Fraud, Theft, and Schemes

This is part 2 of The ASU Bodybuilder

I had 1 thing in common with maindefendant – We both graduated from Arizona State University, butafter that fact, our lives took quite different paths. I will addthat this was a complex case and I actually worked on thisinvestigation for over five years. Some might say, wow you are prettyslow, but the case involved multiple defendants, federal and statecharges, over 100 properties were involved and millions at stake.

Casimerro, where are you?This was the mantra that was probablysaid 100 times by myself and my family for 5 to 6 months in 2001. We said it like it we were playing a hide and seek game, although thestakes were much higher than a game, and it was fun to say. Casimerro where are you? Did I find him? Listen to the case detailswhich included a helicopter surveillance, an attempted large drugseizure, and a homemade alarm system to learn the answer.

I am retired Special Agent that workedfor the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and theDepartment of Veterans Affairs for over 20 years. What I willdiscuss is the actual cases that I was the primary investigator andmost were “white collar” fraud cases which resulted inconvictions. A desire to be in law enforcement started at a young agefor me and as I look back at my young adventures as a boy, I realizedthey played a part in my future career. Many of the details and the actualstories are public record. During my Special Agent career I was theaffiant for 25 search warrants and each one of these affidavits tolda story. I have changed the names of the defendants, just to keep theghosts away but other details are fairly accurate to what happened. I don't have a lot of source material from then, but have a prettygood memory.If you have a desire to go into federallaw enforcement, this will provide some background and education, and insight into “white collar” criminal investigations. I hopethese stories are both informative and entertaining.I retired in 2012, and have beenworking as a computer forensic analyst and manager for several largecompanies.This first podcast that I'm recordingis called “Creative Staging”. Being creative at work can be funand productive, but I will begin this story as a boy.

The defendant in this case wasconvincingly the most intelligent subject I investigated during my 20+ years as an agent. Some of my other defendants might argue thispoint, but he was a world champion card player and he ran a verycomplex scheme all the while concealing his identity. He workedhard to never meet anyone in person and used false identification toopen bank accounts and a private mail box. All these efforts made ifdifficult to determine who was running the scheme, until one night at9:00 pm I watched a man insert a key into a private mail box, and wehad him.

This is a case about a man, MickeyHenchele, that had challenged the criminal justice system numeroustimes and had won. Mickey had been a con man his entire adult life,and had never been convicted or the few convictions that were part ofhis record, had been expunged (meaning that technically theconviction had never occurred). County officials, local police, andthe FBI had attempted to put investigations together and were neverable to get a charge to stick. That was until Mickey got into my mycross hairs and it was a struggle. This case involved over 1,000properties, two search warrants, and Mickey physically chasing me andmy cousin around the back alleys of Van Nuys California.