Spring 2018

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INSIDE

THIS

ISSUE

Letter from the

President

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Coming May 24

2018

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Coming June 14,

2018

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SPI goes to Dubai

Meet our speakers

at Forlini’s

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6-7

Behind the Murder

Curtain

AAPLE Luncheon

SPI Annual Dinner

NPDF

Join SPI

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SPIONLINE SPECIAL

POINTS OF

INTEREST:

• Join SPI today

• Exciting 2018

Speaker

Lineup

Dr. Chelsea Binns Dr. Gregory Fried

2018 off to a great start for SPI

Micah Morrison Paul Rafffile

With topics as diverse as Open Source Intelligence, the role of the Police Surgeon in New York City, fraud hotlines in the current sexual harass-ment crisis, and the Harlem Mosque Assassination of a NYPD Police Officer, SPI has begun its 62nd year producing a diversity of topics and speakers that continue to make our organization the preferred choice for members of the investigative community.

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A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT OF SPI Dear Friends: After having spent more than four decades as an investigator, it never ceases to amaze me how much more there is to learn about our craft. Much of this new information is imparted to me every month at the SPI dinners. Open Source Intelligence by Paul Raffile, for instance, was so informative that I invited him to speak to some of the staff at Mount Sinai Healthcare, not once but twice, to rave reviews.

Dr. Chelsea Binns' decade of experience and unique research into Hotlines provided new information I had never even considered having dealt with hotlines most of my career. Learning about the mission and cases of Judicial Watch with Micah Morrison and their work on the Harlem Mosque Incident was truly eye opening. And for the first time I became informed of the role of the Police Surgeon and the fascinating cases Dr. Gregory Fried was involved with. Upcoming speakers include Pulitzer-prize winning criminal justice reporter Tony DeStefano and NYPD Chief of Community Affairs Nilda Hofmann.

We’ll return from summer vacation with our Annual Dinner honoring Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, NYPD Deputy Chief Ruben Beltran, and Joe Forlini, the proprietor of Forlini’s Restaurant in Little Italy. Forlini’s has been the home of SPI for over a decade. See the brochure for this event inside this newsletter. In the fall, we’ll hear from our good friend Nicholas G. Himonidis, J.D., CFE, CCFS, President of NGH Group, Inc., on the topic of bitcoin and cryptocurrency transaction investigations. See you at the next SPI dinner! All best, Bruce Sackman, President, SPI

SPI president

Bruce

Sackman with

OSINT inves-

tigator Paul

Raffile, our

February

speaker

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P A G E 3

Tony DeStefano is a New York City journalist and true crime author who has covered organized crime and legal issues for over 35 years. He works as a reporter for Newsday newspaper and before that worked as a re-porter for the Wall Street Journal and Fairchild Publica-tions. As a reporter he has covered numerous high profile cases, notably the Bernard Madoff scandal. As a Newsday

reporter he was part of a team of reporters and photographers who collectively won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news in the coverage of the subway crash at Union Station. DeStefano also covered the trials of the late John Gotti, former Bonanno crime boss Joseph Massino, Bonanno captain Vincent Basciano, as well as the 2015 trial of Bonanno captain Vincent Asaro in the revival of the 1978 Lufthansa case.

His latest true crime book, The Big Heist: The Real Story of The Lufthansa Heist, the Mafia and Murder, serves up a comprehensive (some call it even “definitive”) account of the legendary 1978 heist at New York’s JFK Airport, including the recent indictment of aging mobster Vincent Asaro decades after the theft. During our dinner, DeStefano will talk about his investigative reporting on the case, the new details learned on the heist that was immortalized in journalism, memoirs, and the Martin Scorsese movie Goodfellas.

DeStefano is a graduate of Ithaca College, holds an MA from Michigan State University and is a graduate of New York Law School. His upcoming book is a biography of legendary mob boss Frank Costello, titled Top Hoodlum and scheduled to be published in June 2018. His guidebook to New York gangland crime, Gangland New York: The Places and Faces of Mob His-tory, was published in 2015.

