Public Policy & Public Administration Expert Witnesses: 2

Dr. James F. Pastor, Ph.D, JD, CPP, brings a unique and remarkable career in Security, Policing, and Public Safety, starting as a tactical officer in Gang Crime Enforcement for the Chicago Police Department, one of the most active policing units in the country.

As a security expert, author, attorney, and former professor, Dr. Pastor merges security methods, academic theories, and legal principles; providing an exceptional level of depth and breathe in your case. As an attorney, he served and advocated for both the Chicago Police Department and for two police unions. In addition, he has represented both security guard and electronic security firms. These experiences bring broad experience into the security industry and public safety.

Augmented with a doctorate in Public Policy Analysis, he understands that policies create incentives and drive human behavior. As these directly impact public safety and crime, few possess his experience, his unique insight and his security sense.

Areas of Expertise:

Litigation Support - Dr. Pastor is a highly regarded expert witness with experience in policing, security, public safety, and legal issues relating to these. His depth and breathe of experience is substantive, yet practical. Bringing a unique background, along with credentials and skills, including participating in over 700 prior depositions, has proven to be very effective in his expert witness role.

Simply stated, Dr. Pastor brings practical “street cop” thinking layered with years of academic, legal, and professional experience. He understands the real world, criminological theories, and security methodologies. Combined with security laws and public safety policies, each are merged into authoritative analysis, assessments, and presentations.

Dr. Pastor has over 20 years of university teaching experience in security, public safety, and policing, including Northwestern University- Center for Public Safety and the International Law Enforcement Academy. 

Author of four books on security and public safety, plus chapter on Private Policing in ASIS International's Protection of Assets Manual and created Privatization of Policing Bibliography for Oxford University Press, both being comprehensive, substantive works relating to Private Policing.

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Beth A. Mohr, CFE, CFCS, CAMS, CCCI, MPA, PI, is a Police Practices expert with over 30 years of sworn and non-sworn investigative experience.  Ms. Mohr has testified as an expert in numerous state and federal court proceedings, depositions, and administrative hearings federal and state courts, including New Mexico, Ohio, Illinois, Arizona, California, and Washington state.  Ms. Mohr has testified on a variety of subjects, including police procedures, police misconduct, white collar crime and fraud examinations.  Her expertise has been verified by the courts via a Daubert challenge, in which Ms. Mohr was found to be qualified as an expert in police practices generally, and well as the specific areas of interviewing, interrogation, false and recanted confessions, cognitive bias, investigations and investigative failures, vice, and human trafficking.  Ms. Mohr is neutral, fair, and her opinions are rooted in provable facts, as well as academic literature, where appropriate.  She strives to balance her cases between defense and plaintiff-sided cases, and also provides habeas consulting services.  

Ms. Mohr is credentialed as a Nationally Certified Law Enforcement Instructor by the IADLEST, and is one of fewer than 150 individuals who have been nationally certified as an expert law enforcement instructor.  She is a Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Force Science Analyst. Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Financial Crimes Specialist (CFCS) and a Certified Cyber Crimes Investigator (CCCI).  She is also a Private Investigator (PI) licensed in New Mexico, Arizona, and California.  

Areas of Expertise:

• Police Practices and allegation of Police Misconduct
• Use of Force, Excessive Force, Deadly Force
• Taser, ECWs, and other uses of force intended to be less-lethal
• Interviewing, Interrogations & False and Recanted Confessions
• Police Ethics
• Investigative Failure, Cognitive Bias, Confirmation Bias
• Habeas Consulting, including death penalty cases
• False Arrest
• Failure to Train / Failure to Supervise               
• Evidence Handling
• Police Policy, SOPs
• Fraud & White-Collar Crime
• Vice & Human Trafficking
• Money-Laundering Cases
• Cryptocurrencies / Bitcoin
• Retaliation & Qui Tam
• Workplace Violence & Sexual Harassment
• Private Investigations & PI Failures

During her career with the San Diego Police Department, Ms. Mohr was awarded three Commanding Officer’s Citations, which were the highest awards offered by the San Diego Police Department for investigative acumen at the time.  After retiring from the San Diego Police Department, she conducted death penalty mitigation investigations, and other complex felony investigations, including homicide and white-collar cases, for the Whatcom County, Washington, Public Defender’s Office.  This includes conducting investigations of allegations of police misconduct for the City of Albuquerque Independent Review Office. Ms. Mohr recently chaired the City of Albuquerque’s Police Oversight Board, a civilian board which was created as part of the US Department of Justice’s Consent Decree with the City of Albuquerque and the Albuquerque Police Department.

Ms. Mohr has published a chapter entitled “Skepticism”, in the newly-released book The Art of Investigation Revisited, as well as having penned articles for bar journals and other peer-reviewed publications.  Ms. Mohr has taught courses on law enforcement topics including interviewing techniques, investigative ethics, evidence collection, financial and fraud investigations, and many other topics.  Her ethics courses, investigative courses, and fraud courses are certified for law enforcement credit.