Papers by Frank S . Perri JD, CPA, CFE
Fraud Magazine, 2024
Criminal thinking traits
Tyrannical Rex: Psychopathic Corporate Leadership and White-collar Crime, 2022
Historically, scholarship on corporate leadership focused on positive attributes of what is commo... more Historically, scholarship on corporate leadership focused on positive attributes of what is commonly referred to as authentic leadership that is leadership displaying traits of integrity, competence, and charisma. However due to past and present corporate scandals, scholarship has focused some attention to psychopathic corporate leadership that display a lack of respect for the law by engaging in various white-collar crimes to satisfy motives, exploiting corporate resources for self-gain, with negative outcomes for various stakeholders. This article considers the links between white-collar crime and psychopathy and how psychopathy facilitates corporate leadership ascension that produces the opportunity to participate in organization-wide white-collar crime. Although corporate fraud various interrelated risk factors such as the role subordinates play enabling fraudulent behaviors, isolating leadership for study is warranted given the financial and emotional devastation capable of being inflicted on investors, employees, and society at large due to the power they wield.
Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting, 2020
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of suicide, a violent act against one... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of suicide, a violent act against one's self, as it relates to white-and red-collar crimes. White-collar crime can be described as nonviolent crime committed for financial gain. Red-collar crime describes a situation where a white-collar criminal commits an act of violence, often murder, to silence someone who is in a position to report a fraud they have perpetrated. Previous research has not addressed the issue of suicide, as it relates to white-and red-collar crime. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is conceptual, focusing on the historical underpinnings of white-and red-collar crime and reviewing the evolution of white-collar criminals. Sources of information consisted of published news media, scholarly articles and articles retrieved from the web. Findings – A suicide may be linked, directly or indirectly, to a financial crime. Law enforcement must be careful not to jump to conclusions, as there is a possibility that a staged suicide has occurred. Originality/value – Law enforcement individuals may want to consider an additional motive when investigating a suicide, especially when the victim has some type of connection to a known fraud. This type of connection may not be readily apparent and may require a new approach on the part of a law enforcement investigation.
Fraud perpetrators often use a variety of excuses to alleviate the culpability of their mental st... more Fraud perpetrators often use a variety of excuses to alleviate the culpability of their mental states because they know they can't be convicted unless prosecutors can prove their criminal acts were accompanied by a guilty state of mind known as mens rea. At the end of a five-year investigation, the FBI discovered that Enron Corporation — an American energy, commodities and services company based in Houston, Texas — used a variety of deceptive and fraudulent accounting practices to cover its financial reporting fraud. Corporate officers created the illusion that Enron was making profits in the billions, and its stock soared. Between 1996 and 2000, En-ron reported an increase in revenue from $13.3 billion to $100.8 billion. However, the company was actually losing money. Enron executives, who used insider information to trade millions of dollars in Enron stock, knew the company was hiding losses in offshore accounts. Investors were oblivious. CFO Andrew Fastow and some subordinate...
This article reviews the United States Department of Defense, law enforcement, and intelligence a... more This article reviews the United States Department of Defense, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies’ use of the
Maritime Strategic Doctrine and the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act to combat drug smuggling vessels and boats during counter-drug smuggling operations. Threat analysis, using strategic warning indicators, is proposed and employed to analyze a range of factors: coalitions between drug trafficking and terrorist organizations, self propelled semi-submersible vessels, low profile vessels, robotically controlled and human-piloted submarines, and recruitment of captains and crews with the ability to pilot these vessels and boats. Drug
trafficking organizations and terrorist groups’ inter-technology transfer of sea based smuggling and terror tactics are
analyzed. Circumstances under which strategic warning indicators may necessitate policy changes to the Maritime Strategic Doctrine are described.
This article examines terrorists’ use of smuggling tunnels to finance terrorism and/or launch ter... more This article examines terrorists’ use of smuggling tunnels to finance terrorism and/or launch terrorist
operations. Israel’s Operation Pillar of Cloud and Hamas’ Operation Stones of Shale are used to illustrate both the
physical structure of smuggling tunnels and social networks of the people who build and use smuggling tunnels. The
sociological factors of terrorists and criminals engaged in smuggling in the same country, such as the Gaza Strip and
Egypt during peaceful times and the Gaza Strip and Israel during a state of war, is examined. The article proposes the
application of open-source social-network models applicable to regional and transnational tunnel analysis during times of
peace and war, employing intelligence from law enforcement and national security sources to improve border security.
Traditional viewpoints held by academic and non-academic professional groups of the white-collar ... more Traditional viewpoints held by academic and non-academic professional groups of the white-collar crime offender profile(s) are that they are non-violent. Yet research has begun to unveil a sub-group of white-collar offenders who are violent, referred to as red-collar criminals, in that their motive is to prevent the detection and or disclosure of their fraud schemes through violence. This article is the first to discuss the origin of the red-collar crime concept developed by this author coupled with debunking white-collar offender profile misperceptions that have persisted for decades by offering current research on the anti-social qualities displayed by this offender group that predates their violence. Secondly, the article applies behavioral risk factors, such as narcissism and psychopathy, which contributes to our understanding of why some white-collar offenders may resort to violence while other white-collar offenders do not. Case analysis also draws upon gender distinctions, workplace violence and homicide methods used to illustrate that red-collar criminals are not an anomaly to ignore simply because they may not reflect the street-level homicides typically observed by society, investigated by law enforcement and studied by academia.
