Thomas E. Curran
Sr. 2020-2021
FORMER STATE POLICE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATED HIGH PROFILE CASES
Lieutenant Curran recently completed a mission working for the Federal Government conducting Background investigations on individuals of interest and individuals seeking clearances for employment for government and public trust positions.
Thomas E. Curran Sr. Security Consultant / Licensed Private Investigator Office: (617) 934-5664 Email: tcurran325@gmail.com
Tom Curran has a long and distinguished career with the Massachusetts State Police. He has worked in an undercover capacity and has been the lead investigator in several homicides and high profile major crime investigations. He was promoted to Lieutenant and created and commanded the elite Massachusetts State Police Special Emergency Response Team (SERT). Among his many accomplishments, Curran led the search for missing lifeguard Molly Bish from Warren Massachusetts with positive results. He led the SERT team on over 500 searches in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In December of 2006 Curran was elected President of the Massachusetts State Police Commissioned Officers Association. Lieutenant Curran recently retired from the Massachusetts State Police to embark on a career in education, private investigations and security consulting. Curran went to work or USIS, United States Investigative Services where he, with a Top Secret Security clearance conducted background checks on persons seeking a Top Secret clearance from the government and persons seeking positions that required the public trust. He currently holds the position of Adjunct Professor at Quincy College. Prior to his service with the State Police, Curran worked in hospital protective services for seven years. Tom Curran is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War and was awarded the Air Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Ribbon, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. His twenty-seven years of police work have enabled him to gather valuable insight into the human psyche. He has dealt with the best and the worst of human behavior, seen people at their most vulnerable and witnessed first hand the devastation created by some of the states worst criminals. Curran received advanced training with the FBI. His advanced training includes: Homicide and Serial Homicide Investigations; Intelligence Gathering; Search and Rescue; Lost Persons Search; Accident Investigation; Background Investigation; White-Collar Crime. Curran was first in his class at the FBI Instructor Development School. He obtained his Baccalaureate degree from Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice and his Masters Degree in Criminal Justice from Anna Maria College. He embarked on a teaching career that has spanned over two decades and currently teaches courses in Criminal Justice and Sociology at Quincy College. He is a guest lecturer and has lectured at several colleges and private businesses throughout New England. Curran is an experienced investigator and educator in the field of Criminal Justice and continues his work today as a public speaker, educator, private Investigator, and Security Consultant. CURRAN INVESTIGATIONS IS FULLY INSURED License # LP0727E DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES: WHITE COLLAR CRIME FRAUD INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATIONS LOSS PREVENTION PRE-EMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS INSURANCE INVESTIGATIONS LOCATION AND INTERVIEWING OF WITNESSES LOCATE SEARCHES BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS HOSPITAL/MEDICAL MALPRACTICE INVESTIGATIONS WHITE COLLAR CRIME: Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland "...as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation." Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interaction and believed that criminal behavior was learned from interpersonal interaction with others. White-collar crime, therefore, overlaps with corporate crime because the opportunity for fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, computer crime, and forgery is more available to white-collar employees. FRAUD: In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime and is also a civil law violation. Many are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds. Defrauding people of money is presumably the most common type of fraud, but there have also been many fraudulent "discoveries" in art, archaeology, and science. INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS: We specialize in conducting interviews, physical surveillance, video recording, evidence collection and public record/document retrieval. UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATIONS: Professional investigators, trained and supervised will work in your facilities to document and report on unlawful activities and/or violations of company policies. LOSS PREVENTION: Inventory shrinkage robs retailers upwards of approximately 2% of their sales each year. Our job is to protect your hard-earned profits. Curran Investigations provides best-in-class solutions proven to reduce shrink and protect profit. BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS: Criminal, Civil, Probation records, restraining orders, etc. INSURANCE INVESTIGATIONS: Insurance fraud, theft INTERVIEWS: Interviewing a witness or suspect can be vital to any investigation. Curran has interviewed hundreds of suspects and witnesses in his many years in Law Enforcement. LOCATE SEARCHES HOSPITAL/MALPRACTICE INVESTIGATIONS 2020 RESEARCH REVIEW: THE LIE, THE BLUFF AND FALSE CONFESSIONS From Reid Associates; One of the most controversial aspects of criminal interrogation involve the use of trickery and deceit. While Federal and State Supreme Courts routinely uphold confessions that were obtained from interrogations during which the suspect was falsely told that there was incriminating evidence, academicians and psychologists have argued that lying to a suspect about having incriminating evidence is unethical, erodes the integrity of the criminal justice system and may induce an innocent suspect to confess.
