In July, Flathead County commissioners hired a firm to look into allegations of misconduct within the county’s planning and zoning department. The firm’s name seemed perfect for a private investigator: the Moonlighting Detective Agency.
For some, it may have conjured up classic stereotypes of film noir detectives: men in slick hats sitting in dark offices, or following suspected criminals through windy city streets, silhouetted against hazy backdrops. They are generally smoking cigarettes.
As with any stereotype, there are some truths to the image, but only some. At Moonlighting Detective Agency, private investigators Ike Eisentraut and Charles Pesola do occasionally follow people in their cars, plant secret cameras to catch suspected wrongdoers and even wear hidden cameras on their chest.
But much of what they do is far less Hollywood-esque – like digging through endless pages of land-use laws. Eisentraut has a case file over 12 inches thick at his Kalispell office for the planning and zoning department investigation. And it’s only going to get bigger.
Planning Office Investigation
On Sept. 30, the Flathead County commissioners voted unanimously to extend the contract of the Moonlighting Detective Agency. The original contract stipulated that Eisentraut would work for $75 an hour up to a maximum of $5,000. In late September he notified commissioners that he had reached the $5,000 mark. Their vote raises the maximum to $10,000 and Commissioner Jim Dupont asked that the investigation be wrapped up by the end of this month.
Eisentraut indicated to commissioners that the number of allegations against the planning department has risen from seven to 20 over the course of his research. Eisentraut, in a letter, told commissioners he had interviewed 15 people with a tape recorder as of Sept. 28 and planned to interview at least 10 more. Then he plans to interview at least five county employees.
The agency has been handed the investigation with little oversight from county officials. Eisentraut has not been asked to keep commissioners updated on his progress, but he is expected to provide a detailed report when the investigation is finished. He will also be reimbursed for mileage and travel expenses.
In June, a group of citizens leveled a series of complaints at County Planning and Zoning Director Jeff Harris and his department, alleging that the county violated state open meeting laws by holding private meetings and maintaining what the group called a secret Web site when constructing the Lakeside Neighborhood Plan. The citizens also accused the planning office of carelessly spending public funds.
The complaints led to a lawsuit and a movement calling for Harris to lose his job. The result was Eisentraut’s investigation. Initially, Harris was asked to compile a number of documents to assist with the investigation. In an interview in late July, Harris said he had spent 160 hours working on the information requests, which he said put his department’s other work on the backburner.
But since then, he hasn’t been asked to do anything else. In fact, as of last week, Harris hadn’t been contacted for the investigation, nor had anyone in his department or any other county official to his knowledge. Harris said his department is “really hoping we have an opportunity to sit down with him and talk over the complaints.”
Harris said he heard that the number of allegations has grown, but he doesn’t know any other details.
“Quite honestly, we don’t know what (the new allegations) are,” Harris said. “We haven’t been briefed. We don’t have a list or anything to respond to in this case.”
What is the Moonlighting Detective Agency?
Eisentraut started Moonlighting Detective Agency in 1989 after serving as a detective for 14 years in the Los Angeles Police Department’s homicide division. Upon moving to Kalispell, he sought to use his detective skills in the private sector and thus Moonlighting was born.
The agency performs an extensive variety of jobs, from pre-employment screening to locating runaways to questionable death investigations, and plenty in between. Pesola said one of the firm’s specialties is house arrest. Working with local courts and law enforcement agencies, the agency provides seven different types of house arrest, including GPS tracking and bracelets that detect alcohol for DUI offenders.
The agency’s other areas of foremost focus are security and surveillance, as well as insurance investigations. Insurance companies and employers often hire Eisentraut and Pesola to look into the validity of people’s claims.
If an employee is collecting disability or workers’ compensation but is suspected of lying about their claims, Eisentraut or Pesola will observe that employee through a number of different methods to determine the truth. A person who supposedly can’t work because of a bad back shouldn’t be caught on video doing heavy construction at his house.
“You have people who do that for a living,” Eisentraut said of claim falsifiers.
Or if money is being stolen from a cash register, Moonlighting Detective Agency might plant a hidden camera – such as a clock – in a business to catch the thief. There are many more examples – Moonlighting’s detectives will basically investigate any type of suspected wrongdoing within the bounds of privacy laws.
For example, the investigators cannot observe or videotape people inside their homes, but once the people enter their yards, it’s fair game, Pesola said. This could be done from a car on the street. Pesola said it’s possible to wait for 16 to 20 hours to capture only a couple minutes of video footage. But at no time in the state of Montana is it legal to record audio without the consent of both parties.
“I tell them right off the bat, we don’t do anything sleazy,” Eisentraut said.
One form of sleuthing that is often associated with private investigation is suspected spousal cheating. But Eisentraut said his agency places low priority on this kind of business, which is mostly a lose-lose situation: “If you find it, they’re mad. If you don’t find it, you’re not doing your job.”
Pesola points out how big of a decision it is to begin spying on a spouse.
“The reality is that, what we find as investigators, lives are ruined,” Pesola said.
But many jobs don’t require covert operations and instead rely on face-to-face interviews, hours of research and piles of paperwork. The investigation into the planning office is an apt example. The main reason, Eisentraut said, that he needed the contract extension was because he spent so much time studying up on land-use issues and laws. As Harris said: “There are entire college curriculums devoted to planning. We have advanced degrees in this.”
“It’s a pretty cheap education for five grand,” Harris added.
Eisentraut said it’s advantageous for the county to have a completely neutral, third-party investigation. He doesn’t have a dog in this fight and feels the final report will reflect that.
“We go for what’s right and the truth; what’s real,” Eisentraut said. “Wherever the chips fall, that’s where they fall.”