™FOR COUNSEL
Somebody used AI on your case file. The question is who can explain it.
I am a licensed Arizona private investigator. For four years I have built AI-assisted investigative workflows, documented them, and written down exactly where the method stops and a human judgment has to take over. I am available to review AI-assisted investigative work in an active matter, and to testify about how it was done and whether it holds.
The problem
It is already in the file. It is just not disclosed.
Investigators use these tools now. So do process servers, skip tracers, records vendors, and the analysts inside the firms that sell you data. Most of that work is not documented as AI-assisted, because nobody asked, and because there is no settled standard for what the disclosure should look like.
That creates two exposures, and they point in opposite directions.
Your own investigator produced work you cannot fully account for on the stand.
Or the other side's investigator did, and nobody on your team knows which questions open it up.
Both are answerable. Both require somebody who has actually run the workflows rather than read about them.
Scope
What I can speak to
- How AI-assisted investigative work is performed in current practice, and what a defensible workflow looks like
- Whether a given investigative work product shows an adequate verification and documentation trail
- What an AI-assisted tool can and cannot establish, and where its output stops being evidence of anything
- Industry practice standards for investigator documentation, chain of custody on digital material, and contemporaneous record keeping
- Billing and time records in investigative matters, including the audit standards that apply to court-appointed work
- The questions that should be asked of an investigator, on either side, about tool use on a file
What I will not say
I will not testify that a photograph, a video or an audio file is authentic. No tool establishes that, and no combination of them does. That opinion belongs to a certified forensic media examiner, and I will tell counsel so before an engagement rather than after a Daubert motion.
I will not offer a legal conclusion. Methodology is mine. What it means for the case is yours.
I will not opine outside investigative methodology and practice. Not on the underlying science of a detection tool, just their practical and operational use in this field. Not on the statistics inside a model, not on anything I would have to learn for the engagement.
I will not adjust an opinion to the retention. The engagement letter says so in writing, and the first conversation will include the version of my answer counsel may not want.
Prior testimony
Stated plainly, because opposing counsel will find it anyway.
I have testified as a fact witness about my own investigative work.
I have never been retained as an expert witness. No court has ruled on my qualification under Rule 702 or its state equivalents. There is no Daubert history to review, in either direction, because there is nothing yet to review.
Counsel should weigh that. Retaining an expert with no testimonial record carries a risk that a seasoned expert does not, and any competent opponent will raise it.
What I offer instead is a documented method, published in full and dated, that predates any engagement. The workflows were written down before there was a case to write them for, which is the opposite of an opinion built to fit a retention. I also wrote the first textbook in the investigative field, titled "The AI-Powered Private Investigator."
If a testimonial record is what the matter requires, retain someone who has one. I would rather tell you that now than bill for finding it out.
Qualifications
Licensure
- Arizona
- Private Investigator #1799200, current. Principal, Old Pueblo Investigations, Tucson
- California
- Private Investigator #28183, former
- Florida
- Private Investigator #C1500111, former
Arizona is the active license. The California and Florida licenses were held while operating investigative agencies in those states between 2001 and 2022 and are not current.
Jurisdictions worked
Licensed as an employee investigator in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, under the agency licensure each state required at the time. Those licenses are former.
Casework has also been performed in South Dakota, Iowa and Missouri. Records for all of these are archival and the license numbers are not in hand. They can be retrieved from the issuing agencies on request.
Practice
More than two decades of investigative work. Skip tracing and judgment recovery, surveillance, criminal defense investigation, insurance and workers' compensation claims, background and asset investigation, and discovery review. Agencies owned and operated in California and Florida from 2001 to 2022. Old Pueblo Investigations founded in Arizona in 2024.
Education
Master of Business Administration, Walden University, 2026. Bachelor of Social Work, Walden University. United States Marine Corps, honorably discharged 1997.
Publications
The AI-Powered Private Investigator: A Field Manual for the Modern Private Investigator. 2026. Twenty-five chapters on AI-assisted investigative practice, including verification standards, documentation, synthetic media handling, and testimony.
“The Evidence Rules and Machine Output: Where Things Actually Stand.” aipoweredpi.com, September 20, 2026.
“What to Ask the Other Side's Investigator About AI.” aipoweredpi.com, September 20, 2026.
“Your People-Search Result Is a Lead, Not a Fact.” aipoweredpi.com, September 20, 2026.
“When Opposing Counsel Asks If AI Touched Your Report.” aipoweredpi.com, September 20, 2026.
Professional memberships
- American Association of Licensed Private Investigators, current member.
- Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, non-attorney member.
- Pima County Bar Association, non-attorney member.
Engagements
Four ways this is usually used
Case review. I read the investigative work product in an active matter and report whether the method is documented, whether the verification is real, and where it would come apart under examination. Often the whole engagement.
Consulting expert. Non-testifying. I help counsel build the examination of an investigator, ours or theirs, and identify what to ask for in discovery about tool use.
Testifying expert. Deposition and trial, within the scope above and no further.
Firm training. For litigation groups that want their own investigators and staff working to a documented standard before it becomes an issue in a case.
Rates on request. A retainer is required before any review begins. The engagement letter states that the opinion is not contingent on outcome and is not for sale, because that sentence is worth having in writing when somebody reads the letter aloud.
The standard
The method is published. Read it before you call.
The workflows, the verification standard and the documentation requirements are written down in the book, dated and public. The article on AI disclosure under examination is free to read.
An expert whose method exists only inside his own head is an expert whose method changes to suit the matter. Mine is on paper and it has a publication date.
Contact
Discuss a matter
Tell me the posture, the jurisdiction, and what the investigative work product looks like. I will come back within two business days with whether it is within my scope and whether there is a conflict.
If it is outside what I can speak to, I will say so and, where I can, point you to the right discipline.
Conflicts are checked before any substantive discussion. Do not send privileged or case-identifying material through this form.
Prefer to email? jon@aipoweredpi.com