The Shoemaker Films Podcast

Starting and growing a successful business takes more than just hard work—it requires strategic thinking and continuous learning. In this episode, we sit down with Jeff Stein, the founder of ELPS, a leading private investigative and security firm. Jeff shares his journey from law enforcement to entrepreneurship, giving valuable insights into the challenges and rewards of running a private investigation agency. We talk about everything from managing clients and navigating regulatory challenges to marketing strategies and building a strong team. Tune in to gain tips for growing your business, building client trust, and standing out in a competitive market.

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🎙️ Welcome to the Shoemaker Lab podcast, your go-to source for insights, inspiration, and actionable tips in the world of business, entrepreneurship, and creativity!  This podcast explores stories of local businesses, entrepreneurs, and creatives, while also offering solo shows where I share valuable knowledge and advice on video marketing, social media, and navigating the digital landscape.

At Shoemaker Films, we focus on crafting professional video content that can help your businesses thrive online. Whether you're looking to launch a new product, tell your brand story, or engage with your audience on social media, we're here to help!

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Creators & Guests

Host
Dane Shoemaker
Founder and Owner of Shoemaker Films, Dane Shoemaker is an entrepreneur and filmmaker who interviews business owners, creatives, and brand-builders across the Greater Philadelphia region and beyond.

What is The Shoemaker Films Podcast?

The official podcast of Shoemaker Films. We share wide-ranging content that includes compelling interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs across the globe, as well as "double-clicks" on trends across the digital marketing landscape, from social media, technology, filmmaking, and more. Tune in to gain some practical wisdom and hear captivating stories from some of the world's top minds.

Visit www.shoemakerfilms.com for more details on our company, and stay up to date by following us on Instagram @shoemaker.films

Dane Shoemaker:

Welcome back to another episode of the Shoemaker Films podcast. I'm joined here with Jeff Stein of ELPS Private Detective Agency. Jeff, how are you today?

Jeff Stein:

I am good. Thank you. Good morning and thanks for having Yeah.

Dane Shoemaker:

Absolutely. So, transparency. We, were fraternity brothers in the same fraternity, but this is actually the first time we've ever met. So, pretty neat, network of of people around the Philadelphia area at Westchester KDR. But, you know, what you do, is so is pretty fascinating.

Dane Shoemaker:

So I wanted to sit down and hear your story, your entrepreneurial journey, and get to know, you know, get to know you a little bit more and and your business. So

Jeff Stein:

I look forward to it.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. So tell us what what EOPS does.

Jeff Stein:

EOPS, private detective agency. We are a full fledged, private investigative and security firm.

Dane Shoemaker:

Got

Jeff Stein:

it. We provide all different types of investigations and security services throughout really the the tristate area. We focus on Pennsylvania, but we're licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay. And what are the what are the services that you you guys offer?

Jeff Stein:

We. S do a lot of different services. Yeah. Personally I specialize in criminal defense. Okay.

Jeff Stein:

Investigations and risk assessments, expert witness work. We have a full staff. We do different surveillances for workers' comp, slip disability case, personal injury cases, residency investigations, the gamut. We do background checks. We provide investigative services for both criminal and civil cases, civil litigation.

Jeff Stein:

We will interview, there could be a lawsuit working on a case now where there's been some sexual assaults of, of minors. So we're, we're working on the, the civil side of that. There's already been a conviction, but now they're working on the civil side. So any, any type of investigation, or security, different types of services we provide.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay. Are are you mostly I guess, do do you work do you both work with private, you know, corporations, residences, but you also work with, public sector, like law enforcement. Okay. Or

Jeff Stein:

We don't necessarily partner with law enforcement. We may, but it's not like we're an outsource of Yeah. Of the law enforcement. There could be a missing person's case or, something of that nature where we're providing, the investigative work for. There there was a recent shooting of a school bus in Coatesville.

Jeff Stein:

One of the defendants is one of our clients trying to prove that, you know, what his involvement was or wasn't in in that case. So in in that sense, we're sort of working a little bit with trying to provide the the facts from what we can identify.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

But we're not working with them. You know? In in that case, probably working against them. Yeah. But we do, I do, federally appointed work, so through the courts.

Jeff Stein:

So I have cases that I work on that are through the CJA, Department of Justice, and that's funded by the government. Okay. And those are usually, high profile federal cases, definitely death penalty cases where the defendant is provided legal service on behalf of the state for their defense.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yep. Okay. Wow. And you founded this firm for how long ago?

Jeff Stein:

2006

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

Is is when this became a thought, and then, it grew from there.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. And what's your background?

