a great witness. The building.
The building manager was a great witness because he not
only you know, got this thing going to where to
where the body was discovered, but he could link have
a direct link between Robert O'Neill and one other defendant
in the case with the murder of Henry Podborney. And

(21:39):
so he was absolutely a great witness on the on
the witness stand. The business manager was the turned out
to be the husband of the of the city prosecutor.
And we were working with the Cleveland Homicide us it

(22:00):
on on on the killing, and so we we let
the Cleveland Homicide Unit work that out, work the the
issue with with the building inspector out with the with
his wife. The city prosecutor for the city of Cleveland.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
Now at that time, at Cleveland's kind of survived the
the any mob infiltration or did you feel like you
were able to trust them?

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Okay, say that again? Can you ask that again?

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Yeah, with the police department at that time, where had
they kind of stayed away from any kind of mob
infiltration or corruption and you could trust them pretty well?

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, I think from from that point in time they uh,
you know, their their involvement in the case was was
strictly from the homicide aspect of it and uh and
we were handling the Curly Montana side of it. And
then eventually eventually we got back in and got the

(23:03):
kidnapping murder charges against against Montana, but they were not
in the in the uh uh in the organized crime
aspect of it.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
And then convictions. What was the end result.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
We convicted ten different individuals in that case. Uh, Curly
got Curly Montana got convicted twice, once for the mail
fraud and once for the kidnapping murder. But it was
it was an absolutely spectacular case. It was going to
be actually featured on an old an old series called

(23:39):
FBI Untold Stories. I was sitting at my desk in uh,
Northwest Indiana, after I'd been transferred out of Cleveland, and
I got a call from the from the producer of
of FBI Untold Stories, and he had a bureau supervisor
on the line with him, and I was told they
were they were going to start the third season of

(24:01):
FBI Untold Stories with this case. And uh and then
about a month later, Uh, FBI Untold Stories was canceled.
So case never made it on the TV. So I'm
working on a on a on a screenplay with another writer, uh,
to see if I can't get something moving on this thing.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Yeah, I love it. It's so fascinating. It's a fascinating
era in particular. But but that era, that location, Uh,
there's just so much that that could be written about.
So I encourage you to do it, because, uh, you
know history, we're just a couple of you know, decades
away from forgetting stuff and these are some important cases

(24:44):
that we want to make sure. Then you end up
transferring to Gary, Gary, right, Gary, Indiana. If that was
a promotion, that doesn't sound like much of a promotion, because.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Goodness, I wanted to get back to Indiana and uh.
You know, I was told if I wanted to, I
might be able to get transferred down to Indianapolis after
a couple of years, But I never wanted to after
I got there. But you know, talk about go from
the fire or from the plan into the fire. In
the decade of the nineties, you know, Gary was constantly

(25:16):
at the top of the murder capital ranking of the
United States. I want to say at least three about
three years during that decade they were ranked right at
the top. Very very violent area. But it was but
the corruption and the UH and the fraud that that

(25:37):
took place in that area was so prolific that the
US Attorney's Office had to set declination guidelines on cases
because they couldn't handle all the corruption and fraud cases
that were that were being developed in that area.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
What made Gary such a fantastic target for criminal and
criminal enterprise. I know it's suburb of Chicago basically, but
what made it so unique to say, hey, we need
to go there and set up shop and just cause
complete chaos.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
Well, I think the UH part of it is federally
that was that was poured into UH, into northwest Indiana,
and there was a lot of money that went into
the development of an airport, that went into the development
of a of a transportation district, and and just a
lot of basic federal money that became available, and it

(26:34):
it basically went unchecked.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
And as different regimes came into power in Gary, it
was almost like the next regime that came in took
the position that day it's it's our turn, and then
everything started started all over again. There are some really
good people in Gary, don't don't get me wrong, and

(26:58):
I always felt sorry for, you know, all the people
that you know were somewhat kind of trapped in that area.
The steel industry, which had flourished for years was starting
to drop down, and that lost jobs, lost good, good
revenue into that area, and gangs, gangs just took a

(27:23):
strong foothold into Gary. And by the time I retired,
there were roughly eighty separate gangs that we had identified
in that in the Gary area, literally controlling maybe an
eight or twelve block section of the city. And it

(27:43):
was it was just an awful, awful place because of
the gangs.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
Well, we got to go to commercial break. Can you
stay with us for the second segment of the show.
Sure can all right, I think we'll get into your
forensic CPA role post FBI. Stay with us. We'll be
back in about three minutes to continue on with FBI
Special Agent Fred Grassel retired.

