But the issue stretches far beyond Summit County. Last week law enforcement officials in Lake County arrested Alex Hagan, 30, on charges of theft, forgery and criminal impersonation after he was allegedly caught operating a bandit land survey business.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Nicholas Steven Hesse, 30, is set to head to trial in January on charges of theft and criminal exploitation of at-risk persons after allegedly stealing more than $30,000 in deposits for uncompleted home renovation projects in Eagle County.<\/p>\n
Despite a number of ongoing and already adjudicated cases of consumer fraud in Summit and beyond, District Attorney Bruce Brown said the problem is likely much more serious than some may realize.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a pretty significant issue,\u201d said Brown. \u201cWe have a robust economy here with a lot of money changing hands. That\u2019s going to attract people who want to prey on easy marks. I can\u2019t put a number on unreported crimes, but we know we\u2019re only scratching the surface on things like commercial fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
Recommended Stories For You<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Brown said that his office typically handles about two major fraud cases a year \u2014 between $50,000 and $100,000 has been stolen \u2014 along with a handful of smaller cases. But with so many potential cases out there, why don\u2019t more go to court?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no simple answer. Brown noted that if a case makes its way to the district attorney\u2019s office, the chances are there will be a criminal filing thanks to the weeding out of weaker allegations at the law enforcement level.<\/p>\n
But financial crimes are particularly difficult to prosecute for a variety of reasons, including the specialized nature of investigations, difficulty in distinguishing between fraudulent and simply poor business practices and the substantial resources required from law enforcement and prosecutors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t a problem unique to Summit County,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThis is a problem that is systemic to the criminal justice system. And I think in part it stems from a couple things. The first is that we don\u2019t assume crimes occur. We assume in a situation where somebody lost money that it was just a bad business transaction. We have to cross that line to prove fraud, which can often times take enormous amounts of resources to devote.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the reason why people commit fraud is because they feel like it can fly under the radar as an innocent business transaction gone bad. The serial thief creates elaborate schemes in order to disguise their underlying intent. They may do so by preying on vulnerable people or crafting contracts in a way which gives them an excuse for not performing work that will appear to be innocent, when in fact it may be a scheme that\u2019s being perpetrated among many people who are disconnected from one another. Detection of the pattern of activity is more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patterns are particularly important in financial crimes. As Brown noted, law enforcement officials may have trouble distinguishing between innocent business transactions and outright fraud, meaning financial crimes are much more easily proven over multiple transactions instead of isolated incidents.<\/p>\n
Adding to the difficulty is that law enforcement agencies and prosecutors often don\u2019t have the skills and resources necessary to properly investigate financial crimes such as dedicated commercial crime detectives and forensic accountants qualified to dig through financial and bank records.<\/p>\n
Brown noted that his office only includes two investigators for all four counties, and that they attend training events on things such as wage theft. But financial crimes also typically aren\u2019t a priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn weighing where we want to have specialized expertise, we\u2019ve chosen to emphasize sex offenses over economic crimes,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThat\u2019s somewhat of a moral choice we make because of the greater harm to individual victims of assaultive crimes. It\u2019s not to minimize the effects of financial crimes, but we have to make resource choices and that\u2019s where our choices have been made in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown continued to say that in the realm of financial crimes, those perpetrated against vulnerable populations such as the eldery or undocumented workers attract more attention.<\/p>\n
Brown also said that his office needs to do a better job of making sure that victims know their options such as attempting to bring civil or criminal cases. He said that often financial crimes go unreported for a number of reasons, including the embarrassment of being duped or fear that the case won\u2019t be heard. But he hopes that the continued prosecution of consumer fraud cases coupled with public attention will make criminals think twice and victims more open to reporting.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally speaking we\u2019re more of an office that\u2019s responsive to what\u2019s happening in the community,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThe more people recognize that they might have an ear for a type of crime they assume won\u2019t be looked at, and if they find an office that is willing to look at it they\u2019re more willing to report. That\u2019s part of the public outreach role that the district attorney needs to serve, which is to let the community know that the office is open for business and people shouldn\u2019t assume that we wouldn\u2019t take their case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said that those on the short end of a commercial transaction should first try to engage the other party to try and resolve the issue before making use of legal resources. If that\u2019s not successful, the next step is typically reaching out to a lawyer to see if a lawsuit is an option. If there are signs that the party had no intention of fulfilling their end of the agreement \u2014 such as a contractor never pulling work permits or ordering the necessary supplies \u2014 it is likely a fraudulent transaction and should be reported to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Brown also suggests searching social media pages, such as One Man\u2019s Junk Summit County, to find others who may have been defrauded to provide law enforcement officials a means to put together a pattern of criminal activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s the old saying that you can steal more money from a man with a pen than a gun,\u201d said Brown. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really true. So we have to recognize that there are criminals out there wielding a pen, and we have to be aggressively trying to deal with that. There are real victims out there who deserve protection from financial crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fifth Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office has been busy of late dealing with consumer fraud cases as more individuals look to the courts for solutions in dealing with fraudulent business practices and financial crimes. Late last month the office charged Tracey Craig Tucker, a plumber operating in Summit County, with felony theft after he\u00a0allegedly stole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1301372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 02:34:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}