Jeff Stein:

So my, my background is in little bit in law enforcement, corporate security, loss prevention. Yeah. I've worked my way up. I went to the police academy, I went to Seager and then I went to the private sector.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

I became a director of loss prevention security for different retailers. Yeah. And being a victim of mergers and acquisitions. I decided to go out on my own, control my own destiny. And I did, I have always worked on the side even when I was doing full time career since I was 19 years old and working for a private investigator

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Part time, per diem.

Dane Shoemaker:

Do you have you know, you talked a little bit about the types of clients that you serve. Do you have, you know, the is there a the bulk of your business serving one type of, sector or or client, offering with service? Or is it really just pretty pretty broad spectrum of what you do day to day?

Jeff Stein:

It varies. The they're we're providing right now. We're doing around the clocks kind of a counter surveillance slash security executive protection for Okay. There was a, an employee termination, somebody that, was going, they were concerned about the risk or threat of that person that they're terminating. So we're providing, security around the clock for that company, making sure the employee, the terminated employee doesn't return.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

So that's a, you know, an individual company we do work for, like I said, the department of justice, the CJA cases, attorneys, law firms are big client of ours and then private citizens. Inmates. Inmate. Yeah. Inmates are, a big source as well.

Jeff Stein:

Really? And then retail chains for on the security side of things.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yep. Yep. And do you have do you have w two employees? Are these, you know, what does that look like here? The organization?

Jeff Stein:

Yes. All employees. We have currently, we're up to 50, 55 employees. Okay. Oh, wow.

Jeff Stein:

And, every now and then, we may sub something out for a 10.99 to another private investigator.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

If we're just overstaffed, or not overstaffed, our, our caseload gets pretty demanding. I know we, we have another case right now that we're working on that we subbed some of the workout to somebody we use on a regular basis, but Yeah. For the most part, they're all actual employees.

Dane Shoemaker:

And are these mostly detectives, investigators, security guards? Like, what are the types of what's the makeup of your

Jeff Stein:

business, I guess? Good portion is security. And then, I have a small crew for the investigations Okay. And surbalances, office manager, security supervisor.

Dane Shoemaker:

Mhmm.

Jeff Stein:

So it's it's diversified.

Dane Shoemaker:

So every you know, just what are kind of the top trends right now in, you know, the security world? What are clients asking you? You know, what do they come to ask you about? What are you talking to about with clients?

Jeff Stein:

Well, there's 2 different sides of that. Yeah. Because there's the investigative side, and then there's the security side. So if we break that down from the investigative side, it's really it's a gamut. We do, as I mentioned, criminal defense investigations, cheating spouses, cohabitation cases.

Jeff Stein:

Cohabitation cases seem to be on the rise, based on. A couple getting divorced and how their divorce decree reads and

Dane Shoemaker:

yeah,

Jeff Stein:

you know, who's living with who. So the cohabitation child custody cases, We do a lot of residency investigations for school districts.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

For example, student says they're living in this. Neighborhood, but they're living somewhere in a different school district and being dropped off. So we provide that to school districts On the security side, there's, corporations buildings. We do, high end offices, and then we do residential. We do apartment buildings, bowling alley, some Wawa's, Lowe's, Trader Joe's.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay. So anybody that needs security, any, you know, high risk retail environments, you're you have a security guard there.

Jeff Stein:

Correct. Special events. We do the Devon horse show Okay.

Dane Shoemaker:

On a

Jeff Stein:

regular basis. So there's some other special events too. High holidays, different, houses of worship during, you know, different holidays. Yeah. The election, we got asked to do a security for news media, as they're they're staging on the streets.

Jeff Stein:

Obviously, protect them, protect their equipment, and so forth. Right. So very diversified and and depending on what's going on, in in the country.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Yeah. And no shortage of crazy people out there also. For sure. Yep.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. So it sounds like that keeps you busy. There's a variety of different things. There's no no typical day. Or or is it, you know, is there a day to day?

Dane Shoemaker:

I mean, what does your typical day look like if there is one? You know?

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. There is no typical day, which is Yeah. Which is what I enjoy about this. Yeah. Although, you know, as, in in the position of of The company.

Jeff Stein:

I gotta deal with a lot of administrative issues. Selling the services, dealing with licensing, making sure the licenses are up to date insurance is up to date. Okay. So there's a lot of corporate administrative tasks that are needed.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Payroll, dealing with different issues as they arise. Client has a, an, a new need, a new concern need to deal with that. Phone's always ringing, which is a good thing. Yeah. Otherwise I'm out in the field doing investigations, talking to witnesses, trying to find witnesses.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And just prove the facts Right. Whether they're right, wrong, or indifferent, you know, we're just gonna report what we find.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Yeah. I imagine, you know, 50 employees. I mean, you're you're busy doing the the the CEO task. Right?

Dane Shoemaker:

You know? Yeah. Do do you have a partner in the business, or is it just

Jeff Stein:

No. Yep.

