in-person conference Sessions

~ General Session ~

October 11th @ 8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. Matthew Monson, JD (Monson Law Firm)

TITLE: How MMA Went Away - Louisiana’s Large Insurance Fraud Taken Down

DESCRIPTION:   It all started with a random marketing text on a Sunday afternoon, directed at residents of Louisiana, and specifically to attorney Katherine Monson, urging them to file claims for hurricane damage against their insurers “before it was too late.”  Curious about the apparent potentially illegal marketing message that appeared to come from a law firm, Matthew and Jessica Monson began an investigation into the marketing company, Velawcity, and the law firm behind it, McClenney Moselely Law Firm (MMA) based in Houston, Texas.   The initial investigation revealed that MMA paid nearly $14 million for client leads and filed more than 1,600 lawsuits over the course of three days in federal court in Louisiana.  Matthew’s own after-hours investigation, on his home computer, led to a website, HurricaneDamageLawsuit.com, which was operated by Velawcity, a high-tech marketing firm that works with litigation finance companies.  At Monson’s suggestion, US District Court Judge James D. Cain Jr. in Lake Charles ordered MMA to provide copies of its contracts with Velawcity which revealed that MMA had agreed to pay $3,000 to $3,500 for each “pre-screened client lead” provided, for a total of $13.9 million.  Monson suggested to federal judges to review the hurricane claims filed, and the investigation by the federal court revealed that many clients did not even know they were being represented by, nor had received funds from their insurance companies that MMA had pocketed.  The investigation is now in the hands of the Louisiana State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other civil authorities in Louisiana.  The aftermath of the investigation to date includes actions by the Louisiana Supreme Court, who suspended indefinitely the law license of the attorneys who manages McClenny Moseley & Associates’ office in New Orleans and ultimately led to the firm breaking up and filing bankruptcy protection in 2024.  Another ultimate action was filed by Katherine Monson, the wife of defense attorney Matthew Monson, recipient of that first text.  She filed a class-action complaint in the US District Court in Houston that also names Tort Network LLC, the owner of Velawcity, as a defendant. The suit seeks damages more than $5 million for “unlawful acts of barratry,” meaning the improper solicitation of clients.

BIO: Matthew Monson is the Founder of The Monson Law Firm. With offices in Florida, Texas and Louisiana, The Monson Law Firm handles all areas of insurance defense with a particular emphasis on defending first-party claims in states across the southwest. In 2022-2023, Matthew recently discovered and brought down the largest ever insurance fraud, affecting policyholders and insurance companies in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, in terms of numbers of policyholders. Matthew’s uncovering of the actions of McClenny, Moseley & Associates (“MMA”) and Apex Roofing and Restoration resulted in the lead MMA lawyer in Louisiana being disbarred, the entire firm being banned from practice in Louisiana and $2,000,000 in fines issued by the Louisiana Department of Insurance. The scheme also revealed illegal lead generation practices by Velawcity and $30,000,000 in Hedge Fund financing. Currently, Matthew is working with the investigation into these entities by both the FBI and Louisiana State Police. Matthew is the lead partner Monson Law Firm, LLP, in New Orleans, LA. 

~ Breakout 1 ~

October 11th @ 9:30 a.m. – 10:20 a.m.  Nichole Devries, CFE & Chris Ekimoff, CFE CPA/CFF, RSM US

TITLE: Case Studies in Fraud and Data Analytics

DESCRIPTION: This presentation will walk through three case studies where analytics were used to uncover fraud

BIO: Nichole DeVries, CFE, is a member of RSM’s Financial Investigations and Dispute Advisory Services (FIDS). She has nearly eight years of accounting experience, four of which are from public accounting experience. In her time with RSM's FIDS practice, she has contributed to a variety of engagements, including internal fraud investigations, contract disputes, post-acquisition disputes, and whistleblower investigations.

Nichole has also provided audit services to clients in various industries, including oilfield services, energy, government, construction, manufacturing and distribution industries. She also has experience in internal audit where she performed SOX compliance and internal control testing/walkthroughs.

BIO: Christopher Ekimoff, CFE, CPA/CFF is a Director in the Financial Investigations & Dispute Services Group of RSM US LLP. 

