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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> Authorities allege Gehrke and King, who got married this year, knew charges were coming and had been preparing to flee. At their home, authorities found a book titled “How To Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish Without a Trace,” according to court papers. In one of their bags packed for their flight, there was a book titled “Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive The System,”

I guess "step 15" from the book was "marry your criminal associates, so you're not forced to testify against each other": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spousal_privilege?

Step 1 should be "don't buy any incriminating books related to your planned disappearance" followed by the next chapter, "step 2: too late, already".

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I have read 'How to disappear', i don't think it would be very useful here. It's written by two private detectives to help people evade stalkers or family violence. It specifically recommends against breaking the law. In any case it would be a bit out of date by now.

So if you’re ever arrested for anything, that fact can be used to argue against bail. For the rest of your life.

Everyone here making AI 'social profile' systems take note of this and add it as something to track. Will come in great for the marketing feature list.

Yes, there's got to be people farmers who grow various fictional people over time for use by ___. Create and shut down employers who pay the fictional people, rent apartments left empty in their name, maybe ding up a credit report to look real, arrange for someone who matches a look to appear in a paper under the name being farmed, kind of like Sim City but in the "real world" like Pokemon Go.

We already have this for companies. They are called 'Shelf Companies'. It looks like 'shelfidentities.com' is available.

I thought shelf companies were so you could quickly get a new company going (as it's all pre-registered), so you have an established history, which some organisations - such as banks - value, or so you can access a type of company no longer available[0]. They're not fake companies; to the extent companies are "real", they are real. They're just dormant.

[0] https://www.sars.gov.za/businesses-and-employers/small-busin...

It isn’t exactly the same but intriguingly similar and is something relatively normal.

You're probably thinking of letterbox companies. Shelf companies are kept by lawyers, accountants and the like so they can provide them to clients without them having to go through an incorporation process. In some jurisdictions it's a way to not have to wait a year or so until you can pay out cheap dividends.

Reading it for a friend?

"recommends not breaking the law" yeah after disappearing, obviously.

> It specifically recommends against breaking the law.

It's so kind of them.

Otherwise yes, any trick that ends up in a popular book would probably not be that useful for people actually trying to flee from law enforcement. Or it would be some super vague advice in the tune of "don't leave traces of you being there".

There's a rather rich literature about 'OPSEC', i.e. how to hide from powerful enemies. Breaking the law is commonly the right thing to do, could be to expose corruption for example.

> I have read 'How to disappear'

I see what you didn't do there!

I need to stock my library with books like... "Wrongly accused" and "what it's like to get setup"

That the authorities think it is wrong for someone to know their rights is more of a condemnation of the "authorities".

If they had other books about civil rights, sure, but having only the books related to their predicament and a packed bag is a little more than "authorities scared of you knowing your rights"

How do you know they didn't have other books about civil rights? Maybe they had an entire library filled with such books, but that wasn't brought up in the article.

This is bleak, but it reminds me how police found, in the home of convicted murderer and former Linux FS contributor Hans Reiser, a book about how to get away with murder.

how to get away: step 1: do not leave this book lying around lol

Step 2: publish a book what if I got away with murder?

A book like If I Did It by O. J. Simpson?

The author of that ended up being a murderer. [0]

0 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61786575

It would have been so interesting if two famous cases were connected like that, but I don’t think Reiser bought that book.

> Reiser found David Simon’s, “Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets” and Masterpieces of Murder by Jonathan Goodman

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2008/03/06/update-hans-reiser-b...

>In one of their bags packed for their flight, there was a book titled “Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive The System,”

Don't know your rights, people, it's proof you're bad!

I've owned that book. I think that's the NOLO one? It's definitely not a bad intro to criminal defense, but it is no way likely to get you out from under this weight of charges.

These days if you can get someone on the phone with access to an AI you can definitely get some pretty decent motions written, just watch for hallucinated citations.

Spousal privilege may not apply when both members of the couple are accused of committing the crime.

I can't help but think of this classic Arrested Development scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idqG3thKtpU

That's too perfect.

Guess SBF marrying Changpeng Zhao wouldn't have helped any;)

I thought it only failed to apply when the crime was done by one partner to the other? (I'm only a lawyer on TV)

Would you expect that kind of book to make any difference for final sentencing?