Dane Shoemaker:

But

Jeff Stein:

I be lost without my operations manager or my office manager, Mike. He he does a lot. He's interviewing. We're interviewing on a regular basis, so he's trying to backfill and fill in what we need in future openings. So Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

I'd be lost without him.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. That's good. Who who was your first hire? If you don't mind me asking, go back. What was the role that you hired for first, I guess?

Jeff Stein:

Armed security during Black Friday, during the holidays. Yeah. That was probably the first employees that I I officially hired. As well as interns, I take on an intern. I started probably 15 years ago taking interns from west Chester university.

Jeff Stein:

Oh, wow. Somebody I knew their brother was graduating, but needed an internship and excuse me, west Chester university's criminal justice program. They require to graduate all of their students to do a practicum, which is 12 credits.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

And it's the, usually their summer before their, their senior year. So junior into senior, if they, meet some of their requirements and take some classes early, they can do it sophomore into junior year. But in any case they're required to work, 37 and a half hours for 12 weeks. Okay. So I started doing that program taking on intern about 15 years ago.

Jeff Stein:

And I do that as a hybrid. They're partially paid and partially not depending if we're doing billable time, billable hours and so forth. And that was probably one of my other first hires was that that intern. And that program has since evolved with interns. And this past year, past summer, we had 7 interns from 4 different schools.

Jeff Stein:

Okay. So it was it was a interesting time.

Dane Shoemaker:

It worked out really well. For all at one time?

Jeff Stein:

All at one time. Wow. Yeah.

Dane Shoemaker:

And how does that pro I mean, are you doing a lot of training and, or is it mostly on the job shadowing, or what does that look like, the actual program?

Jeff Stein:

Combination of everything. So there there is training, letting, you know, educating them about security, about investigations, having them work on live cases, real cases, reviewing case files, and then security, put them in, in security roles, train them to do security and surances. Yeah. And they're out there doing, doing work, doing surances, up to whatever we feel their capabilities are. So they're, they, it's a good opportunity for them to see a lot of what's going on in the criminal justice field before they decide where they wanna go.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Do a lot of them do they become cops? Do they go into the private sector? Like, is it kind of a mix? Or have you ever hired any right out of college?

Jeff Stein:

Yeah.

Dane Shoemaker:

Full time?

Jeff Stein:

I do. In, in fact, Mike, my office manager, he originally was scheduled, to slotted to do an internship with me

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

The 1st year of COVID. And then that COVID happened, and they weren't allowing their students to do in person.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

Internships. So I ended up hiring him part time and he worked as well into full time.

Dane Shoemaker:

Oh, that's great.

Jeff Stein:

So I do, And where they end up. I, I, a lot of them, in various fields, the very first one that I mentioned, he ended up becoming a financial planner. So he didn't, he didn't stay with criminal justice,

Dane Shoemaker:

different type of securities, right?

Jeff Stein:

Yes, exactly. But most of them do go into law enforcement. I know I've people in, in municipal law enforcement, state troopers, several that go into the military, one, who just graduated from the coast guard or just finishing his 4 years in the coast guard. Right out of, being an intern, he went into the coast guard and now he's gonna be leaving the coast guard after 4 years in December and going right into the police academy for Atlantic city. Okay.

Jeff Stein:

New Jersey. So we have, we've had people go into the attorney General's office, bank bank fraud and security, various Okay. Others, law school, others just didn't stay in the profession for one reason or another.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yep. Are there certifications that, you know, people need to get or that you need to get or self defense training or anything like that? Like

Jeff Stein:

there is, and it depends on what you do. It depends on your role. Pennsylvania is not where I would like it to be right now. Pennsylvania is governed by the private detective act of 1953, which is antiquated. It needs to be, we, we, when I say we, I I'm, past president of the, the Pennsylvania association of licensed investigators.

Jeff Stein:

And in the past we have rewritten the law. It made its way to, to the house. Didn't go to the other side. So it really needs to be. Improved in Pennsylvania.

Jeff Stein:

It doesn't require any training for security now in New Jersey, for example, in Delaware, where we're licensed as well, you need to have security guard training. Okay. New Jersey. I happen to be an instructor it's called the soar instructor and it's, the initial class is 40 hours of, of security training. Okay.

Jeff Stein:

Actually, excuse me, it's 24, it's 24 hours, the initial class, but everybody's required to take that. And every 2 years they need to, do a, an 8 hour recertification. So we try to, I try to, do that with my employees the best I can.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

But Pennsylvania doesn't require that. Okay. For me, there's a lot of different certifications that I get to advance my CV and my, capabilities Mhmm. With risk assessments, threat assessments. There's, a board certified criminal defense investigator, board accredited investigator.