Keywords: red-collar crime, narcissism, psychopathy, fraud detection homicide, white-collar crime
In this paper, we analyze the ethical issues of using honesty and integrity tests in employment s... more In this paper, we analyze the ethical issues of using honesty and integrity tests in employment screening. Our focus will be on the United States context: legal requirements related to applicant privacy differ in other countries, but we posit that our proposed balancing test is broadly applicable. We start by discussing why companies have ethical and legal obligations, based on a stakeholder analysis, to assess the integrity of potential employees. We then move to a consideration of how companies currently use background checks as a preemployment screening tool, noting their limitations. We then take up honesty and integrity testing, focusing particularly on the problems of false positives and due process. We offer a balancing test for the use of honesty and integrity testing that takes in three factors: Richard G. Brody is Douglas Minge Brown Professor,
Scholarship on white-collar crime by Edwin Sutherland and on psychopathy by Hervey Cleckley influ... more Scholarship on white-collar crime by Edwin Sutherland and on psychopathy by Hervey Cleckley influenced criminological and behavioral research on personality traits in the twentieth century and beyond. Over seventy years have passed since their publications, yet white-collar crime scholarship historically and personality traits associated with such offenders to date remains sparse despite the enormity of damage caused by this crime. The authors' analysis contributes to a clearer historical understanding of why empirical white-collar crime scholarship aimed at developing a white-collar offender profile(s) is highly underrepresented in the behavioral and criminological fields relative to non-white-collar crime. The authors found that a plausible partial explanation for the lack of research can be traced to 1) Sutherland's antagonistic view toward the contributions by the behavioral disciplines, 2) minimizing scholarship advocating a multiple factor approach to understanding criminal behavior, and 3) rejection of an inferential statistical methodology applied to criminological research. Secondly, due to Sutherland's legacy on the direction and method of criminological scholarship, the authors find that Sutherland's ambivalence on the role of personality traits and psychopathy in relation to criminal behavior stymied criminological research for over half a century on the development of a white-collar offender profile(s). Moreover, since Cleckley, sparse empirical scholarship by the behavioral sciences has failed to examine the potential implications of psychopathy's role as a white-collar offender behavioral risk factor giving rise to misperceptions about this offender class.
2 processes and other negative behavioral traits that facilitates white-collar crime offending.
Theory and research on the psychology of white-collar offenders has historically been underdevelo... more Theory and research on the psychology of white-collar offenders has historically been underdeveloped, and our understanding of the prototypical high-socioeconomicstatus offenders, such as today's chief executive officers and chief financial officers, first identified by Edwin Sutherland, has not benefited from the application of psychological trait theory. In this article, the author examines the negative synergy that develops when criminal thinking traits combine with the psychological traits of narcissism and psychopathy to create risk factors for white-collar offending. Psychological trait theory may be especially applicable to those who hold some of the highest positions in corporate organizations, who influence corporate culture, and who, at times, are considered visionaries in their respective industries.
This article examines terrorists' use of smuggling tunnels to finance terrorism and/or launch ter... more This article examines terrorists' use of smuggling tunnels to finance terrorism and/or launch terrorist operations. Israel's Operation Pillar of Cloud and Hamas' Operation Stones of Shale are used to illustrate both the physical structure of smuggling tunnels and social networks of the people who build and use smuggling tunnels. The sociological factors of terrorists and criminals engaged in smuggling in the same country, such as the Gaza Strip and Egypt during peaceful times and the Gaza Strip and Israel during a state of war, is examined. The article proposes the application of open-source social-network models applicable to regional and transnational tunnel analysis during times of peace and war, employing intelligence from law enforcement and national security sources to improve border security.
Falsely Accused: The Wrongful Conviction of Alan Beaman
Journal of Financial Regulation and …, Jan 1, 2011
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to expose inefficient regulatory policies and organizationa... more Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to expose inefficient regulatory policies and organizational weaknesses at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that have contributed to a series of regulatory oversights that have produced some of the largest fraud schemes perpetrated on investors. Design/methodology/approach -Sources of information consisted of scholarly articles and articles retrieved from the web. Findings -Findings suggest that although weaknesses that have been exposed at the SEC may not account for any one securities fraud oversight, cumulatively, the weaknesses create negative synergy that increases the probability that a regulatory oversight will occur. Originality/value -This paper serves as a useful guide to alert and educate securities regulators and enforcement, regardless of the country they may operate in, to examine their own regulatory policies and organizational structures for weakness that may be similar to the SEC.
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Papers by Frank S . Perri JD, CPA, CFE
Maritime Strategic Doctrine and the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act to combat drug smuggling vessels and boats during counter-drug smuggling operations. Threat analysis, using strategic warning indicators, is proposed and employed to analyze a range of factors: coalitions between drug trafficking and terrorist organizations, self propelled semi-submersible vessels, low profile vessels, robotically controlled and human-piloted submarines, and recruitment of captains and crews with the ability to pilot these vessels and boats. Drug
trafficking organizations and terrorist groups’ inter-technology transfer of sea based smuggling and terror tactics are
analyzed. Circumstances under which strategic warning indicators may necessitate policy changes to the Maritime Strategic Doctrine are described.
operations. Israel’s Operation Pillar of Cloud and Hamas’ Operation Stones of Shale are used to illustrate both the
physical structure of smuggling tunnels and social networks of the people who build and use smuggling tunnels. The
sociological factors of terrorists and criminals engaged in smuggling in the same country, such as the Gaza Strip and
Egypt during peaceful times and the Gaza Strip and Israel during a state of war, is examined. The article proposes the
application of open-source social-network models applicable to regional and transnational tunnel analysis during times of
peace and war, employing intelligence from law enforcement and national security sources to improve border security.
Keywords: red-collar crime, narcissism, psychopathy, fraud detection homicide, white-collar crime