Forensic Investigation Accelerated: DA's Office Solves Child Neglect & Homicide

About Schenectady County DA’s Office

The Schenectady County District Attorney's Office in New York operates at the forefront of local criminal enforcement, and its Financial Crimes Unit is responsible for investigating complex fraud, theft, and exploitation cases. Justin Colarossi, a Financial Crimes Analyst and Digital Forensics Specialist, leads investigations focusing on money laundering and tracing funds through complex accounts. With 18 years of investigative experience, his mission is to follow the flow of funds to identify not just the middle-men, but the "big bosses" and ultimate perpetrators behind financial crimes.

The Challenge: Uncovering Evidence to Prove Intent

The Schenectady County District Attorney’s Office faced an unthinkable case: a mother, a trained nurse, withheld critical medication from her special-needs daughter, leading to the young woman’s death. Investigators suspected the mother continued collecting the victim's disability payments after her daughter’s passing, but proving the financial motive and intent required reconstructing several years of complex financial records across multiple bank accounts.

To secure a successful prosecution, the Financial Crimes Unit needed to prove the motive: fraud and financial neglect. The team faced extreme data complexity and a severe resource constraint:

• Massive Data Volume: Investigators had seized over four years of financial data, totaling 20,000+ pages across six bank accounts. Reconciling this volume to find relevance would be a resource drain.
• Manual Bottleneck: Traditional methods would require weeks of manual data entry, prone to errors, delaying the case and risking missed evidence.
• Auditor Problem: Hiring an external forensic auditor to manually reconcile the records would have cost the small county over $300,000 in retainer fees and caused delays of 6 to 12 months due to limited availability.

Solution: Automation for Actionable Evidence

Faced with these constraints, the office leveraged the Valid8 forensic investigation platform. By automating the data ingestion and reconciliation process, Valid8 transformed the investigation from a multi-month manual slog into an actionable intelligence operation.

Strategic Imperative

For government agencies facing complex financial crimes, limited budgets, and staffing challenges, Valid8 is a necessity. It allows investigators to bypass manual bottlenecks and leapfrog forensic delays, providing rapid, defensible answers that accelerate investigations and significantly increase solving rates.