Jeff Stein:

So there's a lot of certification programs out there. And, I'm a proponent of continuing to learn Sure. Get educated.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yep. Yeah. That's good. I mean, that's that's good for your clients too. I mean, you're just continuously improving Right.

Dane Shoemaker:

You know, staying on top of new methodologies or trends and staying staying sharp. So

Jeff Stein:

Very true. Yep.

Dane Shoemaker:

So, you know, where do you so you mentioned a little bit about, you know, inbound request selling. I mean, do you do much marketing or, you know, outreach to businesses? What does that part of the business look like as a marketing person? Like, I'm always curious what what businesses are doing to kinda get their name out there.

Jeff Stein:

I I currently spend a decent amount of money on marketing in different platforms. There's some local, magazines, that we advertise and market in. Yeah. We've do, social media, a lot of online presence. There are some public, or professional trade magazines that, PI magazine that we've advertised in that we've been authors in, written material for, belonging to a lot of different associations.

Jeff Stein:

And networking with them. Yeah. Marketing my firm to those different associations from just being, being a member or attending conferences.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Or writing for a newsletter or asking questions or putting something out there on their listservs or LinkedIn. I'll do a lot of PSAs, public service announcements or white papers, you know, and post them on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. With all that being said, though, in, in my profession, I do find that word-of-mouth is probably the best. We, we do some mailings as well. We do some postcards and very little return on investment.

Jeff Stein:

But as you know, you need to touch people in different ways. Yeah. We have gotten work from from the postcard mailing. So if you get a little bit, it can hurt.

Dane Shoemaker:

Sure.

Jeff Stein:

But just word-of-mouth, inmates, for example, talk to each other. Right? They're they're they're cellmates. They're in prison 247 together. They share our information.

Jeff Stein:

Attorneys share our information. Yeah. You do a good job for 1 attorney and, you know, somebody else calls and they have a need that is just, yeah, probably one of the, one of the best things we can do. We do. Advertise through some other online yellow pages, if you will, for private investigators.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

So there are some specific ones out there. PI now, for example, is one of those. So we we try to market in some of those. So your your website, you want your web to be seen? Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Google rankings. Yeah. I guess your, your rankings,

Dane Shoemaker:

a lot of backlinks, the presence on the website. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. So PI now is if you Google like private investigator in Westchester.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

My company's gonna come up, but it may also come up through PI now because of all their, all of their analytics and spiders they're putting out there, to improve their Google rankings.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay. So you're not, you're not on like Craigslist, right?

Jeff Stein:

You know what? In the past, I'll be honest with you. And if we have some further conversational little bit later, I did advertise on Craigslist.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

My services and I did pick up a few jobs, but I haven't advertised on Craigslist in 10 years at least. But when I first started, it was free advertising. Sure. And

Dane Shoemaker:

I I thought there there was a there was a TV show on HBO years ago. I think the actor's Jason Schwartzman. He's basically like a struggling writer, and he decided one day he wanna be a private investigator, and he posted on Craigslist. And the whole TV show was, like, one season. It was just him going on these crazy adventures in New York City, like, investigating things.

Dane Shoemaker:

So

Jeff Stein:

Interesting.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. I'll have to find the remember the name of it.

Jeff Stein:

There was, Comcast used to do a show in different locations called Private Eyes.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

And it was real private investigators. And I was featured they featured several of my cases on there, at one point, before they they just discontinued. It was one of those Something that Comcast, like on demand.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

So it wasn't, a regular series, but you can go to, at that time, you can go to Comcast and do on demand private eyes and see private eye in Chicago or Lancaster or Pennsylvania or oh, wow. West Chester, Pennsylvania. And they featured me on, on their cases and, on some of my cases and it was pretty neat because they're reenacting my cases and filming. Oh, that's

Dane Shoemaker:

pretty cool.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. In Philadelphia, for example.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

You know, looking for somebody in some back alleys and it was, it was my first time on TV. And since then, 2 of my other cases have been featured as well.

Dane Shoemaker:

Oh, really?

Jeff Stein:

I, I had one case featured on the ID channel.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

And another one on CNN death row stories. Oh, wow. Got some good TV time. That's cool. And and let me tell you, that's great advertising.

Dane Shoemaker:

Sure.

Jeff Stein:

Everybody's saying that.

Dane Shoemaker:

Do you do any, like, PR stuff, like getting on the news, talking about, you know, security trends or

Jeff Stein:

Not as much as I would like. Yeah. Okay. That's something I would like to do more, and and that's something that I will put out on, like I said, social media as a public service announcement. I've been featured on Fox news online, one of my articles in the past.

Jeff Stein:

Okay. But I would definitely like to do a little more. Okay. Have that opportunity.

