Cryptocurrency (Crypto) - Digital Currency Expert Witnesses: 4

Beth A. Mohr, CFE, CFCS, CAMS, CCCI, MPA, PI, is a Law Enforcement / Police Misconduct expert with over 30 years of sworn and non-sworn investigative experience. Ms. Mohr is credentialed as a Nationally Certified Law Enforcement Instructor by the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, 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 Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Financial Crimes Specialist (CFCS) and a Certified Cyber Crimes Investigator (CCCI). She is also a Private Investigator licensed in New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

Ms. Mohr has testified as an expert in California, Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico, Arizona, and Washington state, in federal and state courts, on a variety of subjects, including police procedures, police misconduct, white collar crime, and fraud examinations.  Ms. Mohr's qualifications as a police practices expert have been confirmed by the courts through a Daubert challenge, during which the courts specifically affirmed Ms. Mohr's expert qualifications in the areas of interviewing, interrogation, recanted and false confessions, investigative processes, vice, and human trafficking.

Ms. Mohr has written articles on the topic of police practices, including a forthcoming chapter entitled Skepticism, in the book The Art of the Investigation Revisited.  In addition to articles for peer-reviewed publications, Ms. Mohr has written and taught dozens of law enforcement courses which have been approved for law enforcement credit, including California POST accreditation.

During her career with the San Diego Police Department, Ms. Mohr she was awarded three Commanding Officer’s Citations, which are 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 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.  Ms. Mohr is a POST Certified law enforcement instructor in California, and a Nationally Certified Law Enforcement Instructor.  

Beth A. Mohr is available as a consulting or testifying expert anywhere in North America, as well as many international locations.  She is neutral, fair, and her opinions are rooted in provable facts.  She strives to balance her cases between defense and plaintiff-sided cases, and also provides habeas consulting services.  

Areas of Expertise:

Summary

Mr. Pflaum is the Director of Complex Software Litigation at Quandary Peak Research where he leads teams of experts in a variety of intellectual property, contract, fraud, and computer forensics cases. Since 2013, Mr. Pflaum has specialized in advising clients on software-related intellectual property, software project failure, and contract disputes. Mr. Pflaum has testified as an expert at deposition and trial and has extensive experience reviewing and reverse engineering software source code, architecture, and designs. Mr. Pflaum has reviewed and rendered opinions relating to source code written in a variety of programming languages and relating to a broad range of technologies, including mobile and IoT devices, industrial and automotive controls, consumer and medical devices, and e-commerce and enterprise systems and websites. Mr. Pflaum is also an attorney and registered patent agent with professional experience in financial services and software development.

Software Review Experience (Languages)

C/C++/C#, Obj-C (iOS), Swift,  SQL, Java, Kotlin, VB.Net, COBOL, JS, TS, PHP, Python, GoLang, Ruby, CodeSys, MatLab, Fortran, VHDL, Assembly, TEAL 

Software Review Experience (Industries)

•    Software project failure (Government software procurement, public benefits administration, Out of the Box (OOTB), Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS), customizations, configurations, add-ons and extensions to ERP, SAP, and IBM products)

•    E-commerce and enterprise systems and websites (e.g., SaaS, COTS, OOTB and custom applications, AWS, Azure, IBM, and SAP)

•    Mobile devices (e.g., applications and operating systems for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets), Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensor networks, and consumer electronics (e.g., set-top boxes and portable media players)

•    Industrial and automotive controls and machine vision (e.g., robotics and factory automation technologies, automotive throttle, braking controls, communication systems, CAN bus communications protocols and designs, and functional safety technology), and on-Chip and on-board controllers including power management and memory access controllers

•    FinTech (e.g., loan underwriting, insurance and benefits administration, consumer credit reporting, cryptographic protocols, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and peer-to-peer messaging systems)

•    Medical and analytical devices and electronic medical record databases

Dr. Stephen Castell, Chartered Information Systems Practitioner and Member of the Expert Witness Institute, is Chairman of CASTELL Consulting. He is an internationally acknowledged Independent Computer Expert who has been involved in a wide range of computer litigation over many years. CASTELL Consulting, currently in its twenty-fifth year, provides independent professional consultancy and expert services in Computer Systems, Software, Project Management, Strategy, and Contract Disputes, to a wide variety of international clients and companies. 

As an Expert Witness in computer litigation, Dr. Castell has acted in over 100 major cases including the largest and longest computer software actions to have come to trial in the English High Court. He is the author of the best-selling Computer Bluff (1983), and of The APPEAL Report (1990) on the admissibility of computer evidence in court and the 'legal reliability' of information systems and technologies (with the CCTA).

Dr Castell, award-winning international Professional ICT Consultant and Expert has acted as expert witness in an unusual medical equipment procurement litigation of relevance to the current Covid-19 pandemic and its profound clinical and hospitalisation implications.  The court case, specific details of which cannot be given since the matter is subject to Confidentiality Hearing strictures, was over a dispute concerning due and diligent process undertaken by a major Hospital Management Group, the Defendant in the action, in issuing a Tender for complex diagnostic units, and the Group’s selection of the bid put in by a US corporation, a leader in its field.  That winning bid was challenged by a Claimant, another US corporation, a market competitor to the winning company.  The dispute hinged on whether or not the operational computer software of the winning bidder’s units was compliant with the Hospital Management Group’s strict Tender stipulation that the software had to be identical across all versions of the equipment to be supplied in meeting the Tender requirements.  

Dr Castell’s investigation and analysis of the operational software involved, and his opinion as to the extent that the software was compliant with the strict Tender condition, provided insight and assistance to the parties in reaching a satisfactory settlement.

Daniel A. Strachman, CDDA, is a Financial Services Expert working on Wall Street for more than 25 years in various capacities. Mr. Strachman is Managing Director of A&C Advisors LLC, a firm that provides strategic advice and counsel along with fund governance services to the investment management industry. He serves as a director to both on-shore and off-shore investment vehicles and is a registered director under the Directors Registration and Licensing Law, 2014 of the Cayman Islands. 

Litigation Support - Mr. Strachman served as an expert witness in a number of investment management litigation cases focused on fund marketing, redemption policies and structuring. A FINRA Registered Neutral Arbitrator, his services are available to attorneys for plaintiff and defendant.

Area of Expertise:

Background Information - Mr. Strachman has worked at firms including Apex Funds Services, Morgan Stanley, Cantor Fitzgerald and Orbitex Financial Services Group. He is the Co-Founder of the Investment Management Due Diligence Association, an independent educational organization focused on setting best practices for both operational and investment management due diligence around the globe. 

Mr. Strachman, an accomplished writer specializing in finance, has written extensively about the investment management industry and is the author of nine books including: The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management, (Wiley 2007), “Second Edition” (Wiley 2012), Getting Started in Hedge Funds, First Edition (Wiley 2000), “Second Edition” (Wiley 2005) and “Third Edition” (Wiley 2010), The Long and Short of Hedge Funds, (Wiley 2008), and Essential Stock Picking Strategies (Wiley 2002), which was named by Barron’s as one of the ten best investment books of the year. He is also the author of Julian Robertson: A Tiger in the Land of Bulls and Bears (Wiley 2004). His articles have appeared in The New York Post, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, as well as various trade publications around the world.

Mr. Strachman is formerly an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Business School where he taught graduate level courses on corporate finance and investment analysis. He has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg, National Public Radio and the BBC. He is formerly an adjunct professor at New York University’s School of Continuing Education and has lectured at the New York Society of Security Analysts. He is a graduate of Clark University.