The Dirty Dui/P.I. Moms/Contra Costa Narcotics Scandal just won’t quit.
In the latest bomb a former New York state deputy turned actor, who moonlighted as a private eye (or was it the other way around?), went on the record with the San Francisco Chronicle talking about how he is the informant in the case against Butler and disgraced former county narcotics commander Norman Wielsch. The two and other law enforcement associates are accused of running a soup-to-nuts criminal enterprise that would make Harvey Keitel’s character in The Bad Lieutenant blush.
I never knew Chris Butler other than having a professional relationship with him over the phone and talking a couple times a year. I knew him as a competent, professional private investigator skilled at both video recording and setting up video systems. Let’s just say he had advanced technical and investigative abilities.
Butler used his skills to sting unlicensed private investigators, shown by ABC-7’s investigative team. In a case where we had a common target, he used an undercover investigator to get a covert recording of a psychic offering to make cancer go away if she was paid hundreds of dollars.
The first time I ever thought something was odd with Butler was when The East Bay Express ran a glowing profile of him and his firm in May 2007. The article was called “The Honeytrappers” and it detailed how Butler used attractive female operatives to catch cheating husbands. Many of my professional colleagues looked sideways at this. And yes, there was some professional jealousy. But most private eyes feel uncomfortable using undercover agents in garden variety domestic cases. (A cheater is going to cheat, it just might take a few times to catch him or her.)
One potential red flag in the Honeytrappers article was that it said he had been on the Antioch Police Department but just resigned and cashed out his pension to start his agency. Most private investigators who are former law enforcement come to the private sector after long, long careers. Some of the others perhaps were forced out. I don’t know the circumstances of Butler leaving the force, where he had worked with co-defendant Wielsch.
Another of Butler’s marketing tools was the “P.I. Moms” for a reality show. It seemed that he was everywhere. Butler had all the tools and abilities to make an excellent living doing corporate or legal investigations but is alleged to have engaged in: running a brothel, selling methamphetamine and other drugs and the now infamous “Dirty Duis” where his undercover agents drank with subjects who drove off and were arrested by Butler’s associates in various area police departments. It seemed like he was bent on being a television star.
As private investigators, we are business people. I admit, I have an ego and like some publicity. It’s just that serious private dicks don’t want to be too well-known. The Chris Butler story is a cautionary one about ambition. He was using methods that amount to short cuts. If a case is going to be in a court it’s all about having the moral high ground and getting evidence legally. Any client such as a lawyer, a business or a private party should know their investigator and how they operate. Ignorance is not bliss.
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