Dane Shoemaker:

Sure.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. So for anyone who's listening, you need a, a subject matter expert in a lot of different security investigative roles. I'd love to love to chat. I, I know I've, I recently wrote an article as I, I was telling you about, How antiquated Pennsylvania is with their private detective act. Right.

Jeff Stein:

And part of that is there's no we are the only profession. I don't wanna sidetrack this too much, but private investigators are the only profession that requires a license in the state of Pennsylvania that isn't licensed at Harrisburg. So we have to petition the court, the the county on where you where you're gonna office or where you live to get your PI license. And the problem with that is there's 67 different counties in Pennsylvania, which is open to interpretation of the law, 60 7 different ways. And there's, clerks, the clerk of courts who sort of oversees that and funnels it up to the district attorney.

Jeff Stein:

Okay. But they're, they're an elected position that could change every 4 years. So they don't necessarily even always understand the program. And anyway, long story short, I wrote an article about that and, I was trying to get it submitted to some of the, newspapers and PI magazine picked it up. So it's going to be featured in PI magazine first.

Jeff Stein:

Oh, great. I just hope Harrisburg reads it because some things need to change and that affects, you know, unlicensed security, companies, especially in Philadelphia. Yeah. It was a big problem with that. You know, they're not licensed means they're not insured.

Jeff Stein:

And some of these companies may not realize that. Okay. Anyway

Dane Shoemaker:

So there's risks with that. There's, you know, liability potentially with companies that hire these unlicensed companies. Right? Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Very true. And and another problem, Pennsylvania's constables. Constables get hired frequently by other, let's say a retailer hires a constable. That's not their job. They're not licensed to do that.

Jeff Stein:

The constable is an elected position to do work for the courts. And for example, on election, they can, they can provide security for the, the voting polls. Right? Okay. That's one of their roles, but they're not licensed to provide armed security at a retail location, but they do.

Jeff Stein:

And I'm just waiting for something to happen and they're gonna get sued. The retailer's gonna get sued or named in that liability lawsuit. Yeah. And they're gonna have no insurance to defend them on this Constable because the constable is not licensed. They're insured to provide that service.

Jeff Stein:

So Yeah. It's a big problem in Pennsylvania, and hopefully, that'll get fixed one day

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Before I retire. That's Yeah. That I mean, that's a really important reason why, you know, a company, a big retailer, or anybody should be working with a, you know, established firm like like you guys. So Yeah.

Dane Shoemaker:

Are there a lot of, I'll call them, I guess, competing, you know, agencies? Are there a lot in the area, you know, that you compete with or, you know, how do you differentiate yourselves from maybe other PI services?

Jeff Stein:

There are quite a few in Pennsylvania. There's there's a lot in Chester County. I don't really view private investigators, private investigation companies, firms as competition. There's so much work out there.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Especially when you do some, some niche work in criminal defense, for example, or somebody may do accident reconstruction or somebody just may like to do surveillance and that's all they like to do. Right. And we get a lot of work from other private investigation companies.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay.

Jeff Stein:

And same thing, you know, we we, give out, we may get a request for something in New York where we're not licensed and I'm gonna reach out to a colleague in New York to, to handle that job. So I don't, I don't feel the competition from the, the PI sector. Yeah. They're most of them in this area. I know I'm friends with, we refer work to each other.

Jeff Stein:

We'll, you know, bounce ideas off of each other and there's, there's for any good private investigation firm. There's a lot of work out there. Yeah. Just, just like there are how many criminal defense attorneys are there? Family law attorneys in Chester county alone.

Jeff Stein:

And I'm sure most of them are busy.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Right.

Jeff Stein:

So as long as you're doing a good job on the security side, we have a lot of competition and in, in the inner cities, there's a lot of, like I mentioned, unlicensed companies, that, that pop up. And then, there are some of the big, big companies, Allied Universal and some of the other big players that they just come in lowball, and it's hard to hard to compete with their with their prices. Right. Right. But our services and personnel are gonna be at a higher level.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. We're we're paying our employees more. And those are things that you need to factor in, you know, when you're talking to different clients.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. And the training that you do. I mean, you Yeah. You do you basically take it the next level up to what what Pennsylvania requires. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Right.

Dane Shoemaker:

So that's great. Any stories you wanna share? Just kinda I know it's a sensitive sensitive what you guys do and confidentiality and things like that, but I think, I think about like, my wife and I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts. And so I think people are just fascinated with this world, but I know there's not a lot for you probably can share. But

Jeff Stein:

Yes. So there's there's a lot of cases, a lot of things, that are interesting.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

I do need to be careful. I can't reveal, you know, and need to keep it, confidential as far as who the clients are, what some of the cases may have been about. Some people, there was a high high profile case in Philadelphia that involved a famous singers tour manager who was killed, and we worked on that case. And I wish I can share all the details on that. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

There there are a few that, I can touch on. Cabani Savage, that was one of the largest cases in in the United States, southeastern district of Pennsylvania, which is it was a federal case. There was a RICO charges against Cabani and 3 other codefendants. So there was total of 4 codefendants, and they were charged with firebombing, a house killing witnesses. 6 people perished in in that house fire.