Considering the necessity of dealing with criminal suspects on a somewhat lower moral plane than the average public, Supreme Court justices have rejected the ethical arguments. While there have been some restrictions placed on the use of trickery and deceit during an interrogation, e.g., manufacturing evidence against a suspect, the prevailing logic has been that merely lying to a suspect about having incriminating evidence would not be apt to cause an innocent person to confess. As a recent appeals court ruled, "such misrepresentations (lying about having evidence), of course, may cause a suspect to confess, but causation alone does not constitute coercion..."(1)
A recent study challenges this basic premise. (2)
Major Supreme Court cases for the new term Highlights of some high-profile cases from the Supreme Cour; —Guns: The Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms has never been held to apply to state and local laws restricting guns. The court is taking up a challenge to a handgun ban in Chicago to decide whether this right, like many others in the Bill of Rights, acts to restrict state and local laws or only federal statutes. If the court sides with gun rights supporters, lawsuits to overturn all manner of gun control laws are likely. —Animal cruelty videos: A 1999 federal law bars depictions of acts of animal cruelty, including pit bullfights. A federal appeals court overturned a Virginia man’s conviction and struck down the law because it's impermissibly restricted his First Amendment rights. The Obama administration says courts should treat this issue the same as child pornography and rule that pictures and videos deserve no constitutional protection. —Mojave cross: For most of the past 75 years, a cross on public land in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve has stood as a memorial to World War I soldiers. The court takes up a long-running legal fight over whether the cross, which Congress declared a national memorial, violates First Amendment religious protections despite Congress’ decision to transfer the land to private ownership. —Mutual fund fees: A fight over the fees paid to an investment adviser gives the court a timely chance to weigh in on compensation paid to financial services executives. Individual mutual fund investors claim in a suit that they are paying unreasonably higher fees than institutional investors to the adviser who chooses their funds’ stocks. The court could use this case to resolve disagreements among lower courts about whether plaintiffs have to prove merely that the fees are excessive or demonstrate that the adviser misled the mutual funds’ directors who approved the fees. —Lawyer request: The court will use this case to decide how long a suspect’s request for a lawyer is valid. Police investigated Michael Shatzer for the sexual abuse of a boy in 2003, but the case was dropped after Shatzer asked for a lawyer. Three years later, the victim was old enough to offer details and a new police officer interviewed Shatzer, who confessed. The Maryland Court of Appeals threw out Shatzer’s confession because he had asked for a lawyer back in 2003. State prosecutors want the Supreme Court to reinstate his confession. —Life without parole for juveniles: In two cases from Florida, the justices will explore whether the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars sentences of life without parole for people who were under 18 when they committed a crime. The defendants were 13 and 17 when they were sentenced and neither was involved in a killing. The court previously banned executing juveniles. —Child custody: The court will take its first look at how American authorities handle an international treaty on child abduction, aimed at preventing one parent from taking children to other countries without the other’s permission. A British father says his 10-year-old son was taken from Chile to Texas without his consent and wants American courts to send him back. Despite a Chilean court order, the child’s American mother says she has exclusive custody and that U.S. courts are powerless under the treaty to do anything. American courts have sided with the mother, but the administration says the child should be sent back. —Honest services fraud: Newspaper baron Conrad Black and a former Alaska legislator separately are challenging their fraud convictions under an open-ended federal law that has become a favorite of prosecutors in white-collar and public corruption cases. The law says that depriving the public or, in Black’s case, shareholders of your honest services is a crime. Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out recently that, taken to its extreme, the law could be used to prosecute any employee who has ever called in sick to attend a ballgame. —Prosecutorial liability: Two prosecutors who allegedly fabricated evidence in a murder case that led to life sentences for two men want the court to throw out a civil rights suit against them. The sentences, for killing a retired police officer were set aside after roughly 25 years. The men sued after being released from prison. The prosecutors say they are immune from suits because they were acting within the scope of their job. Federal courts have rejected their arguments, noting alleged misconduct that included a failure to share evidence that pointed to another man as a possible suspect. —Vioxx suits: Merck & Co. shareholders sued the drugmaker for securities fraud after its former blockbuster painkiller Vioxx was pulled from the market. The suit concerns whether Merck provided adequate information about Vioxx’s risks. But at issue, before the court is whether the shareholders waited too long to file their suits. The court could use the case to decide what constitutes proper notice to investors under securities laws. —Sarbanes-Oxley: The court could decide the validity of a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-fraud law, enacted as Congress’ response to the wave of corporate scandals that started with energy giant Enron’s collapse. The court is considering whether the board established to oversee the accounting industry by the 2002 law violates the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between the branches of government. One irony of the case is that pro-business conservatives who are mounting the legal challenge are arguing that President Barack Obama should have more power to control the makeup of the board, while his administration is defending the law. —NFL merchandise: A business case for sports fans gives the court the chance to decide whether NFL teams can get together to license the sale of caps and other gear without violating antitrust laws. © Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.
Next Article in U.S. Politics:
Empty combat boots stand at attention in DC Source: Boston Globe
LEGAL UPDATES - January 2016
US Supreme Court Rules That Confessions Obtained After Six Hours By Federal
Investigators May Not Be Admissible
On April 6, 2009, in the case of Corley v. US, the United States Supreme Court ruled the following:
"We hold that S 3501 modified McNabb-Mallory without supplanting it. Under the rule as revised by S 3501(c), a
district court with a suppression claim must find whether the defendant confessed within six hours of arrest (unless the long delay was "reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest
available [magistrate]"). If the confession came within that period, it is admissible, subject to the other Rules of
Evidence so long as it was "made voluntarily and ... the weight to be given [it] is left to the jury." Ibid. If the
confession occurred before presentment and beyond six hours, however, the court must decide whether delaying that long was
unreasonable or unnecessary under the McNabb-Mallory cases, and if it was, the confession is to be suppressed.
In this case, the Third Circuit did not apply this rule and in consequence, never conclusively determined whether
Corley's oral confession "should be treated as having been made within six hours of arrest," as the District Court held.
500 F.3d, at 220, n. 7. Nor did the Circuit consider the justifiability of any delay beyond six hours if the oral
confession should be treated as given outside the six-hour window, and it did not make this inquiry with respect to
Corley's written confession. We, therefore, vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for consideration
of those issues in the first instance, consistent with this opinion."
SUPREME COURT DECISION 2009
Strip Search of Student Was Illegal, Top Court Says (Update1)
The U.S. Supreme Court, bolstering constitutional protections for students, said a 13-year-old girl’s rights were
violated when school officials strip-searched her in an effort to find pain relievers.
The justices, voting 8-1, said officials at an Arizona middle school acted unreasonably when they ordered Savana
Redding to partially disrobe and then shake out her bra and underwear in front of two female staff members. Another student
had reported that Savana was distributing prescription-strength ibuprofen.
“The content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion,” Justice David Souter wrote for the court.
Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter from that part of the court’s decision.
