Staff & Associates
RESTY C. MANAPAT
Investigator
Investigator
CA PI # 23166
CA PPO # 17517
Holds a Bachelor degree in Criminology, Licensed Private Investigator and a Certified Fraud Specialist.
Mr. Manapat has been in the business of Private Investigation/Loss Prevention/Asset Protection for 24 Years.
During those years, he investigated several cases involving Employee Embezzlement, Check Fraud, Credit Card Fraud and Identity Theft cases. Several of these cases were filed and prosecuted in the Federal level.
He also works with Corporations conducting Internal Audits and Training Personnel on Loss Prevention/Asset protection and Fraud Prevention.
Wrote procedures on Asset Protection, Loss and Fraud Prevention for Retail Businesses.
Mr. Manapat received recognition and awards in the field of Investigation, in 1998, California Financial Crime Investigators Association awarded him as Civilian Investigator of the Year for his outstanding contribution to the financial industry in the field of Private Industry.
In 2003, Association of Certified Fraud Specialist also awarded Mr. Manapat the Founders Award. This award was named to capture the spirit of the founding members of the Association and also recognizes the critical qualities of integrity, knowledge and dedication to service in a Certified Fraud Specialist. Recipients of this award are considered to embody Certified Fraud Specialist designation.
ALLAN F. WISNICKY
Investigator
Investigator
CA PI # 24139
Holds a B.A. degree in Accounting and a Masters Degree in Business Administration.
He is a licensed Private Investigator and a Certified Fraud Specialist.
He is a graduate of the Basic Specialized Investigator's Academy, a POST certified course.
He completed the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Robert Presley Institute of Criminal Investigation (ICI) core course.
In addition, he completed the Advanced Fraud/Forgery Investigation course at the Robert Presley (ICI).
Mr. Wisnicky has been involved with government and private industry for the past 37 years. He started his career in the U.S. Air Force during the Viet Nam era working as a Supply and Logistics Officer at various locations throughout the world.
After leaving the Air Force he became a Postal Inspector and pursued that for the next three years. At that point he made a career change and accepted a position with the State of California as a Financial Examiner.
During the past 27 years he has conducted Financial Examinations and Internal Control audits of State Agencies, various Boards and Commissions and private businesses on contract with the State.
He has also been involved in criminal Investigations of white collar crime leading in some cases to successful prosecution. He is presently working as a Fraud Prevention Specialist for the State of California.
MARK J. MENZ
Computer Forensic Specialist
Computer Forensic Specialist
Mark is considered an expert in high technology related crime and network system design.
He is a published author, an ICI certified instructor and a California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) ICI certified Computer Crime Investigator as well as an adjunct professor for the University of New Haven's Criminal Justice program.
Prior to this he was the Director of Kroll and Associates Computer Forensics and Security Center in Sacramento as well as Cyber Training worldwide. In addition to designing and providing instructional services, he directed technology related investigations and security reviews as well as computer forensics.
Mark was also formerly a Systems Specialist at RESEARCH Group, Inc. the prestigious government-funded training institute in Sacramento, CA.
Mark provided training and investigative support to criminal justice agencies nationwide in the identification and investigation of high technology related crimes and the examination of seized computer media.
Mark has been an instructor and lecturer in both private industry and public schools on information system design, system security and peripheral design.
Prior to joining RESEARCH Group, Mark was the Deputy Operation Director and Chief Information Manager for Compaq Engineering.
Mark was also one of the founders of Progressive Image Technology (later called PLAY, Inc.).
He was one of the members of the design teams for a number of peripheral products sold to or by companies such as Tandy, Apple and IBM. The list of products include the first SCSI host adapters, Tandy memory boards, the first hard/floppy drive controller for the IBM PC, video overlay devices and desktop media devices for Apple and Commodore.
Mark was also the co-creator of the original concept and design that became the "Snappy Video Snapshot.", the second largest selling peripheral in PC history.
He currently has 5 foundational patents or patents pending in the field of computer security and forensics.
He is the co-author of two books on computer crime investigation and computer forensics and has written numerous programs used every day in the field of computer forensics.
Mark also holds an A+ and I-Net+ certification as well as a California POST ICI certification for the investigation of Computer Crime and is an ICI certified instructor.
BRIAN MALONEY
Investigator
Investigator
CA PI # 28037
Holds a Bachelor Science degree in Criminal Justice, a licensed Private Investigator, a California State Hazardous Materials Specialist for hot zone operations and Adjunct Instructor for several environmental and hazardous materials response agencies and has numerous years of experience working with Type 1 hazardous materials response teams.
He also holds a California State Peace Officer Standards Training (POST) Basic Academy certificate and ranked in the top 7% of his academy class from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. He attained Intermediate and Advanced P.O.S.T. certificates while employed at the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and has been awarded certificates for numerous advanced officer in-service training courses.
Brian has investigated a wide variety of suspected violations of the law. He has the experience and expertise interviewing witnesses and defendants, collect evidence, photograph crime scenes and skip-trace individuals. He also assesses criminal and civil liability exposure of incidents, writes detailed reports and makes recommendations for criminal/civil litigation and testifies in court.