Jeff Stein:

And it was a really interesting case. I was assigned to Kadata, Kabani's sister, who was also one of the people charged in this. And Okay. The what I find interesting is there was a a federal witness who, who became a federal witness for the FBI Okay. And for for the federal the US attorney's office.

Jeff Stein:

And he was known to have killed 11 people. They knew of the 11 people that he killed. He was part of that firebombing. Yeah. He he did the firebombing.

Jeff Stein:

So that's 6 and then there was 5 more that the government knew about. And there was another one that I knew about. So 12 people, this guy killed. Wow. And the government made a deal with him to testify against these other 4 people.

Jeff Stein:

And for that deal, he got sentenced to 40 years in federal prison that does not include his time served during this whole process. So he got credit for the 8, 9, 10 years. He was already in jail. And for federal cases, I want to say it's you only need to serve or for federal convictions, you only need to serve 80 or 85% of that time. So this guy who killed 12 people is going to get out of jail in 20 something years, But yet there's other people kill 1 person, they get sentenced to life in prison Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Without parole or to the death penalty.

Dane Shoemaker:

So Right. Wow.

Jeff Stein:

I I guess it's something interesting that the government viewed. We'd rather get these other 4 people and cut him a deal, and that's what they did.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. You know, maximize, you know, what you can, I guess? You know?

Jeff Stein:

Right. Yeah. I I Wow. There there's, the Zach Whitman was a juvenile lifer who was, convicted of killing his brother back in I wanna say it was 199098, 96, or 98. Zach was 15 years old at the time, and his brother Gregory was 13.

Jeff Stein:

And he was convicted of, stabbing him a 104 times and partially decapitating him. I don't believe that he did this. I worked, on his defense after the, the, the post conviction relief act, trying to get him a new trial. But during that time, there was a documentary that was a crew, a film crew that was working on this case and doing a documentary and what had happened. I got a witness who called in originally, but it was never followed up on 25 years ago, 30 years ago.

Jeff Stein:

And that person lives in Tennessee. We flew out to Tennessee to interview her and she identified a person of interest on somebody who may have been responsible for killing Greg. And right at the same time, the the courts decided, that it was unconstitutional to convict a juvenile to life without parole because their brain isn't developed till they're 21 years old. So sentencing somebody who was 15 at the time, for a crime that they committed, they feel that their brain didn't develop and they shouldn't be have that harsh of a penalty. So all juvenile lifers, and Zach was one of them, had to be resentenced to, to be able to get out of jail, or or a new sentence, which isn't life.

Jeff Stein:

And at the same time that this documentary was being done and I was being interviewed and identified somebody else, they offered him to admit that he did it and he'll get out of jail out of prison in 6 months. Now he was 15 when this happened, he didn't go to, court until he was almost 21 years old. And then he got sentenced to life without parole. So, basically from 15 until he was released, he was, 34 or 30, I think 34 years old when he was finally released. But because the, the court said where the DA's office, made a deal with him proffered that admit that you did this and we'll charge it from, from, felony 1 to a felony 3, a homicide, murder.

Jeff Stein:

And you'll get out in 6 months, which he did.

Dane Shoemaker:

Wow.

Jeff Stein:

So that was a interesting case. I still don't think that he did it. I went and talked to the person, after he got out of jail. So we didn't wanna interfere with that process.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And I went with the film crew, who was covert and stayed in the truck, but I went with one of my investigators and I accused this person of committing being responsible for the murder of, of Greg Whitman. And he continued to talk to me and bring me into his home and show me around his property for almost an hour. And I find that really odd. If somebody accused me, came to my house and knocked on my door and said, I think you're responsible for John Doe's murder. I'd tell him to get the blank out of here.

Jeff Stein:

Right? Or, you know, get off my property. I'm I'm not talking to you. And this gentleman just continued to talk and introduced me to his wife that way. It was just odd.

Jeff Stein:

I still feel that he is responsible for this. So

Dane Shoemaker:

Was it was this out in Lancaster area?

Jeff Stein:

No. No. This is not. Yeah. York York County.

Jeff Stein:

York County. York.

Dane Shoemaker:

Okay. I I feel like I've heard I've heard about this story. I I the documentary is out now. Right?

Jeff Stein:

It's called The Whitman's.

