Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE, most recently was a senior paralegal at the Hennepin County Attorney's Office in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She's now a paralegal in Tallahassee, Florida, working in administrative law and statutory rulemaking for regulated professions and occupations. Her email address is: simmonsbrown22@msn.com.
The witness prep survival guide for CFEs
For the uninitiated, witness prep (shorthand, of course, for witness preparation) is a standard practice in which civil and criminal trial attorneys meet with all the witnesses they’ve subpoenaed to testify in their cases. They review the cases and the witnesses’ anticipated testimony, and ... do that, over and over and over again.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Secrets
In two unrelated but sadly similar cases, Harvey and Larry carried on secret, sexually aberrant lives that were decidedly at variance with their known, socially respectable lives. Unfortunately, Harvey and Larry encountered extortionists who exploited their secrets, which cost each man thousands of dollars and one his life.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Investigating financial crimes against vulnerable adults
Family members, friends and caregivers often prey on defenseless adults. Here’s a “starter kit” to aid CFEs on how to gather and analyze financial, medical and real estate records; present cases to prosecuting authorities; and conduct successful interviews.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Obtaining financial records with a ‘Subpoena Duces Tecum’
Frequently, CFEs who investigate financial crimes are tasked with obtaining financial records from banks, credit unions, credit card companies, investment houses, mortgage lenders and other institutions to help determine whether a financial crime has been committed and the dollar dimension of the crime.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
She-wolves in shepherd's clothing
Greed is everywhere. It pollutes all industries and organizations, including those dedicated to helping the poorest and most vulnerable of our society. And it breeds fraudsters within these organizations who have profound canniness and precisely zero moral queasiness when selecting their victims. Fraudsters like Emma and Kate.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Tax preparers gone wild
Many naïve taxpayers — who believe that all tax preparers have to be certified, licensed or regulated in some way — place their entire trust in supposed experts to handle one of the most serious dimensions of adult life.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Tax preparers gone wild
In part one of this two-parter, we examined the schemes of Bonnie G, a self-styled tax preparer who worked out of her basement creating federal and state income tax returns for her clients that contained lies cut from whole cloth to falsely qualify her clients for tax refunds and induce them to continue using — and paying for — her services. Here we’ll examine the simpler but equally effective (or lucrative) scheme of Donnie Z., another tax preparer who never made it out of the basement.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Submitting case reports to prosecutors
Much of our days are consumed with the meat-and-potatoes, real-time components of fraud examinations: taking reports; interviewing suspects, victims and witnesses; obtaining financial records, other pertinent documents and media; analyzing all of the information; and developing conclusions of possible criminal offenses.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
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