Follow DeStefano on Twitter ( @tonynewsday)

THE FIRST 25 MEMBERS TO REGISTER FOR THE MAY MEET-ING WILL RECEIVE A COMPLIMENTARY COPY OF "THE BIG HEIST."

As usual, you can register and pay by CC or Paypal on our web-site: http://spionline.info/meetinginfo.php?

Coming to SPI on May 24, 2018:

Tony DeStefano on the Lufthansa Heist

The true crime author on the definitive story of the fabled Mob airport heist of 1978, which netted New York gangsters $6 million in cash and jewels.

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P A G E 4

Coming to SPI on June 14, 2018:

Nilda Hofmann

NYPD Chief of Community Affairs

Chief of Community Affairs Nilda Hofmann be-gan her career with the New York City Police De-partment as a Police Administrative Aide, as-signed to Detective Borough Bronx in October 1987. She was sworn in as a Police Officer in Oc-tober 1990, and began her career on patrol in the 43 Precinct. She also served in the 23, 25, 42, 44 and 52 Precincts, Patrol Borough Bronx, and the Bronx Task Force. She was promoted to Sergeant in April 1998; Lieutenant in December 2003; Captain in April 2008; Deputy Inspector in September 2011; Inspector in October 2013; Deputy Chief in April 2016 and on January 18 2018 she was promoted to Chief of Community Affairs.

As Chief of Community Affairs her bureau plays a critical role in the department’s refocused ap-proach to achieving and sustaining gains against

crime by strengthening community relationships and trust.

Chief of Community Affairs Nilda Hofmann has also served as Commanding Officer of the 25 and 52 Precincts. She was also the Executive Officer of the 42 Precinct and Risk Manage-ment Bureau.

Chief of Community Affairs Hofmann earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Forensic Psycholo-gy from John Jay College, and is a 2013 graduate of the Police Management Institute at Co-lumbia University.

Chief of Community Affairs Hofmann has been married for 25 years, and has three children.

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SPI GOES TO DUBAI

Bruce’s talk was titled “When the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) becomes a crime scene,” in which he discussed conducting investigations into suspicious deaths at medical centers. The audience was truly international in scope with attendees from the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, the US, Russia and various Mideast and African na-tions. The SPI logo was prominently displayed along with logos from other organizations in attendance.

Bruce also discussed his upcoming book, Behind the Murder Curtain, which details his investigations of doctors and nurses that murdered their patients.

As the keynote speaker at the International Conference on Nursing and Health

Care in Dubai, UAE, SPI President Sackman had the opportunity to introduce

the participants to the Society of Professional Investigators.

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CHARLES CAMPISI: An Insider’s Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops Just before the new year, the former chief of International Affairs Bureau of the NYPD came

to present his book Blue on Blue: An Insider’s Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops, opening a

rare window into one of the most secretive branches of policing.

MEET OUR SPEAKERS AT FORLINI’S

MICAH MORRISON: “The Harlem Mosque Incident”

“I feel lucky to be here with professional investigators to test

our theories of what happened the day Phillip Cardillo was

killed,” said Micah Morrison, guest speaker at our January 18

meeting. The soft-spoken chief investigative reporter for

“watchdog website” Judicial Watch came to packed room at

Forlini’s with tales of what has been a relentless investigation

of a murder, that, 36 years later, many New Yorker haven’t

forgotten. On April 14, 1972 NYPD officer Phillip Cardillo was

fatally shot inside Harlem’s Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7 by

a gunman who was never brought to justice.

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PAUL RAFFILE:OSINT in corporate security

SPI members and guests from John Jay College of Crimi-nal Justice learned great techniques on using #OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) tools in corporate security investigations with Paul Raffile, Global Security Analyst and investigator for Alexion Pharmaceuticals back in February. Google only indexes 4% of available web con-tent and creating a network analysis with many sources is key.