I can see it making a difference when presented to jury, if it's admitted as evidence. It may not be main evidence but combined altogether with other things they did, it might tilt the balance into the "sentence them closer the maximum term limit" vs the "lower end".

Judges not juries determine sentences in the US. In federal court the Guidelines are applied resembling nothing so much as a Pathfinder grapple roll.

No, but it will make a difference in determining whether they're a flight risk by the judge. Given the evidence these two will probably await trail in jail rather than at home. Or at the very least they just bought themselves a nice new ankle bracelet.

The books evidence a desire to flee but equally evidence an ineptitude, the lack of an ability to flee. Buying a ticket for an international flight is akin to making an appointment with the FBI for you to be arrested. The FBI only dreams that every fugitive first pass through inspection/x-ray before being arrested in an airport terminal ringed with security. No need to worry about a fight, weapons or a dangerous police chase. The perps have already been frisked by the FAA. If these people ever run, they won't get far.

The FAA does not run airport security.

The FAA administers aviation, an actual necessary and valuable endeavor. The theatrical display you are subjected to in airports is overseen by DHS as justification for their continued existence as a jobs program. It has nothing to do with aviation.

But yes, the FBI would be happy to have fugitives be caught at an airport checkpoint, although I doubt they’d risk relying on DHS to do it.

At what point does a person’s purchase of an international flight ticket trigger an alert to LE?

Or does getting a notification like this require a warrant or similar court approval first?

I don't know that the system is all that great. I've known people with multiple warrants fly around and in/out of the country multiple times before finally getting stopped.

It's actually the TSA that does the frisking in the US at airports.

convince jury

> The owners of the wound care companies, Alexandra Gehrke and Jeffrey King, were arrested this month at the Phoenix airport as they were boarding a flight to London

The whole sequence of events reads like something straight out of a Vince Gilligan show, like Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul.[a]

The only significant difference is that Gilligan's shows take place in New Mexico instead of Arizona.

[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Gilligan

> I guess "step 15" from the book was "marry your criminal associates, so you're not forced to testify against each other"

That may constitute bigamy in some states.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bigamy

It's fun to satire the stupid and criminal ... as it happens I just watched the gang that can't shoot straight. Not as good as I hoped, but the repeated "hey" at film beginning and using a lion as motivation to pay mobsters for "protection money" was a good laugh.

You’d think these folks would takeout cash, go to Walmart and buy a laptop which they only use at public hotspot locations. To later dispose of. Still traceable but a lot harder

That's a lot of effort. No point getting into crime if you're going to have to work so much. The other way to think about it is these people were caught because they were being so blatant about it. There are probably lots more cases like this where the criminals are a tiny bit smarter about covering their tracks.

They got DPR that way. Distracted him at a coffee shop while he was logged into his computer and snatched it. If he had just been at home on a VPN, he probably wouldn't have gotten snagged. They knew who he was already but needed that laptop to prove it.

He was at the library not a coffee shop. I bet they still could have got him at home: Swat kicks he door in, shit! Lock the laptop! Slams the lid. Notorious Linux suspend bug kicks in and it fails to suspend. (You can tell because the fans keep going) Shit. Open, slam, open, slam. Hang on guys, I need to like modprobe or something… Shit those bracelets hurt.

Ross had a long history of accessing internet resources on the internet without going through TOR, such as his email acct. Also he has an email acct !

He had fake IDs shipped to his home address through USPS.

The federal agencies definitely knew who he was already. The scene in the library is noteworthy but they would have Got Him without it.

Was it Hans Reiser who decided to randomly clean his car interior with bleach while there was a manhunt going on for his wife? Same vibes.

There's an even closer parallel: he'd recently purchased the books Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets and Masterpieces of Murder.

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2008/03/06/update-hans-reiser-b...

His dad testified in court that it was a Reiser family tradition to hose out the interior of your car to clean it (when Hans was arrested in the car there was an inch or two of water in it )

Hans also claimed to have misplaced the passenger seat (it was missing from the car)

After trial he admitted he threw the passenger seat in a dumpster.

I don't get it. Why do these criminal masterminds always get arrested at the airport? The authorities know who they are, yet for some reason decide to wait for them to go to the airport instead of just arresting them at home or wherever? I guess this shows that if you are a fugitive from justice, or expect to be indicted, stay the fuck away from the airport. take the bus, uber, or train or something.

