The Work, From the Inside
Cases that built the methodology. And the methodology that built the cases.
Each case study below is a real investigation or a real program reform from Joe’s New York State Police career. One closed with arrests. One closed with a suppression ruling and an acquittal. One rebuilt a polygraph program. Each taught a lesson worth passing to the next investigator, the next unit, and the next agency.
Built from the work. Taught from the file.
Homicide·Polygraph·Digital Evidence·Methodology·Warrant Reform
Filter by sector or topic.
Each case study below is tagged by sector and by topic. The four case studies below are public-facing in full detail.
Four cases. Four lessons.
The Brandyn Foster Homicide
A 381-day homicide investigation that began as a missing-person case in upstate New York and closed with the recovery of Brandyn Foster's remains and the arrest of three people. The case required advanced warrant tactics (swamping warrants, IMEI tracking, Title III eavesdropping, sneak-and-peek), the digital investigation strategy that rebuilt a timeline the suspect tried to destroy, and the sustained provider-coordination work that contributed to Google's development of the Tombstone Report. Lead Investigator: Joseph R. Auriemma, Jr.
The Nunez Interrogation and the Methodology Origin
An upstate New York homicide investigation that hinged on a six-hour interview with the prime suspect in February 2012. The court suppressed a substantial portion of the interview. The jury acquitted. Joe was one of the two investigators in that room, using the accusatorial approach he had been trained in. Teach to Talk® and the Adaptive Strategies Compass™ were built in response, not as a refined version of accusatorial work but as the alternative to it.
The NYSP Polygraph Unit Reform
Joe was one of two regional coordinators who ran the New York State Police Polygraph Unit during a period when the unit conducted more than 1,200 applicant pre-employment exams per year, plus criminal exams. He rebuilt the pre-employment testing format around Directed Lie Comparison Test methodology, built the unit’s first polygraph manual and quality control program, and wrote its policy framework. The program continued to operate inside that framework after Joe's tenure, and the reform is the basis for the Polygraph Unit Consulting service offered today.
The Tombstone Report
During the Brandyn Foster investigation, in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joe's case work contributed to the development of what became known internally at Google as the Tombstone Report. The internal Google record is now used by law enforcement worldwide for cases involving deleted-account data. The same legal-process discipline that contributed to the report (the willingness to push past "no records exist," the documentation standards, the warrant architecture) is taught in The Affiant's Standard book series and is part of the flagship Brandyn Foster Homicide presentation.
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Case studies are how doctrine gets remembered.
The standard way investigative doctrine gets transmitted, from one investigator to the next, is the case. Not the case in a textbook. The case from the file, told by the person who worked it, with the parts that hurt still in the telling. That is how the lessons survive the move from one supervisor to the next, from one unit to the next, from one career to the next.
This hub exists to keep ASC's case-derived doctrine in one place. Each case study is public-facing because the matter is closed and the public record supports the write-up. All of them are real work, with a lesson that an investigator, a unit, or an agency can use.
Three patterns every working investigator should know.
Quick-read summaries of recurring patterns drawn from the case studies above. Each one is a 60-second read with a direct link to the case study where the pattern shows up.
Provider Silence Is Not Provider Absence
When a provider's first response to lawful process is "no records exist," the question is whether the answer is true or whether the provider's own system architecture is producing that answer. The Tombstone Report exists because someone pushed past the first answer.
The Interview Shapes the Record
In Nunez, a substantial portion of an accusatorial interview was suppressed on Miranda and voluntariness grounds. How an interview is conducted shapes what a jury will later be allowed to hear, and that part is in the investigator’s control.
Quality Control Is Documentation, Not Intention
A polygraph unit running 1,200 applicant exams per year cannot rely on supervisor recall for chart-quality review. Quality control is a system, with documentation, with inter-rater protocols, and with a corrective-action posture, or it is not quality control.
New case studies as they publish.
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Read the doctrine. Then bring the work to Joe.
The case studies teach the patterns. The consulting brings the same discipline to your agency's matter. The training brings the methodology to your unit. The speaking brings the case study to your conference. Pick the door that fits.