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(31:04):
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(31:46):
Because silence is an option, Welcome back to America's Criminologists.
As we've heard today, crime doesn't always wear a ski
mask and carry a weapon. Sometimes it hides behind a
wedding ring or at least a will and a testament.
Whether it's a spouse quietly iphening assets or a cut
caregiver manipulating the dying, these acts aren't just illegal, they're moral.
There are fruits of society drifting from virtue where formation

(32:09):
has failed and the family bond has been frayed. The
feral man is often said, it's not born, it's made,
made in silence and secrecy, and then the shadow of
moral collapse. But there's a way forward, aware vigilance and
anchoring ourselves once again in the good, the true, eternal,
and always get somebody like retired FBI Special Agent Fred Grassel,

(32:32):
a CPA and crime fighter by your side to help
you guide the way, right Fred, that's correct, all right?
So theft of marital assets, divorce, deceit, financial subversion. Most
people don't realize, but these are huge cases.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
They most certainly are. And there's a lot of research
on this and if you look at the if you
look the research, it's talking about as much as forty
to forty two forty three percent of first time marriages
in divorce, which is which is just a staggering. But

(33:15):
if you think about the divorce process. Many of those
cases take place, they start to take place years before
the actual filing for the divorce, and that gives certain
people a lot of time to plan to hide assets
or to steal or divert assets away from the other spouse.

(33:37):
Most of my cases, but by no means all, most
of them involve the husband as being the controlling, the financial,
controlling spouse in a marriage. But that is not one
hundred percent. So as I walk through this process, I'll
refer to the husband as the controlling spouse, but vice

(34:00):
versa works when when the when the wife comes in
and and and steals the money. But I believe that
one that before and during a divorce filing, one spouse
can criminally steal from another spouse. And uh, there seems

(34:20):
to be a phenomenon around the uh looking at the
prosecution of that matter, and UH, a lot of it
just stems from the fact that that property is typically
jointly owned or jointly held uh and went for the
benefit of both parties, and that the lines are kind
of blurred as to as to who the who the

(34:42):
property actually involves in it. But I can't overstate the
fact that if if fraud is suspected that the fraud
case has to be very precise and clearly put together.
I think before you're going to see any any type
of of a criminal charge on this thing, civil charges. Definitely.

(35:05):
Money is one of the key points parts of many divorces.
Obviously there are lots of other reasons in fidelity and
other causes, but money is a very key and important
aspect of divorces. In gray divorces, for couples at age
fifty and older, after the divorce, roughly forty five percent

(35:28):
of the wife has a drop in lifestyle as compared
to twenty one percent for the male. So there is
a very strong focus on money and how one side
of the marriage is going to survive after the divorce.
In that process, what I recommend everybody do, and I

(35:49):
hope people don't aren't heading towards the divorce, but I
think everybody should be putting together a financial statement of
all marital assets and they should view that as they
should review that list every year, every quarter if possible,
but certainly at least every year, so that all parties

(36:09):
know exactly what what are the marital assets, where they're at,
and how are those assets accessed. So if an individual
has goes into a divorce with the intent of defrauding
the other the other partner, there are lots of different
assets to take a look at and go through. And

(36:34):
so if we look at look at those different categories,
if we look at let's say cash and bank accounts,
which is one of the most common areas of where
where fraud takes place. Typically people steal money to spend
it in a in a normal setting, it's that's basically
what happens, but that's not necessarily true during the divorce

(36:55):
because during the divorce you now have both parties, you know,
took look looking at their financial position after the divorce
and how they're going to survive and how they're going
to keep and maintain the lifestyle that they've they've become
used to getting. So it's it's uh, it's very important
to understand and know what your what your meatural assets

(37:17):
are to know if something's missing in the end.

Speaker 4 (37:21):
But the key from a from a from a crime
point of view is you really don't want to have
to disclose assets because then the court's aware of those
assets that could be held against you. In terms of
that you have so much wealth and this person doesn't.
So is there are they Are they doing something under
the table to prevent the truth from coming out in

(37:42):
the court case and they're hiding it or they're laundering
it in some way, or are they perfectly content to
just be uh want to make sure that they have this,
that they get as much as they can ahead of time,
even if the court understands that that they now have
this extra amount of assets.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
The more time a spouse intent on defrauding has leading
into a divorce, say a say a couple of years
or three or maybe three years, they can start siphening
assets away, smaller amounts that don't maybe necessarily register with
the spouse, but there are lots of other diversionary processes

(38:24):
that can take place so that by the time the
divorce comes around, the assets are are depleted, they're down
to a smaller amount that gets reported to the divorce court.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
Okay, So in this case, it sounds like criminals often
do what's called leakage, where they're either post well intent
or what they're doing. Some of it is they're just
proud of what they do when they leak it out.
Others are that they make mistakes in this particular case,

(38:58):
what kind of leakage can a person see ahead of time?

