Find Hidden Assets Archives - Page 3 of 9

Is It Embezzlement if it’s a Spouse Who Steals From Your Company

Money, Money, Money, does it make us a better person? Does it get us through tough times? Does it help us to help others? Money can be a blessing and it can be a curse. And when someone has money and someone doesn’t, then the scale of justice seems a little tilted, doesn’t it? Mark was a prominent CEO of a rather large company. He was kind and generous to all his employees. He remembered his manager’s birthdays, anniversaries, their children’s names and even attended various celebrations among his staff. He was a leader in his community, donated to various charities and well liked among his peers. He was a stellar guy to everyone except his soon-to-be ex-wife. The gifts and life style he afforded [...]

Knowing the Unknown is a Valuable Tool

It isn’t easy to learn the truth and sometimes the truth isn’t easy on us either. , clears the path of misconceptions, intuitions and gossip and focuses on facts. Sometimes the facts do not change the situation, and then there are times the facts create clarity and we see through all the haze and come out of the situation we are currently in better prepared to fight or to just let go. We all want to know the truth; we want to know the facts so we can move on. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t receive calls, an emails or a walk ins from someone lost in their life. They cannot, by themselves, muddle through their situation without assistance from [...]

Steps Away From The Truth

Sometimes a divorce is simple when both parties agree to all the terms and division of property. We never hear about these divorces. When you add children into the situation, it can become a complicated process. Parents fight about custody, the visitation schedule and child support. And usually when children are involved the marriage is broken by infidelity. That is when the attorney reaches out to for assistance. In these cases, there is a good chance that one of the partners is hiding much more than being unfaithful. It could be money; it could be pornography or other addictions. Let’s take a step-by-step process to determine exactly what is happening in a typical complicated divorce with children when one partner has found someone else and [...]

My Husband is in Love with an Avatar

An avatar is an icon or figure representing a particular person in computer games, Internet forums, etc. and that is exactly how some Client’s relationships end. The computer is a gateway to be whatever you want to be, to represent yourself in a manner you could never do face to face. It’s a make believe world that many people engage upon to express in words what they cannot say. Take for instance our Client who came to to discuss a very personal situation with her husband. They have been married for over 10 years, have two small children and both are employed with good incomes. She is the extrovert in their marriage and he is more of the introvert, never wanting to explore real events [...]

Discovery, Depositions and Findings

We had a Client, James who started and built a booming business with his longtime friend, Bill. Bill was outgoing, charismatic while James was more laid back and book smart, while both had the desire and knowledge to start a company. For years, growing up, through high school and college, they knew they wanted to work for themselves, didn’t want to report to a boss, wanted to have choices and full control over their own destiny and livelihood. After graduating with degrees in two different fields, they merged their knowledge and started a much needed consulting business in their hometown, just 30 minutes outside of Indianapolis. Twenty years later, they had talked about selling the business someday to spend more time with their families and [...]

Investments aren’t always Investments

We have all thought “What would have happened….if”, and never gave it a second thought. But in our business, we never wonder “what would have happened” we think “what did happen”. We had a Client whose best friend recommended an unusual investment opportunity to her. She had dabbled in gold dust outside of the US, specifically in Africa with a small Investment Company out of California and had some pretty good returns. She had been bragging about getting a 35% return on her initial investment of $20,000 and then a 20% return on her second investment as well. When she received her second check, she was asked if she knew anybody who would be interested in turning their dollars into gold, and of course she [...]

When I Say I Do!

Marriage: 1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage. Above is the definition of marriage, and into today’s society marriage can be between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman and a man and a man. The definition doesn’t define each person who enters into a contractual relationship; it just explains the participants and nothing else. Marriage is more than a contract, it is a relationship between two people who come together believing they know each other, that the [...]

I Now Pronounce You Husband and Ex-Wife

Statistics claim that more people are not getting married for fear of divorce and further state that 50% of marriages end in divorce. That means that one out of every two people will find themselves in divorce court or one of two people will know someone that has gone through a divorce or going through a divorce. https://fox59.com/2016/02/12/legal-ways-to-track-a-cheater/ After the “I Do’s”, come the “I Can’t Believe He Would Do That To Me”. We hear that a lot here at . The ”I can’t believe” is always followed by financial woes. Having been left is hard; having been left with no financial security is difficult. Many times we hear how the wife has to succumb to these facts. Our Client was unaware of their finances [...]

Finding Hidden Bank Accounts in Divorce

Tom and Carrie had been married for 18 years, had two children, lived in the “White Picket Fence” house and joined their neighborhood “Revolving Wine Parties” for the last four years. Tom traveled a lot and Carrie was a part time stay-at-home mom and part time sales clerk at a friend’s landscaping business. Carrie was content with her marriage, her children and her life until one day she received the following text: “Don’t be an ostrich”. Carrie didn’t recognize the number, so she fluffed it off as an accidental message meant for someone else. That Friday, Tom returned home from one of his trips early as he and Carrie were hosting the Wine Party at their house. Tom was in a rather foul mood on [...]

What Causes 33% of All Business Bankruptcies?

It isn’t uncommon for the phone to start ringing at at the beginning of calendar quarters - you know, January, April, July and October. We don’t always know who will be on the other end of the line – small business owners, financial officers, or sometimes an attorney. But we know why they are calling – it will be about missing money, theft by employees or employee embezzlement. That’s because quarterly reports are reviewed and something is found that isn’t quite right. Sometimes there is just a suspicion and in those cases, we provide financial forensic experts to thoroughly examine the financial records and processes. No one wants to think there is an employee stealing from the company. In other situations, there is obvious theft [...]