213 – Forensics is his game: Tom interviews Ed Primeau

Episode 213 – Ed Primeau
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:23] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with Episode 213 of Screw the Commute podcast. We're here with Ed Primeau. I've known Ed for 2 300 years. I don't remember how much, but wait till you hear the stuff he's been doing he's been involved in the U.S. versus George Zimmerman case, the La Kwun guy in Chicago, the McDonald's shooting. He even had something to do with the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. What do you think about that? What do you hear what he actually does. And I think he was there at the JFK assassination, too. I think it had something to do with that, too. We'll find out as we get to talk to him in a minute. And I hope you didn't miss episode 212. Laura Steward. She took us into the trenches to show us how to improve our business. And there's some really golden tips on there on how she learned how to build up her business and prepare it for sale to get five times the valuation that it was originally evaluated at. So you don't want to miss that. Now, if you're listening to this right around November 29th today and tomorrow are the last days to join my giant giveaway. So I suggest you go to the show notes as soon as humanly possible and join my super sweepstakes and giveaway over $32000 in prizes and everyone wins just for joining. It's also good of a viral technique. And I covered viral marketing in episode 46, so screwthecommute.com/46. And when you join, you immediately get a copy of my $27 e-book, The Kickstart Guide to Viral Marketing. Plus, if you tell your friends about it through the unique link I gave you, you get 20 more chances to win if they join the sweepstakes for each one of them. Plus, you get five more chances to win just for sharing it on social media, whether anyone joins or not. It costs nothing to join and you could win the grand prize worth nineteen thousand one hundred dollars and there's forty eight other prizes besides the one that you're getting just for joining. So check it out right away because it's ending November 30th. All right. Our podcast app is in the app store. You can do all kinds of fancy things with it. We have complete instructions on how to use it at screwthecommute.com/app. And if you never used one before, we have screen captures and everything to lead you right through it. Let's see, our sponsor is the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia, it's a distance learning school which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living, either working for someone else or starting your own online business. You can check that out at IMTCVA.org and we have big discounts and scholarships for military either active duty or veterans, military spouses, law enforcement and first responders.

[00:03:42] Let's get to the main event. Ed Primeau is a digital media forensic expert and he's founder of Primeau Forensics Ltd., a well-respected global digital media forensic company. He's testified in in courts in the United States and worked on various international cases. His forensic practices include forensic audio and video authentication, forensic enhancement, as well as biometric voice identification and evidence recovery. Ed's also performed a voice identification test for CNN on Susan Bennett. You know who Susan Bennett is? Well, he helped out her. She's a voice actress and was positively I.D.'d her as the voice of Apple's Siri. Now, when he isn't using his expertise as a digital media forensic expert, he's camping out in front of Captain George's Seafood House in Virginia. No, I'm kidding. No, he's enjoys jamming on the drums and piano with his friends. And he's also I don't know if I could pronounce this correctly, a numismatist. I think that's a coin collector. He likes to live a healthy lifestyle. Ed, are you ready to screw? The commute? You do voices too.

[00:05:14] Once in a while, I like to pull out of Friday afternoon whimsical voice when it's appropriate.

[00:05:21] So it's so great to to reconnect with you. I've known you for a long time. But we got reconnected through Terry Brock, a very big name in our National Speakers Association. I wanted to really take my audio to the next level. A friend of mine, Mike Stuart, helped me get started, but there was some very intricate things I wanted to do. And he says call Ed. And so I said, OK. And so I called you and you didn't call me back for three months or something. So that's how we reconnected. You came down here and spend some time with me in Virginia Beach. We helped each other out. And I just love that. So. So, anyway, good to have you on the show.

[00:06:09] Thanks. Tom, what a pleasure to reconnect and what an honor to be on this show to share some of the things that I've learned as an entrepreneur.

[00:06:16] So you were really there in Dallas in for the JFK thing. Did you see the assassination?

[00:06:23] Well, I actually wasn't in Dallas. The story goes like this. In 19 early 70s, the LBJ Library released the Air Force One recording of radio transmissions the day that JFK was assassinated. And then in 2011, General Clifton's estate had two reels.

[00:06:45] I never heard that name with regard to JFK.

[00:06:49] General Clifton was one of Kennedy's aides. And in his belongings after he passed where to reel to reel recordings of the Air Force One, transmissions that were different than the ones that the LBJ Library released in the early 70s. And that was a fantastic case.

[00:07:10] Conspiracy. Conspiracy.

