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As “A Surreptitious Search For Money Hidden In Divorce & Other Cases” explains, law enforcement databases may house confidential information about a person’s assets.  Private investigators & the general public cannot lawfully access these law enforcement databases/computers.  This is the 5th post in my series about what private investigators can and cannot do legally when searching for assets:

NJ.com reporter Vernal Coleman & private investigator Brian Willingham recently tweeted on an alleged scheme to access a confidential law enforcement database:

These tweets link to articles saying that Newark N.J. Police Captain Anthony Buono & Nutley N.J. private detective Dino D’Elia are suspected of conspiring to access a law enforcement computer/database.  According to one article, “Buono and D’Elia allegedly obtained the personal data of approximately 900 individuals, selling each set for $100.”  Mr. D’Elia &/or Mr. Buono are thought to have then possibly sold the data to private investigators &/or to data brokers.  State prosecutors have charged Mr. Buono & Mr. D’Elia with supposed violations of New Jersey’s conspiracy & computer theft laws.

Private investigators like Mr. D’Elia, (who are suspected of computer intrusions), sometimes face a federal prosecution rather than state prosecution.  USA v. Buell et. al., Index No. 1:15-cr-00385 is a matter in which a private investigator faced this type of federal prosecution.  At the criminal complaint in Buell, federal prosecutors alleged that private investigator Joseph P. Dwyer bribed an NYPD officer & conspired to obtain data from a law enforcement database.  Last week federal prosecutors slimmed down the criminal charges at their complaint against Mr. Dwyer.  They did this on June 18th by filing a one-count superseding information against Mr. Dwyer, charging him with a suspected bribery scheme.

First image courtesy of Flickr (Licensed) by elhombredenegro

Second image courtesy of Flickr (Licensed) by Tsahi Levent-Levi

Copyright 2015 Fred L. Abrams