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.
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
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
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
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
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
Kicking the cane, Part 2
In part one, we looked at the growing incidence of family members who defraud their aging relatives and the similarities of these miscreants to traditional occupational fraudsters. In part two, we’ll look at the pattern behavior of these fraudsters by outlining various criminal cases charged by one prosecuting authority’s specialized team.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Kicking the cane
This underreporting of financial crimes against the elderly makes it difficult to get reliable statistics. It’s possible that the aggregated financial impact on elderly victims — and society in general — will get much worse before a comprehensive national research and intervention response is entrenched.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
The contempt of families
The embezzlers’ fraud wheelhouse contains a classic tool for “misappropriating funds” from their employers: the ghost employee. Simply put, “The term ghost employee refers to someone on the payroll who does not actually work for the victim company.” (2015 Fraud Examiners Manual, 1.456) Ghost employees are miracles of physics: they might or might not exist and companies don’t employ them, yet they draw regular paychecks.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
On cross
As a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and paralegal for a financial crime prosecution unit, I’ve testified in six criminal trials, and they were always educational. In fact, being cross-examined by a defense attorney in a criminal trial is one of the best ways to learn how to become a better CFE.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Boards' familiarity of 'bullybezzlers' allowed fraud
Paul Laneuville and Carl Walters are true examples of a phenomenon I call the “bullybezzler.” Both cost their organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the employees they bullied eventually brought them both down.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Creative embezzlement
In many ways, Edith Chase fit one of the stereotypes of the traditional embezzler. She was a middle-aged woman in a mid-level accounting/bookkeeping job at a smallish business — wallpaper to most of the rest of the company after almost three decades of stolid, reliable work.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
The anguish of victims
Here I highlight this impact of fraud beyond the statistics in these six financial-crime victims’ stories from criminal prosecutions I assisted as a paralegal CFE.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
Fluffie the bank account slayer
In this ever-changing world, it’s a comfort to know that some things are universal and eternal. The morning cup of coffee. The annual FSU-Florida game. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And, in Fraudville, classic check fraud — arguably The Little Black Dress of financial crime.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
At play in the fields of the county recorder's office
In part one of this article, we examined the variety-pack approach by one Trevor “Bam-Bam” Baker, who used the county recorder’s office as part of his playground to commit mortgage fraud and identity theft. In part two, we examine the more singular approach to fraud by one Rory Sykes.
Written By: Annette Simmons-Brown, CFE
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