Lisa Pelosi: Mostly, stores have security guards that work for the store and they have investigators all over the store watching the people and they look at people’s actions through cameras, follow people. And at some point, they’ll think that someone is stealing something and they will approach the person and escort the person to the security room. And I’ve had many clients who’ve had horror stories when dealing with store security. They keep them in a room, they don’t let them make phone calls and they just keep them there for hours, wanting them to sign a paper that says that they committed this larceny and they’ve even told them that “If you sign this, we’ll let you go”, but actually what happens is they force the confession out of someone.
It is Advisable Not to Make Any Statements If You’re Stopped by Store Security
Because it’s not law enforcement, people’s rights are not attached at that point, so any statements they make, whether they force you to say it, you don’t have any way to get those statements suppressed, for example, and so, my best advice to anyone who happens to have the misfortune of having store security stop you would be to just simply not say anything to them but they’re not going to do anything but want their attorney. They do keep you for a very long time and it can be very scary for people but your rights are not attached because it’s not the government holding you. So, my advice would be to just keep strong and say you want your attorney and not sign any paperwork even if they promise to let you go if you sign their paperwork because actually, they’re not going to let you go once they get that signed, they’re going to send you right to the police in most cases.
Security Officers in Stores Rely on Profiling to Deter Incidents of Shoplifting
Interviewer: Do you ever see where there is profiling because there’s like a younger individual that’s maybe wearing some type of clothes and some people say, “Okay, well, you know, that person’s definitely stole something”?
Lisa Pelosi: I think part of what the store security does is profiling. And I think they keep notice for people with baggy clothes and people bringing in bags and take notice of bags from the department store that people walk in with, are they empty and feeling that something that they want. They also, as mentioned previously in our discussion, they look for people with baby carriages, anywhere that items can be stored. They also are very watchful of people going into dressing rooms because that’s often — the dressing rooms and bathrooms and stores, they watch those areas very closely.
People May be Inappropriately Charged with a Shoplifting Offense in New York
In my experience, yes. And that’s also a point from which clients come to me and they are completely innocent of the charges and they just happen to go into the lady’s room, for example, with something and it just hasn’t been paid for yet and they’re questioned and there is a presumption, in my opinion, by store security that they’re stealing it and that’s not accurate. As the attorney, I have to explain the story to the prosecutor to try to help my clients get out of cases where they are inappropriately charged of the crime that they didn’t commit.
Theft By Deception Often Refers to Procurement of Funds by Fraudulent Means
Interviewer: When they say, theft by deception when they refer to that, would that be more like collecting money or like some sort of fraudulent kind of theft?
Lisa Pelosi: Yes. For example, unfortunately, when we had the tragedy that had occurred on 9/11, there were a lot of agencies, governmental agencies trying to get funds to needy people. And often, there were individuals that were making claims to try to get funds from the government by deception. Sometimes, people are charged with crimes where they start a charity and try to collect money for someone who’s in need and rather than — and that the need might be false or true but the money never gets if it’s a true case of charity that’s needed in a community, the money never gets filtered to the person who is in need. So, that would be a theft by deception. I mean cases like that, it’s a paper case and it’s a number case and it takes a lot of work to read through to see where the funds came from and where they were going. Sometimes, in cases like that, we need to bring in accountants and so on and so forth.
