Protect Yourself from Internet Identity Theft

Identity theft can turn your life into a nightmare. Just this week laptop thefts at brewing giant Anheuser-Busch has placed the personal data of 150,000 people nationwide and 55,000 Californians at risk. Unfortunately the risk of identity theft isn’t relegated to corporate and government computers. Computer phishing scams that solicit personal information through bogus emails […]

Con Men ‘Phish’ for Identity Info

The old-fashioned con man hasn’t disappeared, he’s just gone phishing. Phishing scams where people receive an apparently legitimate email asking for personal information allow con men to troll for marks without ever leaving their computers. That personal information can allow phishers to steal your identity, run up charge accounts, open credit cards in your name, […]

Fraud, Burglary, Internet Crimes and Orange County Teens

Two teenagers in Orange County have been charged with breaking into their school and hacking into computers in order to alter their grades.  They’re accused of computer fraud, burglary, conspiracy and other charges, all of which could add up to 38 years in prison.
Allegedly, the two teens broke into their school using a stolen master key, […]

New Parking Ticket Law Protects Drivers

In the grand scheme of things, parking tickets would seem to be a fairly minor annoyance. But in parking-challenged Los Angeles and other California cities, tickets can mount up and quickly move from the realm of little problem to big trouble. The parking ticket issue has gotten more than a bit murky in California. Until recent passage […]

Is Paparazzi Case a Fraud?

In our May 2 blog post we talked about paparazzi Glen Gurniak who filed a hit and run suit against rocker Benji Madden and passenger Paris Hilton for allegedly driving over his foot before speeding away. The incident was widely reported in national and LA entertainment news and blog sites. Although no legal resolution has been […]

Woman Steals Thousands in Identity Theft Fraud

A 27-year-old Utah woman has been charged with defrauding people of thousands of dollars in California, Utah and Oregon. She bilked her own mother-in-law out of thousands of dollars in unauthorized credit card charges and illegally obtained loans. She swindled a California man out of $14,343 through fraudulent wire transfers to a bank account. In […]

Nanny’s Sexual Harassment Suit Badgers Rob Lowe

In a “he said, she said” nightmare, Rob Lowe’s nanny Jessica Gibson has filed a sexual harassment suit alleging that the actor repeatedly exposed himself and inappropriately touched both himself and her during the seven years she sporadically worked for the actor and his wife. Gibson further claims that Lowe’s wife Sheryl made vulgar comments and paraded […]

Tax Evasion Gone Wild

First Wesley Snipes, now this!  Joe Francis, creator of the Girls Gone Wild Videos and DVD’s was brought up on tax evasion charges a while back and now they have moved his hearing to Los Angeles.
Francis is being charged with not reporting his income properly, which allowed him to pay less taxes.  The government alleges Francis claimed […]

Craigslist: A Haven for Sex Crimes?

In 2006, a level 3 sex offender put out a babysitting ad on Craigslist in the state of Washington.  Were it not for a neighbor who recognized the ad, this gentleman may have had access to children for long periods of time completely unattended.  The anonymity of Craigslist provides major legal challenges for law enforcement, especially […]

Fraud, A Blemmish on the White Collar of America

Edwin H. Sutherland, who is one of the most influential criminologists of the first half of the twentieth century defined white collar crime as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.”
According to the IRS website, fraud on the corporate level, encompasses violations of the […]