EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS
Tom Gottschalk:
- Certified Public Accountant, Kansas
- Certified Fraud Examiner since 2001
- Master of Accountancy, Kansas State University
- Investigator – Johnson County District Attorney, 16 years
- Special Agent – Kansas Attorney General, 2 years
- Fraud and public corruption unit, Ernst & Young, 2 years
- Certified in analysis of "Call Detail Records" (CDR), cell tower usage analysis, and cell phone handset data acquisition through the Public Agency Training Council. Trained in the use of CellHawk CDR / tower analysis software, and applied analysis via CellHawk. Certified in Oxygen handset forensic software.
- Certified in the basic and advanced Reid Interview and Interrogation techniques. Certified in the Wicklander-Zuwalski interview and interrogation method. Experienced in conducting thousands of witness and suspect interviews in a wide variety of civil and criminal cases.
- Trained in the development and management of confidential informants at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, applied in two separate public corruption cases. Implemented a standardized confidential informant policy for the Johnson County District Attorney.
- Trained in forensic interviews of elder abuse victims
- Trained in use of BankScan document conversion software
- Completed numerous courses in procurement fraud - applied in public corruption investigations
- Versed in the use of QuickBooks, PeachTree, Business Works, and other small business accounting packages, including data extraction and custom report generation
- Trained in estate and trust principles and documents, including provisions relevant to elder financial exploitation investigations
- Developed and implemented public corruption investigative standards at the Johnson County District Attorney and and the Kansas Attorney General
- Experienced in the investigation of consumer protection cases under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act
- Representative for Johnson County District Attorney to US Dept of Justice Elder Justice Task Force
- Represented the Kansas Attorney General for the Kansas IT Security Task Force conducted by the Kansas Dept. of Administration. Was an active participant in approving and implementing numerous IT safety protocols for the Attorney General
- Was liason for the District Attorney and the Attorney General to the IRS Financial Crimes Task Force operating in the KC metro area, and statewide across Kansas
Case experience in:
- Many variants of employee embezzlement
- Many variants of elder financial exploitation
- Credit card, welfare, insurance, payroll frauds
- Multi-state criminal enterprises
- Elder physical and sexual abuse, elder neglect
- Demand draft schemes
- Numerous shell company schemes
- Intellectual property theft
- Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA) and Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) violation allegations
- Analysis of Call Detail Records (CDR) and cell tower usage analysis to document location of defendant's cell phone handset for prosecution of person felony cases.
- Numerous public corruption cases involving officials of state and local government
- Investment fraud, including several securities fraud cases
- Check kiting
Tom is a private detective licensed in the State of Kansas. Financial Forensics, Inc. is fully licensed and insured. Tom is a member of:
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
International Association of Financial Crime Investigators
Kansas Governor's Grant Program Implementation Plan Committee
Legal and Liability Risk Management Institute
Kansas Guardianship Program
Kansas Association of Licensed Investigators
A note here is that Tom designed and taught dozens of courses to the law enforcement community for financial crimes investigations. Those courses ranged from fundamental financial crime investigations to more advanced topics in elder abuse, embezzlement, as well as investigations into specialized financial crime schemes such as check kiting. Tom has taught numerous courses on financial crimes investigation to local police agencies, as well as the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, and the Kansas Highway Patrol Academy in Salina. In addition, Tom established the Johnson County Financial Abuse Specialist Team (FAST) in 2009, an avenue to conduct multidisciplinary investigations into elder abuse cases. Tom also established an employee fraud hotline for Johnson County Government.
Tom has also served as a member of the Kansas Governor's Grant Program (KGGP) in drafting federal applications for grants under the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), Services Training Officers Prosecutors (STOP), and Sexual Assault Services Grant Program (SASP). This successful and dynamic application succeeded in Federal grant awards to Kansas that are very generous to the State of Kansas, both in terms of prior awards, and relative to other states with similar populations.
Elder abuse cases (physical abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation) tend to be among the most difficult cases to develop probative evidence. Tom has learned and adopted investigative techniques gleaned from national leaders in elder abuse investigations, and applied them in Johnson County and the State of Kansas. Whether Financial Forensics is engaged to investigate concerns of elder abuse, or is retained to investigate the events alleged against a defendant criminally charged, these methods can be made to work for you.
Experience in working with prosecution agencies such as the district attorney, and attorney general has provided insight into evidence selection and viability, organization, and scheme explanation. Allow Tom to put this experience to work for you!