I have remained out of the visible picture in most of this thread. With good reason, as many people will surmise. I felt my efforts were better utilized trying to work with Mr. Tom Crowley, since he is probably the only one with non-biased information on all this.
But things have not gone well. Quite frankly, the man has pissed me off. So I will post the last email I sent to him on 05/21/02 at 5:23 pm. I will post this without any further comment, for now.
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Tom,
I have been accused by my friends that I am a bit too confrontational for my own good. This may well be, but it clears the air in a hurry and leaves no doubt in people’s mind where I stand about some things.
Quite frankly, sir, I believe you are lying to me.
Excerpts from emails you have sent me:
(A) “At Dave's his request I made some preliminary inquiries and as I thought from the very beginning I believe Gubitz has been staging his own burglaries all along. Since the other investigation is now officially closed I can speak more freely and legally. I know where there are certain items of evidence that would place Gubitz in the position of having to defend himself in a criminal court. I do not believe he would be able to do that as the evidence in incontrovertible.”
(B) “I interviewed about twenty people over a period of about three weeks off and on as it was the holiday season.”
© “I believe that I can complete the investigation in two to three days which would be in the neighborhood of 15 to 16 hundred.”
(D) “Under Florida Statutes, Section 493.6122 I am prohibited from making information available that was obtained during the course of an investigation to anyone but the client, who in this case is James Thornton. I am awaiting a decision from the Division of Licensing, Department of State in Tallahassee to see if I can release that information due to the fact he that he has broken his contract with me by not paying me and by refusing to correspond in any fashion.”
(E) “I believe however that if you read between the lines you will come to the conclusion that this whole thing was a fraud from the beginning. Why is the Snake Pit always burglarized? His own help as well as others around him who he thinks are his friends say he mistreats his animals and staged the burglaries himself. Again, I can't prove this but it is a very disturbing set of circumstances.”
Do you see the inconsistencies in the above statements extracted from the emails you sent me? For Item B you charged $1,170 dollars for work done over a three week period. For Item C, you want to charge from between $1,500 and $1,600 for two or three days work. I am calling your ethics into issue here. There are a number of possibilities, none of which set well with me:
You did not do anything of any substance in your original investigation. There is no file worth the $1,170 and you have no intentions of forwarding that on to me for my inspection. Please bear in mind the letter I sent enclosed with the check. You had the option of using that check to pay for that investigation or use it towards a new investigation. You chose to apply it to the open investigation and thereby closed that account. This implies strongly that you accepted my involvement with the arrangements for this case in association with James Thornton and fully recognized the check I sent as a valid payment towards that case. As such, you don’t really have a leg to stand on when you continue to refuse to send me what is now rightfully mine.
In a letter that was to be copied to Mr. Jay Gubitz, (Item D) you mentioned a Florida Statute that is the basis of your being prohibited from making information available in an investigation to anyone other than the client. That is complete cow manure. That statute reads:
493.6122 Information about licensees; confidentiality.--The residence telephone number and residence address of any Class "C," Class "CC," Class "E," or Class "EE" licensee maintained by the department is confidential and exempt from the provisions of s. 119.07(1), except that the department may provide this information to local, state, or federal law enforcement agencies. When the residence
telephone number or residence address of such licensee is, or appears to be, the business telephone number or business address, this information shall be public record.
Nice try, though.
(2) You see a cash cow on the horizon here and feel that maybe you can squeeze me for more money to get what you should have accomplished in the first investigation. Perhaps getting paid the padding you have put into this latest figure is for the time you will have to put into getting that first file worth the money originally spent on it, and then you will ‘graciously’ send that to me as well. Sorry, Mr. Crowley, but this won’t wash.
I think I could make a pretty strong case here that you are involved in your own little scam here. I certainly have the evidence to make it pretty uncomfortable for you on several fronts. Firstly, it was YOU that first planted the seed in my head about Neil Gubitz being the perpetrator of the breakins at his own store. There are several other people that you mentioned that to (in violation of that 493.6122, by the way). You have been paid $1,170 and delivered NOTHING for that money, and are asking for even more with the vague promise that you can now deliver the goods. See Item A. And when the second investigation somehow proves inconclusive, I don’t think it is a stretch of the imagination to believe that just a few more days worth of work will be all that you need to get this all wrapped up. Again, nice try.
I have already proven that Item D is a lie. Items A, B, Cand E cannot all be true at the same time. So what are you up to, Mr. Crowley? What exactly IS your involvement with Neil Gubitz and James Thornton? James Thornton hired you, and then apparently dropped out of the picture leaving you a balance owed for ‘work’ you performed. You were investigating a burglary at Neil Gubitz’s Snake Pit pet shop and say you were sent on wild goose chases the entire time you were spending our money. In Item E, you claim that you cannot prove the Neil staged the burglaries, yet in Items A and C, you say that you can, for an additional fee. I once told you that I cannot understand why James would have hired an apparently competent, ethical private investigator if, as you have claimed, he were involved with this scam along with Neil Gubitz. Are you answering my own question now?
Two considerations are paramount here: 1. If you have evidence or can get evidence that will implicate Neil Gubitz in criminal activity, and are not turning this information over to the proper authorities, you are engaging in obstruction of justice. 2. If you do not have the information that you say that you have, and have been spreading rumors to various people claiming that Neil is responsible for criminal activities, you are engaging in slander and libel.
Two things are possible outcomes when the above paragraph is considered: 1. Detective Cole of the TPD will be informed of your emails claiming access to information pertinent to an ongoing investigation. You will necessarily have to turn that information over to him *for free*, or be in violation of the law yourself. 2. If you cannot provide the evidence you claim you have access to, you are engaging in slander and libel of Neil Gubitz without a shred of tangible evidence. As such, I will have no other choice but to forward your emails on to him to be used as evidence for his probable lawsuit against you. There is a very good chance that such emails will be demanded in a subpoena anyway, so I might as well try to avoid that problem on my own. As such, you will be FORCED to defend yourself in court from a slander and libel suit, and you will necessarily have to come up with the evidence we had been willing to pay you a reasonable sum for, and provide it as court evidence *for free*.
Confrontational? Me? You betcha! Mr. Crowley, I started up the Board of Inquiry and have spent a whole lot of time, money, effort, and headaches all because someone pissed me off a couple of years ago. And YOU sir, have pissed me off.
Your time is limited to consider your options. Dave Lawson is awaiting Detective Cole to return from vacation and will certainly be taking this information you have provided via email to him. Neil Gubitz caught wind of at least one of the emails you sent me saying unkind things about him and has personally requested that I send it to him. I cannot put him off for long, nor will I in order to protect you. I expect all hell will break loose when I do send all of your emails to him.
The ball is in your court
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If anyone would like to contact Mr. Crowley and try to make more headway than I have been able to do, his contact information is below:
Thomas K. Crowley CFE
Florida Certified Private Investigator
North American Investigations
Region III Director INTELNET
Region III Director NALI
http://www.detectiveworld.com
[email protected]
P.O. BOX 271322
TAMPA, FL 33688
OFFICE - (813) 962-2435
FAX - (813) 963-1485