The ruling puts new limits on the broad latitude the high court had previously afforded public school administrators
to search students and their belongings for evidence of drugs and other contraband. The court tempered the impact of its
ruling by saying that Redding can’t seek damages from the assistant principal who ordered the strip search because the
right wasn’t “clearly established” at the time.
Savana, now 19, was an eighth-grader at Safford Middle School when the 2003 incident took place. Assistant Principal
Kerry Wilson summoned her to his office, questioned her about the allegation that she had been distributing pills and then
searched her backpack.
Wilson then instructed the two female staff members to conduct the strip search. No pills were found.
Lawsuit Filed
Savana’s mother sued the officials involved and the Safford Unified School District.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Savana and her mother could sue Wilson for
damages, though not the two staff members who followed the assistant principal’s instructions.
Wilson and the school district contended that the search was a reasonable step to help ensure student safety. They
said teen abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs had become a disturbing trend.
Their appeal also argued that Wilson couldn’t be forced to pay damages. The high court today agreed with that
argument, saying Wilson and the two female staff members had so-called qualified immunity because they didn’t violate a
“clearly established” right. The court split 7-2 on that question, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens
dissenting.
The case is Safford Unified v. Redding, 08-479.
DNA Evidence Access Limited by U.S. Supreme Court (Update2)
By Greg Stohr
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Constitution doesn’t guarantee access to DNA evidence for convicted criminals seeking to
prove their innocence, a divided U.S. Supreme Courtsaid.
The justices, voting 5-4 along ideological lines, overturned a ruling that said convicted Alaska rapist William G.
Osborne had a constitutional right to DNA samples from a condom. The majority said Alaska’s post-conviction procedures
adequately protected Osborne’s rights.
“Establishing a freestanding right to access DNA evidence for testing would force us to act as policymakers,” Chief
Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. He said federal courts “should not presume that state criminal procedures will
be inadequate to deal with technological change.”
The case marked the Supreme Court’s second look at the increasingly common use of DNA evidence to exonerate convicted
criminals. In 2005 the justices ordered a new hearing for a Tennessee man sentenced to death for murder, saying DNA
evidence cast doubt on his guilt. Prosecutors recently dropped charges against the man.
DNA testing has exonerated more than 230 people across the country since 1989, according to the Innocence Project,
which investigates cases and represents Osborne.
At least 46 states and the federal government have statutes that explicitly allow access to DNA evidence in some
circumstances.
Holder Reaction
Attorney General Eric Holder called the ruling a “limited” one. “The court merely spoke about what is constitutional,
not what is good policy,” he said. He pointed to the “unique power of DNA” to ensure justice.
The case split the court along ideological lines. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel
Alito joined Roberts. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and David Souter dissented.
Stevens wrote that “on the record before us, there is no reason to deny access to the evidence and there are many
reasons to provide it, not the least of which is a fundamental concern in ensuring justice has been done in this
case.”
Prosecutors say Osborne and a friend kidnapped a woman in 1993 and took her to a secluded spot where they raped her,
beat her with an ax handle, shot her and left her for dead.
The woman survived and at trial identified Osborne as one of the perpetrators. Prosecutors also introduced several
pieces of physical evidence, including a condom, found near the crime scene.
Matching the Sample
A DNA testing method known as DQ-alpha indicated that Osborne was among the 14.7 to 16 percent of black men whose
profile matched the semen sample. His trial lawyer didn’t seek a more precise testing method that was available at the
time. Today, DNA testing can create a profile that is unique to each person.
Osborne was convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison, with five years suspended. Alaska courts upheld the
conviction and later rejected his separate request for retesting of the evidence.
Osborne then turned to the federal courts, invoking a provision known as Section 1983 to seek access to the semen and
hair samples.
Roberts faulted Osborne for not availing himself of avenues afforded him under Alaska state law to challenge his
conviction. He said the state’s laws let inmates seek newly available, material evidence to prove their innocence.
Access to Evidence
“We see nothing inadequate about the procedures Alaska has provided to vindicate its state right to post-conviction
relief in general and nothing inadequate about how those procedures apply to those who seek access to DNA evidence,” the
chief justice wrote.