[00:07:11] Well, it's it's interesting because we know a lot more now than we did back then. First of all, we know that there are portions still that have been removed from the recordings for whatever reason. I took both versions and combined them to make the first longer version of those recordings. And there's a lot of interest among JFK aficionados and and people who are interested in clues about that assassination, because, as you know, it's one of the bigger conspiracy theories. Different people, different opinions. How many shooters were there? And my work made national headlines. CNN came out to our lab in Rochester Hills to interview me, and I'll tell you what. You can't buy publicity like that. That's wonderful. It was an honor to do that. But those newsworthy type press releases or interviews that I've done has been phenomenal for business.

[00:08:09] Yeah. So. And I used to really dig into the JFK stuff years ago, and the only thing that it boiled down to me is that I don't believe to this day anybody has been able to recreate the shot. And that's to me, that's the whole crux of the matter. You know, from the library, from actually where the piece of crap gun look like this. So that's that's my bottom line. I've been studying it lately. But what about the Malaysian stuff? You know, how would you be involved in things like that?

[00:08:44] Well, I got called by the media from time to time. When there is audio or video recordings, then you're part of an investigation. And there's questions about the integrity of those recordings. For instance, when the Malaysian government released the radio transmissions between the cockpit and the tower there, there were only sections of the recordings. Now, I wasn't given a lot of background information, but from a forensic perspective, that's a little unusual to not have more conversation or more dead air. If the recorder is recording the whole time that the flight is traveling, I would expect to have received more information. So I basically provided an opinion that I thought those recordings were incomplete and that there should be more information that we should have received. I mean, when the police release something here in the United States, it's usually discovered by freedom of information or it comes out in the litigation. And then I'm brought in to do an analysis and provide opinions that are based on scientific fact as to what what the recordings represent or fail to represent. And it's all about integrity. If if we're going to use an audio or video recording as an investigative tool, we've got to make sure that it has integrity and that it hasn't been altered in any way.

[00:10:09] Are you under oath at all the time you're doing this or when you're just given opinions to the parties involved, you're not in a court under oath?

[00:10:19] When I'm just providing opinions, I'm more looked at as a consultant, you know, and then if the case goes as expected and that my work can help the trier of fact, which is a judge or jury understand the relevance of the evidence, then I go under oath. So testifying comes in many forms, an affidavit, which is a written statement of all the facts and opinions that I have after an investigation that's signed and notarized. That's an official court document. Depositions are a way of testifying and most of the time depositions are discovery depositions as opposed to trial depositions. And that's where the opposing attorney wants to know what I've got, what am I going to testify about at trial? It gives them a chance to ask me questions, challenge my integrity if they're going to do that. And that hasn't happened in a long time.

[00:11:11] Much of my work product is stipulated by the courts just because of the experience. I've been doing this thirty five years as of May 2019, which is quite a run. I've always had this is one of my business verticals. While I was doing audio and video production, which is how you and I met years ago at the National Speakers Association, my my start to this whole forensic business came in 1984 when I was working at a recording studio and the FBI came in with some confidential informant recordings that they needed to have clarified. In other words, they wanted the unwanted sound removed. And in this case, it was an air conditioner unit and a cooler compressor and a convenience store. It was making noise that was disguising the dialog. So I couldn't hear it as well as they wanted to. I went and did some analog enhancements. Back then, we didn't have computers. I removed the sound and was able to clarify the dialog and I just absolutely loved being able to help the FBI on all kinds of levels first. I mean, I was into criminal justice. I had declared that as my minor communications studies was my major. So this just became a fit. And this was before the science of audio forensics was actually a thing. Today, it's a huge thing and it's a very important process. Anything that we do with audio forensics, whether it's enhancing or authenticating or identifying it helps the trier of fact give weight to that evidence. When they're when they're in the middle of their litigation

[00:12:46] How about these shootings, checking if they're actually gunshots or not or how many of.

[00:12:54] The Laquan McDonald case out of Chicago was quite interesting because I did an interview for the media because they wanted to know why there was no audio on the recording, the dash cam recording from the police car. And that's where you can clearly see Officer Jerry Van Dyke shoot Laquan as Laquan was walking down the street. I don't know what the circumstances were, but the bottom line, there was no audio on the recording. Now, I could hear an audio track and I could see the presence of an audio track, but there was no microphone signal going to the audio track. So I gave that answer to the media. And about two days later, up on YouTube is a version. Same video, but it has sound now. It has the sirens and it has gunshots. And I was asked to take a look at that and give my opinion based on science. If that is an accurate recording and if it represents the events as they occurred that day. And my answer was no. All of the gunshots where sound effects, they were exactly identical. The car the car was moving. So the sound source or the microphone in the car that picked up all these sounds theoretically would have what's called a Doppler effect. If the siren is here and the car moves, you're going to hear that noise or that sound source move as well. Well, in this particular recording, I didn't have that. And then to top it off, I heard repeated sounds, repeated voices and radio transmissions. So somebody fabricated that audio track. And that was a very important piece of information for social media, which is where that video, that version of the video was first uploaded. Somebody decided that they were gonna try to make the Chicago police look bad, that they didn't release the audio for whatever reason. But here's the audio. So it was made to deceive the public, which, you know, it's a problem in litigation when you get the social media involved because it has a very big influence over people who could potentially become juries.