Chris has considerable experience providing litigation consulting and forensic accounting services—including as an expert witness on behalf of his clients—performing internal investigations, applying and evaluating financial reporting methods, responding to allegations of accounting and auditing malpractice, asset tracing engagements, and other complex financial and accounting issues. He is a co-host of the Insecurities Podcast from the Practicing Law Institute, and an Adjunct Professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University. Chris also heads the FIDS Blockchain and Crypto Solutions Incubator at RSM.

Chris leads engagements regarding SEC financial reporting matters, public company restatements, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigations and corporate compliance. Additionally, he has overseen the development and implementation of fraud risk management programs, as well as the performance of internal investigations at companies in the financial services, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, and technology industries. Chris has contributed to matters including revenue recognition issues, audit malpractice claims, alleged SEC reporting violations, complex GAAP & GAAS accounting policy issues, whistleblower allegations, and mortgage-backed securities litigation.

~ Breakout 2 ~

October 11th @ 9:30 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Sonia Hurtado, CFE (IRS Criminal Investigations)

TITLE: The Benefits of Diversity in Fraud Audits: Case Examples and Investigative Techniques

DESCRIPTION:  This presentation highlights the impact of diversity in the IRS-Criminal Investigation, the role of the IRS-CI in financial fraud investigations, and how auditors can collaborate with federal investigators to identify and report financial fraud.   

Bio: Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Sonia Hurtado began her career with IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) in 2003 as a criminal investigator. SSA Hurtado was promoted to supervisor for the IRS-CI Rio Grande Valley group in January 2023 and her responsibilities as group supervisor include overseeing a group of federal agents that investigate potential criminal violations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes, such as money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act violations, tax-related identity theft fraud, cybercrimes, and terrorist financing that adversely affect tax administration. SSA Hurtado started her career with IRS-CI in Austin, eventually transferred to Puerto Rico, and returned to the south TX border in 2006 to continue her career with IRS-CI as a criminal investigator, and now as a group supervisor leading a team of talented financial investigators.

~ Breakout 1 ~

October 11th @ 10:25 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. Oscar Harvin, Ph.D, CFE, CPA

TITLE: Highly Skeptical and Financially Savvy Individuals Can be Vulnerable to Becoming Victims of Financial Fraud

DESCRIPTION:   Every day we hear about a new victim of fraud or scam. While there tends to be an impression that the victims are isolated, easily duped people, the reality is that anyone can be a victim of fraud.  Intelligent, highly skeptical individuals, with the right tools and methods, can be scammed into being victims.  Gaining a deeper understanding of these issues is the key to being able to develop a healthy awareness of the risk and reduce the prevalence of victimization.

BIO:   Dr. Oscar Harvin is an assistant professor of accounting at Sam Houston State University. He obtained his PhD from Florida Atlantic University and is a certified public accountant, certified fraud examiner as well as a licensed private investigator. His academic research examines the numerous factors that impair the ability of auditors to detect occupational and financial statement fraud. Another objective of his research is to inform both academicians and practitioners of the various fraudulent schemes that are being conducted by criminals. Dr. Harvin’s primary teaching interest is in fraud examination and auditing but is also experienced in teaching income tax related courses.

He has over two decades of auditing and fraud related professional experience. His expertise in conducting investigations from a financial perspective was developed during his many years as a Special Agent with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service. During his years as a special agent, he investigated crimes that involve tax fraud, Ponzi schemes, child pornography, domestic terrorism, money laundering and other criminal activities. Professor Harvin leverages his vast professional experiences to prepare students for careers that involve fraud examinations such as auditors, investigators, cyber security, law enforcement and other fraud related careers.

~ Breakout 2 ~

October 11th @ 10:25 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. Valerie Turner, J.D.  Harris County District Attorney’s Office

TITLE:  How Fraud Examiners Can Assist in Consumer Fraud Crimes

Valerie Turner, a seasoned prosecutor with the Harris County District Attorney’s office, will peel back the curtains on what types of fraud prosecutions are occurring locally in the greater Houston area.  In a city of millions, the variety and depth of fraud schemes are many.  Valerie will discuss several diverse types of consumer fraud cases and how fraud examiners can help piece together those investigations/prosecutions.  In presenting these real world examples, she will summarize aggregate theft and give example fact patterns.  Cases mentioned will include construction fraud, investment fraud, land theft, car cases, mortgage fraud, Ponzi schemes, etc.