Dane Shoemaker:

The Whitman's. And I've heard this story before.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. Yeah. It's called The Whitman's. You can Google it and find it on the ID channel. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And it the the documentary that came out wasn't what was originally intended it to be about. It was really the original documentary, and and I believe they're still hoping this becomes a Netflix series or something. Yeah. But, it started with some, college students who started their own company and they started this as a project. And then it, it continued to grow and it got sold to some different companies and the company that finally picked it up sort of changed it to make it more about the family of some of a juvenile who sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. So it was really discussing more of the family versus the whether he was guilty or innocent, which which was fine, but, hopefully, there'll be another documentary about it.

Dane Shoemaker:

I can't imagine you lose both your sons, basically. You know? Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And I'm still in touch with the family, and and it was it was very hard on on the parents

Dane Shoemaker:

because I can't imagine.

Jeff Stein:

On in one day, they're they really just lost the 13 year old and a 15 year old.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. You know, just just any other tips that you might have for business owners, you know, just as far from, like, a security stand. Like, just maybe everyday things that people should be aware of, you know, things like that.

Jeff Stein:

Starting a business?

Dane Shoemaker:

No. More so from the security standpoint. I'm just thinking. Yeah. I we'll we'll cut that question in 2.

Dane Shoemaker:

Like, from your expertise standpoint, you know, should a business owner be thinking about things, you know, other security things that they should be worried about or

Jeff Stein:

A business a business owner, somebody who's starting a business and some concerns, security concerns, yeah, business concerns.

Dane Shoemaker:

Do you see frequent things that that people miss or

Jeff Stein:

They do. I think Yeah. You know, most new businesses don't survive the 1st 18 months. Yeah. Most new businesses, don't survive the 1st year to 2 years because of employee theft.

Jeff Stein:

There's there's so much employee theft and misconduct that there's a lot of retailers if they don't have the right security in place. And when I say security, not just physical security, we're, we're providing them, you know, security guards, but security plans, how to, how to count their money at night, how to audit their register, look for fraudulent activity that may have occurred. People stealing time, you know, there, we we've done work and this is again, a tip for other people, but you know, so many people, somebody goes out on a workers' comp case or a disability case, because they, they claim they got hurt or injured on the job or, or make up things that may have happened. Insurance companies pay that out. The workers' comp just pays it out very little.

Jeff Stein:

There's a small percentage that are actually investigated. And, and we do a lot of them for those insurance companies and law firms, but we can get hired and, and have been hired directly by the, by the business because they have somebody who they suspect is is out doing something they shouldn't be doing. Yeah. Yeah. We we had one that, they were paying, he, he suffered a serious heart condition.

Jeff Stein:

They were continuing to pay him as he was allegedly recuperating and he was working. He was singing in a rock band, at the Trocadero in Philadelphia. And I I had covert video of him picking up all the heavy equipment and and whatnot.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Oh, wow. Yeah. We have, we we had others that people go out on unemployment because their employer terminates them and then they they dispute that claim. We had one guy who kept calling out and so many excuses was using that, his, his mother died of cancer, that his daughter had a miscarriage and we started doing our investigation. We found the mother to be alive.

Jeff Stein:

We even delivered flowers to her. She was a cancer survivor and we have video of my staff delivering flowers to her, saying that, you know, you're, you're a cancer survivor and on behalf of the Cancer Foundation, you know, here's flowers. His daughter did have the baby. There was never a miscarriage, but he was just calling out sick. So, you know, we can help defend companies like that with workers' comp.

Jeff Stein:

But those things all attribute to lack of funds, lack of money, and going out of business.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Bottom hit impacting the bottom line. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

Dane Shoemaker:

Employee is really one of the biggest expenses that most businesses will

Jeff Stein:

Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. That they are.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. Before we wrap up, just kind of, you know, in your journey of building this company, like, any anything that you've taken away, maybe a big challenge you ran into that you were able to overcome or any advice for people starting a business or or running one today?

Jeff Stein:

Yes. In in fact, I normally I I give a class to new private investigators called PI 101. You got your you got your license. Now what?

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And it's it's kind of like giving advice to them. And and the same thing you just asked me is, I would recommend anyone who's starting a business that they can work start growing and working on that business while they're still employed or have another job. Mhmm. Because starting it, unless you have the financial support, family or investments, banks, whatever, it's difficult to get started because there's a big expense that people don't realize you, whether you need certain certifications or licenses, but you also need to register. You need to become an LLC or a, a sole proprietor or an s corp, whatever.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yep.

Jeff Stein:

So how do you do that? You know, now do you need to pay an attorney to help you with that process? You need to start marketing yourself. You need to get insurance, make sure you're insured and, just business cards and designing your business cards. And, one of the mistakes I made when I first started is I my my very first business card I created and printed myself.