Roberts said DNA testing “has an unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the
guilty.”
A San Francisco-based federal appeals court said Osborne had a constitutional right to access because semen and hair
samples had been used against him, he planned to use advanced testing methods and the government wouldn’t have to pay for
the testing.
The case is District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, 08-6.
Supreme Court rules in Boston drug case
June 25, 2009 03:55 PM
The US Supreme Court, in a ruling that stemmed from a Boston drug case, held today that criminal
defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine forensic experts who prepare laboratory reports on illegal drugs
and other evidence used at trial.
By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee that defendants have a right to confront witnesses
against them extended to forensic analysis, such as typically routine reports that a powder seized by police was
cocaine.
Attorney General Martha Coakley, who had argued before the court that the confrontation clause did not apply to such
evidence predicted that the ruling would result in accused drug dealers walking free. She said the state simply does not
have enough laboratory analysts to testify in the thousands of drug cases handled by the judiciary each year, mostly in the
district courts, if defendants seek to cross-examine them. If no experts are available to testify, she said, defendants
will undoubtedly ask judges to dismiss their cases.
"There will be drug dealers who will not be punished," she said. "They will walk out of court." The ruling applies to
state courts and federal courts throughout the country.
The Innocence Project, a national advocacy group that has used DNA evidence to exonerate 240 convicted criminals
across the US, hailed the decision and said that too often, faulty forensic problems contribute to wrongful
convictions.
"This case hinged largely on whether forensic evidence is a matter of neutral fact or is open to interpretation," the
group said in a statement. "The Supreme Court strongly rejected the notion that forensic evidence is always neutral and
based on solid science."
The group filed a brief siding with Luis Melendez-Diaz, a Boston man who had appealed his 2004 conviction for cocaine
trafficking.
WEBSITES I RECEIVED FROM THE LICENSED PRIVATE DETECTIVES ASSOCIATION OF MASSACHUSETTS;
http://www.manta.com/ Business database. Free searches.
http://www.nsopw.gov/Core/OffenderSearchCriteria.Aspx?Advanced=1
National Sex Offenders Registry Click on advanced search.
http://www.nfoic.org/ National Freedom of Information Center. A good resource for FOIA
requests
http://www.searchallcraigs.com/ Search all Craig's Lists across the
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http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/recalls/ Automobile Recall & Defect
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https://www.nicb.org/cps/rde/xchg/nicb/hs.xsl/vincheck.html
NICB stolen vehicle check
https://pacer.login.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl?court_id=00idx
PACER accesses all Federal Courts for just .08 cents per page.
http://www.abanet.org/cpr/regulation/directory.pdf Nationwide Bar
Associations
http://search.twitter.com/advanced Twitter inquiries
http://www.ghin.com/lookup_t.shtml Looking for a golfer with a handicap?
http://psa.ustaxcourt.gov/USTCDockInq/asp/SearchPartyOptions.asp
Federal Tax Court
http://www.jud2.ct.gov/crdockets/parm1.aspx State of Connecticut Court Search
http://db.state.ma.us/dps/licenseelist.asp MA Dept. of Safety license
look-up
http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/New-York-Cities-Towns
Public Records Online
http://pipl.com/ Free site for various info. Thanks to LPDAM member Keith Walker for the
reminder.
http://www.zabasearch.com/ Another free site for various info
http://www.bing.com/ General information site. You can ask it a question & get
answers.
http://www.stratfor.com/ Global Intelligence Research
http://db.state.ma.us/dps/licenseelist.asp MA Department of Safety License look
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http://www.decodethis.com/ VIN decoder
http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/index.htm Massachusetts Land
Records
http://www.rcfp.org/ogg/index.php Open records laws for 50 states.
http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1 National
Gravesite Locator
http://www.michie.com/ Searchable database for laws of all fifty states
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