Smith’s Justice for Fraud Victims Making Early Impact

In fall 2023, the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business launched the volunteer initiative Justice for Fraud Victims (JFV) to work closely with the Prince George’s County Financial Fraud Division.

Smith school accounting students and other UMD majors, including computer science students, comprise the group. “They have worked diligently with cases referred to them where there’s potential fraud,” says Smith School Accounting Lecturer and JFV Director Samuel Handwerger. “The aim is to investigate and put together a forensic examination report. The ultimate test of such a report is for it to be used within the criminal justice system—in court.”

Early on, JFV students are excelling, Handwerger says. “Recently the student volunteers have put together two such reports and they both passed the litmus test admirably.”

The first case was a bench proceeding between the state’s attorney and defense council arguing on whether a witness should be impeached for having committed financial fraud that would impede upon their credibility for their testimony.

JFV looked through a myriad of bank records, put together a 20-plus page forensic report, and then Handwerger and his students presented the work to the state’s attorney and the judge. Although this wasn’t before a jury, the prosecutors, the defense and the judge accepted the report on its merits. In it the students concluded that the evidence presented by the defense council just didn’t “add up,” Handwerger says. Result: motion to quash the state’s witness on impeachment due to fraud defeated.

In a subsequent high-profile jury case involving elder fraud, the UMD student volunteers produced a 40-page report replete with data analytics and visualizations. They examined more than a year's worth of bank statements for several different accounts, debit card purchases and their receipts and listened to over 30 hours of recorded calls to the bank by the presumed account holder.

“The students were thrilled when the forensic examination report was admitted as state’s evidence #174 in the case, a testament to the professionalism and thoroughness of the work,” Handwerger says. He subsequently testified as the expert witness on behalf of the students to describe the findings in the report. He recounts “sitting—as a small-statured Smith School lecturer—in a rather uncomfortably low witness chair, which prompted state attorney Julia Hall to invite me to stand up and address the jury.” In that standing position, Handwerger proceeded with, as he describes, his engaging and sometimes whimsical classroom lecture style, in this instance lecturing to the jury on the facts of the case.

The lead detective on the case afterward wrote to Handwerger in an email: "Dr., you killed it, I’ve never seen a jury as attentive as the one we had and for them to actually laugh and be into a testimony was very amazing. You have a gift! Thank you to you and your students, job well done.”

Related:

• Smith’s Justice for Fraud Victims Offering Pro Bono Control Risk Assessment for Nonprofits, Small Firms 
• Take This Class! Learn How to Spot—and Protect Yourself From—Financial Fakery