His experience includes investigation of Major Crimes-Homicide, Child Abduction, Welfare Fraud involving Drug and Fleeing Felons, and has an expertise in Environmental - Hazardous Materials incident investigation. Environmental incidents that he has responded to, assessed and investigated include those of commercial and residential hazardous waste disposal, hazardous materials storage and transportation, clandestine drug lab mitigation, chemical storage tank releases, medical and biological waste disposal, non-compatible chemical reaction incidents and those environmental incidents which have caused injury, illness and death.
He has worked on numerous statewide environmental cases resulting in large civil settlements. He has also been a member of the Sacramento Environmental Task Force and the Northern California Consortium of Technical Responders. He is trained in CBRNE and terrorism incident response.
He performed follow-up investigations on notorious homicide cases, to include the Dorothea Puente-Montalvo serial murder case and the "Good Guys" Electronics store (People. v. Loi Nguyen) hostage / multiple victim murder case.
Brian also located and recovered abducted children from all over the United States as well as Mexico and after ensuring the welfare and care of those children, he then placed the abducted children back in the care of the custodial parents according to court orders. He was awarded a Governor’s Commendation for his work in this assignment.
He also has extensive training in trial preparation, witness management and 2000 hours of forensic document examination mentoring with James Blanco.
JAMES A. BLANCO
Document Examiner
Document Examiner
He is one of only 150 certified Forensic Document Experts in the United States and Canada.
Sifting through forged, counterfeited and altered documents, Jim offers professional expert opinions as to when documents lie or tell the truth.
He has worked over four thousand fraud cases and has testified as an expert witness more than 100 times in courts around America.
His 17-year plus career in the field includes Forensic Analyst positions with the U.S. Treasury Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, California Department of Justice, and the Sacramento Financial Crimes Bureau.
His clients include corporations, banks, insurance companies, law enforcement agencies and businesses from around the country.
Jim works with corporations in training personnel how to “fraud-proof” their organizations by putting fraud prevention measures in place.
As a former Counselor, he also offers messages of personal reflection and inspiration.
VICTOR P. LLADOC, MBA, CESO V
Philippine Consulting Attorney
Philippine Consulting Attorney
Atty. Lladoc is our Philippine Consulting Lawyer. He has been in the practice of law since 1986 and a Senior Partner at Lladoc, Lladoc and Lladoc Law Firm. He holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration and a Career Executive Service Officer.
He was a former Regional Director and later on Service Chief Director for Investigation and Prosecution Office of then Economic Intelligence and Investigation Bureau, Department of Finance, Manila, Philippines.
Among his duties as Director, he was mandated to gather, receive and evaluate intelligence reports, information and evidence on the nature, modes and extent of illegal activities affecting the national economy, such as, but not limited to economic sabotage, smuggling, tax evasion, intellectual property rights infringement, illegal harvest of natural products and other corporate frauds, and, investigate the same and aid in the prosecution of cases.
He is likewise empowered to coordinate with external agencies in monitoring the financial and economic activities of persons or entities, whether domestic or foreign which may adversely affect the national economy with the goal of regulating, controlling or preventing it.
He exercises direct control and supervision of all investigators, trial lawyers and intelligence operatives in the conduct of all investigation and prosecution of offenders, including all regional offices.
He was likewise a former Professorial Lecturer at the De La Salle University, College of Saint Benilde, Manila, Philippines at Consular and Diplomatic Affairs Department. He served as speaker and undergone numerous trainings on economic crimes and related issues sponsored by the Societe' Generale' de Surveillance (SGS) of Geneva, Switzerland.
MIKE SORENSON
Physical Security Specialist
Physical Security Specialist
Holds a Master in Public Administration and B.A. in Criminal Justice.
Mike has 30 years of experience protecting Government and Private assets includes serving in the US Marine Corps and local law enforcement.
While in the Marines, Mike was assigned to the Executive Flight Attachment (Presidential Helicopter – Marine One) after completing Military Police School.
During his tenure there, Mike received his Presidential Service Award among others, and was a section Leader for the Security Detachment.
Mike also worked in the Private Sector as an Investigator/Loss Prevention/Asset Protection.
During that time Mike investigated and prosecuted numerous internal/external protection.
Currently, Mike is also the Physical Security Analyst for the University of California, San Francisco Police Department.
Mike also has been a Guest Speaker on several Public Service Awareness Programs sharing his expertise on Loss Prevention/Asset Protection.
JEFF ROBERTS
IT Specialist
IT Specialist
Mr. Roberts is a Computer Science graduate and United States Marine Corps veteran.
In the Marines, Corporal Roberts served as a Military Police NCO and as a Computer Technician. Responsibilities included maintaining all computer systems and peripherals, leading Marines, and leading operations for Military Police Records. As NCO of police records, he was in charge of the team performing the computer system data transfer and simultaneously continuing daily operations of the department, which included handling sensitive data as well as processing FOIA requests. While deployed in Iraq, Corporal Roberts was the Corporal of the Guard, whose purpose was leading the security force protecting communication equipment for Electronics Maintenance Platoon, CSSB-18. This was in addition to regular responsibilities of computer systems management and establishing secure communications between deployment sites.
After the end of his service, with an Honorable Discharge, he started college. He received a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science with a concentration on Information Assurance and Security. Course examples include: Cryptography, Computer System Attacks and Countermeasures, Operating System Pragmatics, and Computer Forensics.