Forensic Accounting

Paul is president and principal in the fraud/consulting business EFM Consulting, and has been a forensic accountant since 2008. He earned his Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) designation in 2011 from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). ACFE is the largest anti-fraud organization in the world with over 90,000 members. Paul has served as Treasurer of the Arizona Chapter of the ACFE since 2018.

Two cases in which Paul testified as Expert Witness in court, are discussed below.

Case #1 – A Small Business embezzlement case where over $300,000 was embezzled by the CFO over a five-year period. The owner felt something to be amiss when he noticed cash liquidity problems in a cash-rich business. After discovery of the missing money and identifying the culprit, Paul continued to search the records, uncovering the exact size of the theft. Including damages and interest, the judge awarded $890,000, after hearing Paul’s testimony.

Case #2 – A Multi-Million dollar Marriage Dissolution case. This case took many hours of sifting and sorting chaotic bank statements for 18 months, until the attorneys finally subpoenaed another 10,000 pages of records. Then Paul spent 2 more months and perhaps 200 more hours of effort detailing what finally amounted to 46 financial Institution accounts, and over 100,000 transactions, carefully scrutinized.

From that scrutiny, 830 transactions were deemed “interesting” and worth sorting and not just simple in and out transfers. From those 830 “interesting” transactions, Paul noted the 107 significant transfers which ultimately benefited either the husband or the wife, exclusively. Then the lawyers argued in court whether their clients were actually sole beneficiaries as my effort showed. Out of the millions of dollars of transactions tagged and identified by Paul as belonging to both parties or either one or the other, the court and I decided only $18,000 spent for a car was misallocated by EFM Consulting, and that was based on court documents that was not available to Paul earlier.

In addition, EFM Consulting has participated in numerous other forensic accounting situations. Paul also served as a CFO, a Controller, a Financial Analyst and a Cost Accountant in the high-tech manufacturing sector and the printing industry for such companies as Motorola, Roger’s Corporation, HS Crocker and Wide World of Maps.

Paul has taught 244 classes at the University level in Finance, Economics and Cost Accounting for 4200 graduate and undergraduate students for 19 years.