Jeff Stein:

You can go to Staples and buy the perforated

Dane Shoemaker:

Sure.

Jeff Stein:

Business card, templates and, you know, I do stock photos. And, you know, when I look back, it was the ugliest, cheapest piece of junk, you know, I've ever done.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And then I ordered from Vistaprint, and I ordered the free business cards. And I'm not bashing. Vistaprint does a great job, but on the free cards, it says on the back of it, they're free cards and they're they're smaller than your normal business card.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

So invest the money. And I think that's a big thing if you're trying to be cheap or take shortcuts. I understand money's tight, but do it right the first time because I've done it so many different times. I've I've changed, different logos over the years and try to rebrand a little bit. And every time you do that, it costs money.

Jeff Stein:

But invest in having, a graphic designer or professional do it. Yeah. Some stuff you can, sort of sub out to Fiverr, and and use Fiverr a little bit or some other things. But find that person that can create nice brochures, professional looking brochures, not things that you print yourself and fold. So just starting while you have some money Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

And and building that baseline of that business because it's it's a challenge and it's not easy and growing your clientele, your customer base is is difficult until you have been doing it for so long and you have residual clients coming back or residual income coming in, as well as when you're doing something for the first time people wanna reference, well, can I see some of the work that you've done or talk to somebody? And when you have nothing to show them, it's, it's difficult.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. So

Jeff Stein:

you need to start off and then you get that word-of-mouth. And, I think that's one of the biggest things. Just don't take shortcuts. Do it right the first time. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

So when you gotta redo it 5 times, you just paid, you know, 5 times the money if you would have just spent that money on on the, initial setup.

Dane Shoemaker:

I think that's I think that's good advice, you know. Yeah. Perception's reality. It's how how people, you know, interact with your your business and your and your brand is is critical. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah. So Yeah. Learn from my mistakes. So I've I've done all them and I spent a lot of money and you learn as you go. You know, find out what some of the industry standards are and best practices and, you know, even things like QuickBooks.

Jeff Stein:

You know, if if you're not using QuickBooks and you're you're trying to do it for years, I when I was doing my taxes at the end of the year, I'd spent hours because I'm I'm taking all the receipts. And now I gotta log each receipt and figure out, you know, what category it goes in. And, I just, I didn't, I didn't know, nobody taught me.

Dane Shoemaker:

Right. There

Jeff Stein:

was nobody said Jeff, this, how you should do it until you learn or network and talk to other people. And, you know, then you trans transition to QuickBooks and everything's your bank accounts are linked and your credit cards are linked. There's nothing to do. You just approve it. You know, it's

Dane Shoemaker:

it Right. Right.

Jeff Stein:

Makes that process or hire a bookkeeper, which I've done in the past, You know? Yeah. Have an accountant, have somebody who knows what what they're doing to help recommend, you know, you take the right steps.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. I mean, you you can't learn a lot of this stuff in in schools. You know? They don't really teach entrepreneurship. They don't you know?

Dane Shoemaker:

So, yeah, you kinda have to figure it out.

Jeff Stein:

Yes. Yeah. So talk to other business owners. Yeah. You know?

Jeff Stein:

There's there's groups from BNI networking groups to the Chamber of Commerce. There's there's a lot of different things out there. Yeah. But network and talk to other, other people, people wanna help, you know, there's, I think there's, there's a lot of people willing to sit down like we are and have this conversation, help mentor somebody. Sure.

Jeff Stein:

The SBA, the small business administration

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

They have some free webinars and training that are pretty good too. And and I never paid attention to any of them. Right. 20 years later, I'm taking these classes and, you know, just still trying to to learn what I can.

Dane Shoemaker:

That's good. Yeah. Always been proven. Yeah.

Jeff Stein:

Yeah.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. There's always a lot. There's never any knowledge out there.

Jeff Stein:

So Correct.

Dane Shoemaker:

Cool. Well, Jeff, this is great. Really appreciate the opportunity here to, you know, get to know you and what you do a little bit more, and it was fascinating conversation. So thank you.

Jeff Stein:

No. Thank you. I appreciate it. I had a good time.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. So how how can how can people get in touch with you?

Jeff Stein:

They can call our office, 610-696-7799. We also have a toll free number, 188 see that, s e e t h a t, or our website, www.e0pspda.com. And there's links to everything on our website.

Dane Shoemaker:

Yeah. We'll we'll put all that info in the in the podcast also. So, Jeff, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Dane Shoemaker:

Thanks for listening today. Shoemaker Lab is an original production by Shoemaker Films LLC. If you enjoyed today's content, please consider subscribing on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your content. Follow us on Instagram at shoemaker.films. And if you're a business that's either interested in our video production services or would like to be a guest on the show, get in touch by using the contact form on our website, shoemakerfilms.com.