Airports post-911 have a robust security setup with only a few clearly defined entrances and exits, with a person stationed at each one, in addition to whatever team you have brought with you. If you’re arrested at the terminal, they have likely already swept you for weapons without raising your suspicions already.

good point about having been swept for weapons already!

Yeah, but they were identified and enough evidence to make the arrest, yet decided to wait. that is the puzzling part. how long would they have waited.

By arresting them at an airport, and presuming they're already under surveillance, law enforcement gets another piece of evidence (fleeing) to argue?

An investigation can keep gathering evidence more easily if the suspects are still generating evidence. About to board an international flight is logical as the spot where the investigators need to decide: arrest now or it's gonna be much much harder later. As long as the investigator knows they are at home, there is no rush. A bus to Mexico would be an arrest also.

They were in Phoenix why not drive yourself to Mexico? I’ve never been stopped by American border agents on the way into Mexico. Rocky point is a short ~3.5 hour drive, you can show up and get a nice condo for ~150 a night at one of the many resorts. Then you can start working on your next steps.

If they were smart they’d realize that the same amount of effort can be put into legal activities and you get to keep the proceeds at the end. For the most part smart people have already self-selected out of a life of crime.

Buying airline tickets may be an excellent red herring strategy if that's how police units plan to catch people though!

> Why do these criminal masterminds always get arrested at the airport?

International flight means entry/exit searches can happen more easily and/or less likely to be deemed unconstitutional. IANAL.

https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/48010/202...

I am not a lawyer but I believe allowing them to attempt to flee goes to consciousness of guilt.

Because they're fugitives on the run, and the airport is the place to go to run away quickly.

Not so fast, these are only the crimes we know about.

Almost comical

“They can’t arrest a husband and wife for the same crime!”

Quote of the century

People shouldn’t be profiled based on what they watch or read. Are we going so say that couldn’t video games are evidence that somebody is going to go commit violence next? What if you’re into spy movies? Crime documentaries? Weird reality tv shows?

I read all kinds of non fiction things I won’t even list here but I seem to be a perfectly boring member of society. It’s just interesting subject matter

It’s not profiling as the book was collected as evidence after being charged with a crime and with a search warrant (or at least probably cause must be established with other evidence). Profiling would be using information about such a book before crimes were committed or charged.

In addition, such evidence is important in establishing bail, as risk of fleeing is of primary concern.

> In one of their bags packed for their flight, there was a book titled “Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive The System,” the papers say.

You sensibly mention that this was not brought up until after the warranted search. But why is this title being mentioned now? Is the suggestion that someone who’s been charged with a crime should not attempt to read up on his rights—that doing so is a black mark suggesting flight risk? If the other book, on disappearing, is derogatory in itself, then why bring up this book too?

I'd guess that it speaks to the "knew charges were coming" bit to support that they were specifically fleeing the law and not disappearing to escape a bookie or an annoying family member or something

Apply that to other situations though. Those sorts of books are ordinary. If you used that sort of profiling after the fact on everyone, you could make anyone look suspicious or untrustworthy

Witch hunters during the inquisition literally used to do this sort of thing to help condemn people

You are absolutely correct! Law enforcement should not in any circumstance be allowed to go through someone's library of books that are publicly available and then try to tie in one of those books with the fact that they've committed a crime. That is the problem, like many people in this feed they are totally oblivious of how much illegal control and power they are giving the authorities. Interestingly though, my gut tells me that they didn't even find that book that that book may have been planted as evidence against them. We live in a world where police are always getting busted on social media for lying in deception. We can no longer sit back and assume that they are doing the right thing behind closed doors. I don't believe for one minute that they found the book I think that was their way of adding a layer so that they could later charge the people. If we don't fight this type of stuff now, our lives As Americans in the future lives of the next generations literally will not even be worth living!!!

Oh c'mon. That's just a bunch of vapid nonsense.

When the authorities catch up to you, you are definitely going to be treated differently if you have bags packed, tickets booked, and a bunch of books on how to evade the police versus being on your volunteer shift at the local soup kitchen. Getting caught fleeing speaks poorly to your character if you don't have a good reason or have already been told to not leave town by the cops.

If they had contacted a defense attorney, does that also speak poorly to their character and should be held against them? Certainly that's something a criminal who knew they were guilty would do.

Not really. Innocent people need defense attorneys as well.

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