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Lifestyle changes, gambling for instance online, particularly with online gambling
now becoming such such a big deal.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
We don't have any of that, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
None of that movement in into into cryptocurrency. And I'm
not I'm I've never been a fan of of cryptocurrency.
I think the the uh uh there there are a
lot of bad aspects of cryptocurrency, particularly the anonymity aspects
of being able to deal with with that. So you've

(39:39):
got you've got movement of assets into into some untraceable
uh processes and routes and hiding things. And then you've
got you've got, for instance, if you've got family owned
businesses and uh and and something's heading marriage is heading
into a divorce, you've got a family owned busines and

(40:00):
you've got a couple of years to play with that business.
I got to tell you, there are a lot of
things that can be done with assets in a family
owned business that will that will deplete those assets you know,
pretty quickly and uh and and very difficult to follow
through as to what happened. The other another area is

(40:23):
our family farms and uh and There are lots of
interesting types of fraud that can take place. For instance,
a lot of people look at a farm and they
look at the acreage and the value per acreage to
see what the value of the farm is. Where there
might be fifty thousand dollars of grain inventory that that

(40:45):
belongs to the farm that's sitting in a grainary someplace.
I can sell fifty thousand dollars of corn with a
phone call and it's and it's gone, and then I
can direct that, I can direct the payments on that,
and that that assets now off the off the off
the books. You've got livestock. You can move livestock out

(41:08):
to uh, you know, to to neighboring uh neighboring farms
if you've got the right relation to developed the right
relationships and so you can start getting rid of of
of livestock. There's a lot of and there's a lot
of stuff built into equipment in the farms. There are

(41:28):
lots of different ways in which farms getting are divvied
up between a husband and wife that could have easily
had assets diverted and stolen prior to going into into
the doors.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
So in states for instance, that have huge or burdening
inheritance taxes. You know, if you if you if it's
given to a family member or a son or a daughter,
they have to pay an inheritance tax. In some states
could be you know, especially in progressive states, it could

(42:03):
be significant. Is this where you would kind of see
even the family trying to help cover up those assets
in order to make it have a difference on the
inherent payment and the inheritance tax.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
That is a I mean, you're you're now into You're
into a whole a whole other aspect of how fraud works.
But it's no question, you know, families can h can
tend to pull together and help each other out. Uh
they can transfer physical assets, they can transfer uh art jewelry,

(42:46):
They all types of things where assets can be can
be traced to, can can go to a family member
and it's out of the it's out of the inventory,
and then and then later the proper has returned.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
Would that be the same with trust? Then you put
put it into a trust to be able to try
to protect it from that potential issue.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
So there are lots there are several different types of trust,
but the trust that that that ultimately end up for instance,
in a in a state, for instance, UH say a
poor over trust that you can have. You can design
that trust, uh you know, to to accommodate any type
of asset. Uh. And and it's destination upon the depth

(43:34):
of the uh the deceed in in in the case,
it depends on on whether or not the trust is
including all of the assets that were available to go
you know, that belonged to the decedent that got made
it into into that particular trust. That's and and trust

(43:57):
are are since some cases are rewritten time and time again.

Speaker 5 (44:03):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I've got one case I'm working on now. We have
five versions of the of the trust and and two
two versions of the trust took place within the last
few months before the decedent died, with the problem being
the decedent had advanced uh cerrosis of the liver and encephalopathy,

(44:25):
which are which are two problems that involved the cognitive
capabilities of making decisions. And uh uh one of one
of the one of the versions of the trust was
supposedly signed one day and the decedent went into a
coma the very next day and was uh uh and

(44:46):
was incapacitated for for weeks. Uh it's it's uh uh
and and the trust itself in those cases involved changes
that were detrimental to person that happens to be my
client in the case. So trust are a vehicle. They
are just a vehicle for depending on how they're written

(45:10):
up to hide and conceal and transfer assets to whoever
somebody that wants to commit fraud decides to write it up.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
So, with the skill sets of being a CPA, how
does that differ from somebody else that might be retaining
the hires to work on a case who doesn't have
that kind of background? What skill sets does that bring
specifically to the table that others don't have.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Well, the CPA, particularly my background, you know, I came
with thirty years of investigating fraud and tracing and tracking
and uncovering that type of fraud. A lot of CPAs
develop and get some great experience doing that. But I
think anybody that looks at the experience of a PA,

(46:00):
they need to ask what is the exact experience that
the individual has had in in conducting fraud investigations. It
makes it makes a big difference. You know, the fraud
became a really big issue with CPAs you know, probably
twenty twenty five years ago, and a lot of firms

(46:24):
set up a you know, a forensic side of their office,
and they filled them with brand new students out of
out of college. And so I think you've got to
really take a good, hard look to make sure that
that the CPAs actually worked this type of work. I mean,
there are a lot of CPAs that work on on