 BIO: Valerie Turner has been an Assistant District Attorney at the Harris County District Attorney's Office for over 26 years. She is the Chief of the Consumer Fraud section of the Financial Crimes Division after having worked in Consumer Fraud since 2003. Previously, Valerie has been assigned to the Trial Bureau, Family Criminal Law, Child Abuse, Grand Jury, and Juvenile divisions. She graduated from the University of Houston Law Center in May of 1997 and began working as an assistant district attorney after taking the Texas bar exam. During her career as a prosecutor, Valerie has handled misdemeanors and felonies of all levels. She has tried 70 felony jury trials, as well as handling court trials, punishment hearings, and at times, post-conviction writs.

As a Consumer Fraud prosecutor, Valerie prosecutes a variety of crimes involving victims who are consumers of goods or services. A consumer can be an individual or a business. She typically handles cases involving land theft, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, trademark counterfeiting, construction fraud, and other large thefts involving numerous complainants. Valerie especially enjoys prosecuting real estate fraud.  Valerie has been married for 20 years and has two children.

~ Breakout 1 ~

October 11th @ 11:20 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.  Paul Raffile

TITLE: INTERNATIONAL FRAUD INVESTIGATION TO TAKE DOWN SEXTORTIONISTS

DESCRIPTION:   Financial sextortion groups like the Yahoo Boys are "master manipulators" who usually open their conversation with a target with some flirty chat that quickly turns sexual before sending a (fake) explicit image and requesting the same.  Once compromised, criminals blackmail their targets with vicious and serious consequences, including financial ruin and suicide.  While the crime of sextortion is not exactly new, in the past two years, it has been increasingly weaponized for financial gain and the targets are getting younger.  On Instagram, scammers can 'catfish' up to 100 young users a day using the same fake profiles with the same profile photos.  "These are all detectable patterns that the platforms should be able to identify and then prevent this behavior from occurring.” While Meta's Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy has done "a fairly good job" of de-platforming terrorist organizations like ISIS, Raffile says, they do not appear to view groups like the Yahoo Boys as dangerous because they are not necessarily violent. He disagrees with this assessment. Paul will speak about this dangerous trend and what its future is.

BIO:  TBD

~ Breakout 2 ~

October 11th @ 11:20 a.m. – 12:10 p.m. Speaker from Forvis Mazars

TITLE: TBD

DESCRIPTION: TBD

BIO: TBD

Breakout 1 

October 11th @ 1:00 p.m. – 2:40 p.m. Catherine Manyoma, PWC

TITLE: Thought Leadership Corruption in Latin America - Opportunities, Challenges and Risks

DESCRIPTION:  TBD

BIO: Catherine is a Manager in PwC’s Investigations & Forensics practice in Houston, TX. Catherine has over 8 years of experience in Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption (ABAC) and fraud investigations, risk assessments, litigation support and compliance. Catherine’s experience also includes working for an Oilfield Services company performing the following types of audits: SOX compliance, financial, operational, and vendor audits at both domestic and international locations including France, Netherlands and Canada. Catherine is a native English and Spanish speaker and has led investigation in Latin America.​ Catherine received her Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico.

 Breakout 2

October 11 @1:00 – 1:50 pm 

TITLE:  Following the Money from Money Mule to Hacker

DESCRIPTION: A BEC (Business Email Compromise) for almost a million dollars significantly impacted two companies in Oceania. This case study follows the money from the money mules to the hacker. Various methods of moving money were used including wire transfers, cashier checks, purchase and export of vehicles and luxury items, and the use of a Nigerian hawala.

BIO: Keith Houston has been chasing con artists since the early 1990’s. He started out doing casino surveillance in Las Vegas before going to law school and becoming a prosecutor. He has prosecuted Financial Cybercrime and Computer Intrusion for almost 10 years and regularly assists law enforcement and other prosecution officers with their investigations

General Session Red Oak Ballroom

October 11th @ : 2:00 PM – 2:50 PM Steve Lupo, FBI 

TITLE: Trends in Cybersecurity

DESCRIPTION:   Cybersecurity is a field which is changing faster than we can imagine.  There are several threats driving cyber risk:  Artificial intelligence (AI), which analyzes vast amounts of data often missed by humans. New risks of a remote workforce.  There is a growing Concern of Mobile Security  Cloud Security and Compliance Automation, and data breaches.  The abundance of an IOT (the Internet of Things), and of course, State-Sponsored Cyberthreats.  Steve will discuss how the FBI and the US government address these risks.