In April, Chelsea Binns of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and

the NYC ACFE gave us a great presentation on fraud hotlines and

their use in the current sexual harassement crisis. She has been

studying hotlines

for over 10 years

and a fascinating

moment was the

discussion on hot-

lines in the public

vs. private sector. The bottom line is that hotlines are the #1

way to report fraud. But companies and institutions favor "in

person reporting" and want to receive phone calls, while tip-

sters/whistleblowers fear that phone calls can't be anony-

mous. One hotline that was praised was the Starbucks hot-

line.

CHELSEA BINNS: Fraud Hotlines

Dr. GREGORY FRIED: Executive Chief Surgeon, NYPD (Retired), author of Life on the Thin Blue Line. Gregory Fried, M.D. began his career at Bellevue Hospital as a general surgeon and became the Executive Chief Surgeon for the NYPD in the late 20th Century in New York City—a stressful period of high crime, new challenges and police trauma. He was a first responder on 9/11 and was almost killed when the South Tower collapsed . As a result of his efforts, Dr. Fried was the only Police Surgeon to ever be awarded the NYPD Med-al for Valor.

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Coming September 2018

Behind the Murder Curtain: Special Agent Bruce Sackman Hunts Doctors and Nurses

Who Kill Our Veterans By Bruce Sackman, Michael Vecchione, and Jerry Schmetterer

Pre-order NOW on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever books are sold

When Veterans Hospital patients on the road to recovery suddenly die in in-creasing numbers, it’s up to VA Special Agent in Charge Bruce Sackman to find out why. His shocking discovery rips open the hidden world of what goes on behind the bedside curtains when a killer doctor or nurse decides a patient must die.

Behind the Murder Curtain by Bruce Sackman, Michael Vecchione, and Jerry Schmetterer

On-sale September 18, 2018 Post Hill Press Hardcover: $27.00 ISBN: 9781682617144

BehindtheMurderCurtain.com

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Spring 2018

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Spring 2018

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SPI AT National Police Defense Foundation Dinner

Spring 2018

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APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL INVESTIGATORS

Please fill and return this form or fill it online at http://spionline.info/join.php— Member Application

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References: Please list the names, phone numbers and email addresses of three references that can corroborate your investiga-tive experience: 1.

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Resume: Please attach your current resume

Payment: Payment of $125 is required. This covers the annual dues of $75 and a one-time application fee of $50. Payment can

be made by check to SPI, 329 South Oyster Bay Rd., #161, Plainview, NY 11803 or by Paypal or credit card on this page: http://

spionline.info/join.php

Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of SPI! We look forward to welcoming you.

Spring 2018

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The Society of Professional Investigators awards free membership in our organi-zation to eligible members of the Active Duty Military and Wounded Warrior Project. Although the requirements for full and associate membership remain the same, the application fee, ($115) and yearly dues (currently $65) are waived for these individuals. Just go the SPI website at www.spionline.info and fill out the application indicating you are a member of one of these groups of spe-cial status individuals.

329 South Oyster Bay Rd #161

Plainview, NY 11803

Phone: 718-490-7288

Email: bsackman@spionline.info

For over 20 years the Mechanic Group has

specialized in providing insurance

programs to the private security,

investigation and electronic secu-

rity industries. For many years

The Mechanic Group has sup-

ported SPI and 2018 is no differ-

ent. Ask your fellow SPI mem-

bers who provides their insur-

ance and chances are this is the

firm. SPI encourages all of its members with

insurance needs to contact the Mechanic

Group at:

800-214-0207 or

by e-mail at

info@mechanicgroup.com

Society of Professional Investigators, Inc.

Celebrating 62 years as NYC’s Premiere

Investigative Fraternal Organization

Free SPI Membership to WWP and Active Duty Personnel

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SPIONLINE is a monthly newsletter published by the Society of Professional Investigators. Publisher: Bruce Sackman Treasurer: Eileen Gordon Editor: Emmanuelle Welch We welcome comments regarding the news-letter and submissions from members.