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Bogus Computer Expert Goes From Witness To Federal Prisoner

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Category: Blog

Published on Monday, 14 May 2007 17:56

Written by Keith J. Jones

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Sharon Gaudin at InformationWeek.com wrote about a computer forensic expert that lied on his resume and eventually found himself accused of perjury.

I was very glad to see that the credentials of computer forensic expert witnesses are finally being taken more seriously. I have been around several individuals that try to boost their qualifications either erroneously or by over stretching their importance on the cases they were involved with. In some cases, their involvement was very little to none.

I recommend that if you ever are in the need for an expert that you crawl through their background with a fine tooth comb so that you are not surprised at trial. I would only assume that opposing counsel would be doing it. To start with, you could check their:

• Employment referrals from previous employers
• Publications
• Corporate or personal references
• Previous client references
• Educational records

I have been involved in investigations regarding the backgrounds of employees as high as the executive level in large companies. You would be surprised at how simple it is to check the educational background of the individual if you have the permission of the individual.

The moral of the story is that there are a lot of people claiming to have skill sets adequate for expert testimony, but at this time it is your responsibility to check their qualifications. Until there is a standardized governing body for this task, there will be under qualified individuals attempting to unfairly influence legal disputes.

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