BIO: TBD

October 11th @ : 2:55 pm - 3:55 pm Sherron Watkins, Enron Whistleblower

TITLE: Ethical Lessons from the Enron Scandal and Whistleblowing in the Era of Dodd-Frank Act

DESCRIPTION: “On the surface, Enron was a company of winners. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, those who were bright, young, and fiscally ambitious were reassessing their career choices. They could slave away in some fusty commercial bank or corporation for years at a salary in the high five figures. Or they could join a Wall Street investment bank, where they could make a lot of money but never really create anything of value. And then there was Enron. Those who packed their bags and raced to Houston were the ones who wanted to run their own show right away by the time they were twenty-five, salary commensurate with their genius.

Sherron Watkins had parlayed her background in accounting into one job as a portfolio manager for various multimillion-dollar funds, another job where she wined and dined bankers to keep loans flowing, and another job where she traveled the world to drum up new clients for Enron's international energy division. But every time she got comfortable, mastering the position and the attendant politics, she would get word that a reorganization was in the works, and she would have to start all over again. She knew from office gossip, in fact, that her boss was on the way out. If Sherron wasn't careful, she would be too. It didn’t take long to see that something was seriously wrong”. Someone had to step up…

Enron’s leadership pursued best practices on paper, but behaviors told a different story, setting up a culture and value system that became a breeding ground for not just thinking outside of the box, or pushing the envelope, but for actual fraud. Enron was known as the most innovative company – in fact Fortune Magazine named Enron just that, for seven years in a row. Unfortunately, the dark side of innovation is fraud. And the interesting thing about white collar crime is that it involves 3 key factors: extreme pressure to meet a goal (be that an earnings target or to obtain more money personally, etc.); the opportunity to cheat; and most importantly - the rationalization that it’s not cheating.

BIO: Known internationally as the Enron whistleblower, Sherron speaks around the globe to a broad range of audiences about ethics and leadership, and the lessons to be learned from the collapse of Enron, where she served in a variety of executive positions for 8 over years. Sherron was employed for over two decades as an executive for three large global companies, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, Metallgessellschaft AG, the German metals giant, and Enron Corp. All were multi-billion dollar companies brought down by scandal. Sherron has seen firsthand the cost of an erosion in values. Her journey through the Enron crisis has inspired many, and has crystallized her focus to share and to improve the lot of whistleblowers and would-be whistleblowers.

Sherron Watkins is the former Vice President of Enron Corporation who alerted then chairman Ken Lay in August 2001 to accounting irregularities within the company, warning him that Enron ‘might implode in a wave of accounting scandals.’ She has testified before Congressional Committees investigating Enron’s demise from both the House and the Senate. Sherron received national acclaim for her courageous actions and TIME magazine named Sherron along with two others, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, as their 2002 Persons of the Year, calling it “The Year of the Whistleblower.”

In recognition of her outstanding demonstration of ethics in the workplace, Ms. Watkins has received numerous honors, including the Court TV Scales of Justice Award and its Everyday Hero’s Award, the Women Mean Business Award from the Business and Professional Women/USA Organization, and the 2003 Woman of the Year Award by Houston Baptist University. Glamour Magazine named her one of its 2002 Women of the Year, and Barbara Walters included her as one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2002. In 2003, the National Academy of Management presented Ms. Watkins with their Distinguished Executive Award and the Women’s Economic Round Table honored her with the Rolfe Award for Educating the Public about Business and Finance.

Watkins now lectures on leadership and ethics as Professor of the Practice at Kenan-Flagler at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Watkins is co-author of Power Failure, the Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron, (Doubleday, 2003). Ms. Watkins is a Certified Public Accountant. She holds a Masters in Professional Accounting as well as a B.B.A. in accounting and business honors from the University of Texas at Austin.