(46:46):
big corporate fraud cases that wouldn't be something you would
want to ask me to to work for you one.
So you need to get the CPA field is mentally broad.
I think you need to narrow narrow it down. If
you want to distinguish between the good and the bad,
I think you need to see what the experience is

(47:06):
and what their effectiveness has been.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Yeah, like everything in life, experience matters, not just the
no question, but just the academic side of it. I
R I R S manipulation. What is meant by taking
advantage of this particular subset.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Well, there's a couple of things. One is is the
is the movement of a of a of a basis
in a in a company that that of which you
own a certain percentage of the stock in corporations have
there is there's there has been a lot of movement

(47:46):
in individuals moving there their basis in one company, out
of that company into the start the basis of another
company without a tax consequence, and and there needs to
be a tax consequence. When one basis ends at one
organization and another organization and goes into another corporation and

(48:10):
creates an investment process into that into that area, that
is a that is a particularly tough situation to to
spot because both organizations still exist. You still have the
first organization that exists, its spaces and its assets are
just much less than what it was before they got

(48:31):
moved into the development of another company.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
Do you see actually where people will purposely overpay in
hopes of hiding the assets as they come back.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
When it no question overpayment. Overpayment of taxes to the
i r S is a very common way to build
up a great receivable for one spouse. You've got to go,
you've got to drop the married filing joint status and
switch to a married filing separate status. And once you

(49:03):
do that, then you can build up a huge, significant
payment to the i r S and it's going to
create a big refund and it's going to come now
back to you and not to your spouse, but you
use joint marital assets to build up the excess payment
into the i R s.

Speaker 4 (49:24):
You know, civil and criminal in these cases seem like
it's a very gray area. Why do court struggle to
criminally charge asset concealment?

Speaker 1 (49:35):
There is a I think there is a a blurring
of the ownership lines and the fact that that that
divorces as well as estate processes all go through a
court process, and so these matters can be brought up

(49:58):
before a judge during during that particular process, and the
judge can make certain rulings and and and hold people
accountable and and uh and and adjust and fix some
of those matters. So I think, I think if you
throw that in into the process, and the fact that
they were joint assets and sometimes assets that were mutually

(50:22):
beneficial to both parties, that uh, there there tends to
be a real it would be a real conflict in
developing a clear and concise process of theft as opposed
to just a civil disagreement as to whose whose assets

(50:42):
are what. When I talk about a clearer and and
convincing process on theft, I mean we're we're talking about
a deception process. Something that was hidden from the courts.
These often times can come out after the after the
settlement of a divorce case. And now you've got ah,

(51:09):
you've got discovery of information. That is a that is
a clear cut taking of an asset that belongs to
two separate people. Half of it belongs to the person
who took it, the other half is the is the
other spouse, and that spouse loses their access to that

(51:31):
to that asset, just like somebody that comes in and
steals it from them, that somebody they don't know comes
in and just steals it, they've lost the asset and UH.
And those cases can be pursued, but you've got to
you've got to have a very clean, well put together

(51:51):
case on that matter.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
So let's talk about prevention for a second. What are
some tried and true prevention measures to try to prevent
this kind of fraud manipulation.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Some of the prevention steps involve paying attention to the
red flags and UH, and that involves knowing and understanding
what your assets are in a divorce. If you don't
know what you own, if you don't know what your
portfolios are, if you don't know what your properties are

(52:25):
comprised of, if if then you're never going to be
able to pick pick these things out. You've got to
look for the red flags. And the red flags are
the uh, you know, they don't necessarily mean that fraud
took place, but they do they do indicate that closer
scrutiny is clearly warranted. So if you're if you're looking

(52:49):
for this, if you're looking, if you're looking for this,
you need to have as much awareness as possible of
what it is that you have so that when you
start talking about something's missing here, something's not right that
you know, and you have a knowledge as to what
it might be.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
Well, it's been a fascinating discussion. Before we go, is
there a way people can follow your work?

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I don't have a website. I only go by direct contact,
either through my email, which is F. Grestley g R
A E S s l E at iag l l
P dot com, or just a text to my phone
two one nine five one zero three two five eight Fred.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Thank you your work as a reminder that crime doesn't
just happen on the streets. It happens in the boardrooms, courtrooms,
and too often inside our own families. That's why we
must re anchor our lives in a timeless pillar of faith, family,
and formation. That's the show for today. I hope it
resonated with you folks. Talk about it. Be vigilant. Truth
matters more than ever. You can also follow my work

(54:03):
and commentary at doctor Currymeers dot substack dot com. Please
check that out. Until next time, Stay grounded, stay sharp,
and never stop seeking what is right.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Cal stale sus the cattle's wage, just distrusting me as
a fate. A man shadows a secrets lot. Doctor Curry
laws got to do the scot A man, a consecram
anologist cove sells of the law in the Anglos cackles

(54:44):
a crime rag and change boots start