Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Nancy Drew, Hercule Poirot, Precious Ramotswe, Kinsey Millhone, and David Cohen. Which name doesn’t belong? The mystery aficionados among us will recognize the first six names as fictional detectives. As for the seventh, well, in the U.S. at least, it’s less common to associate an obviously Jewish name with the concept of working as a professional private investigator.
As someone who grew up reading Nancy Drew – and went on to become hooked on various other detective and/or mystery series – I always had a half desire to become a detective myself. But for most of us, I suspect, the idea of actually going into that field never seriously crossed our minds. David Cohen, however, did start thinking along those lines by the time he was in high school and college. “I wanted something interesting, where I would be unique in my profession - something with which I could help people,” he says.
Over the years, Mr. Cohen has investigated a myriad of cases – ranging from Medicare and other medical fraud to whistle-blower cases to white-collar crime, missing persons, background checks, custody cases, and worker’s comp fraud. His activities have ranged from forensic accounting investigating, which can be done from an office, to surveillance that entails following someone all day. Because he is shomer Shabbos, he simply does not accept cases that require Shabbos or Yom Tov work.
“One of my most satisfying cases, a few years ago, was a very sensitive one,” he says. “It involved a mother who had given up her infant daughter for adoption 36 years previously. I was able to get in touch with the daughter and connect them. The daughter was uneasy at first, but after I spoke with her a few times, she agreed and was ultimately happy that she did.” They became very close during those first few weeks Mr. Cohen was involved.
Being an investigator can involve danger. Mr. Cohen has to be wary of some people who approach him for hire. In one case, a man was trying to locate his ex-girlfriend. It seemed to Mr. Cohen that he was trying to disguise his voice over the phone. Mr. Cohen sensed that getting the information for the man would put the woman in danger. He alerted the police and the woman and was later questioned by the police about this fellow.
Although they take longer than U.S. cases, Mr. Cohen has also worked on a few cases involving people in Israel, including an inheritance case and “location” cases. These are not as easy to do, but Mr. Cohen does have contacts he can turn to for help.
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So how does a nice Jewish boy end up in such an unusual and potentially dangerous field? Mr. Cohen attended Yeshiva University and considered going to law school. When he was in his junior year, a friend was looking into the investigative field, and Mr. Cohen thought it sounded interesting. After taking some sociology courses at YU, including some on criminal behavior and others related to the criminal justice field, he began to supplement his courses by studying on his own.
In his senior year of college, Mr. Cohen did an internship at the Department of Investigation in New York, which investigates city agencies for monetary fraud and other economic issues. There, he got experience in investigating documents and helping to prepare cases, “just to get my feet wet in the field.”
After graduating YU, Mr. Cohen attended a three-year graduate program at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, where he received a broad overview of the field. While engaged in these studies, he was also employed by the New York City Office of Revenue Investigation, verifying whether people were eligible for welfare. He met people from all walks of life, interviewed welfare recipients and landlords, reviewed documents, and verified that the system was not being defrauded. (The majority of cases were legitimate.)
About a year-and-a-half later, Mr. Cohen got a job with the federal agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which investigates unsafe workplace practices that can lead to injuries as well as employee claims that they are not given proper safety equipment. Sometimes, an employee might file a complaint and then be fired shortly afterward. In the discrimination unit where Mr. Cohen was working, he investigated whether the firing was for a valid reason or was merely in response to the complaint, which is a violation of federal law. This type of footwork took him into all types of businesses, from stores and factories to nuclear power plants.
Next, Mr. Cohen worked for a private law firm, now called Milberg, where he investigated many interesting cases of white-collar crime, whistle blowers, consumer fraud, medical fraud, and pharmaceutical fraud. The firm was involved in some high-profile cases, including the Bernie Madoff and Martha Stewart investigations.
One of the consumer fraud cases Mr. Cohen worked on involved car sunroofs that would spontaneously explode while the car was being driven. When drivers complained to dealers, they would say, “A rock must have hit it,” even though they knew this was most likely not true. Consumer Reports found that the issue was well known to the auto industry but was for the most part not being acknowledged or resolved. Class action lawsuits are still moving through the courts, and exploding sunroof glass continue to be a not-so-uncommon occurrence.
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Later, Mr. Cohen began working independently, taking cases from individuals as well as from larger investigative firms. Many of his cases involve locating people, such as runaways and tenants who leave after defaulting on their rent.
His profession has also brought him into contact with all types of people whom he might otherwise never have met. There was a sports-related case, in which wrestlers were being fired after getting a concussion. “I spoke to a lot of ex-wrestlers who were hurt. The company would use them when they were popular and then cut them loose.” It became apparent that the company did not offer adequate health care to the wrestlers and was treating them unfairly.
Surveillance alone often brings very clear results, as in this worker’s comp claim: “I had one guy who said his back was hurting him,” Mr. Cohen related. “I saw him going out to his garbage carrying 10 boxes piled one on top of the other.” No other evidence was needed to conclude that perhaps his injury claim was a bit overstated.
One rather unique service that Mr. Cohen offers is background checks for potential shidduchim. Although the parents and the shadchan may have done some asking around, Mr. Cohen can ascertain that there has been no suspicious and/or criminal activity in the past which the potential partner was not aware of. This is of particular interest for remarriages and older partners, where there are many more years of potential hidden history. Of course, everything is kept very confidential, and Mr. Cohen sees this as “an issue of helping people doing the right thing to protect themselves,” just as one would do a background check on a potential employee. So far, baruch Hashem, he hasn’t found any issues with the people he was asked to check out.
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Mr. Cohen moved from New York to Maryland in 2006. Although he and his family currently still live in their Annapolis home, they are migrating to Baltimore, where his kids attend school and where they have purchased a house. They have already been spending Shabbos and the holidays in Baltimore.
Happily, it seems that Mr. Cohen did fulfill his goal of finding a unique and satisfying profession where he can assist people. His firm, DJC Investigative Group, is registered in Maryland and New York. Although he is not in a position to offer internships, he does give advice about how to get into the field, and if anyone is interested in getting their feet wet, he would consider taking on part-time volunteers.
Once in a while, Mr. Cohen gives presentations about his job in schools, tailored to the ages of the kids, such as the one he gave at Cheder Chabad. He ties investigation/searching into Jewish themes, such as searching for the chametz. He gave the kids a “case” to solve: The Case of the Missing Piece of Chametz. (The dog ate it.) He presented them with magnifying glasses to show their parents. When I asked him if anyone had ever hired him to help search for the chametz, he replied, “It hasn’t happened yet, but it could! You never know in the investigative field.”