[00:15:06] So so what kind of thing you're getting into some other things. No capturing footage of old VHS or what are they call.

[00:15:15] Yeah, we've we've started to B to C arm of our business and we're taking our forensic skills to the consumer sector and one of the new business activities that we've launched is VHS restoration, because what's happened is there's a situation VHS tape has a shelf life of twenty five years.

[00:15:37] If it's held perfectly right.

[00:15:40] Right in good condition, good humidity. Right temperatures, and then it starts to degradate. So there is a large number of people that has VHS tapes of their kids growing up, maybe film transfers from films that are no longer available and people want those preserved. So what we do is we digitize them and we do the same type of forensic enhancement on those video recordings that we do on a lot of the evidence that we get in trial.

[00:16:10] So it's better in some of these big, big places that are advertising like crazy. Probably just make a quick copy and throw it back to you.

[00:16:19] It is. And the other part that really is, is beneficial for the services. We can repair tapes. So if know, you take a tape to Wal-Mart, you ask him to transfer it and they say, hey, it won't play. We can receive the tape. We can open the shell. We can remove the tape and put it into a new shell. As a lot of times, pieces break, they get stuck over time and we can repair those. So a tape that wouldn't play for a major retailer who might be doing the transfer. We can go dig deep and we can actually fix it. Tape's broken. We can splice it back together again. So it's a new service that we're offering and it's going quite well. We had a really good year with our numbers in that portion of our business vertical.

[00:17:03] Awesome. So let's take you back through your entrepreneurial as a kid.

[00:17:08] Oh, yeah. One of the first things I can remember this. It's interesting how little things stand out in your youth. I was probably 8 or 9 years old and my parents used to drag me around with them because I'm the fourth of four kids. I'm the youngest. We were on a boat. It was a ferry going from Michigan to Wisconsin Dells. And I had a box of caramels and I set up a stand it and this boat. Five cents a piece. I sold these caramels and my sister in law, who was just this huge figure in my life back then, said, you're going to be a successful entrepreneur one day. Well, I believed her and look what happened.

[00:17:49] So you ever actually have a job?

[00:17:53] I had a job at Ambiance Recordings, which is where I met the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I was right out of college. And then I went from there to a company called SALES Activation. Criminal justice was a minor. That was my minor. Yeah. I was a volunteer probation officer for the city of Troy as well. But that wasn't really a job. That was more of a oh, gosh, what do I want to call it? It was a volunteer position, but I really enjoyed doing it.

[00:18:28] A probation officer? Yeah.

[00:18:30] It was more educational. Yeah.

[00:18:33] The dregs of society.

[00:18:35] It was it was interesting. It was interesting. But then once I worked for sales activation, I made a decision at that point that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And in nineteen ninety one I went one hundred percent into self-employment. And I have not worked for anybody since.

[00:18:51] Beautiful, beautiful. That's the year I joined National Speakers Association. So what was the first business?

[00:19:00] My first business that I started was Primeau Productions.

[00:19:03] That was just audio video production.

[00:19:06] That was my audio and video production business. And our primary niche was professional speakers, which is how You and I met at the National Speakers Association and our number one product where demo videos, which is a sampling of a professional speakers offerings that were physical tapes back then and soon became digital. And now there's all kinds of sizzle reels and YouTube channels and speakers are marketing specific clips. They're using video to communicate their message to a wider market in order to and hopes to be hired or selected to do a presentation for live events, which still happen even though technology's morphed as much as it has. The problem is with with our video production business, as this thing came out called desktop publishing, and the bigger that got, the cheaper the software got, the more and more people that were doing their own productions. So it got quite diluted. And we had a handful of bigger clients like Bob Seger that we did. So video production for four years. You know, we maintained those accounts. And then last year in December, we decided to sell the company. So everything has been sold and we're focused 100 percent on doing the digital media forensics. Now, as one of the world's largest public labs.

[00:20:30] You're considered an expert witness, right?

[00:20:32] Correct. Not all digital media forensic experts are expert witnesses, but the expert witness part is the court testifying. So not only do I do the work in the lab, but I also bring the test results and testify in court.

[00:20:46] And that's can be a lucrative sideline to it.

[00:20:50] Absolutely. That that part of our business is growing because more and more cases are seeing the courtroom. Whereas when I first started this occupation. Less cases, more cases were being settled in either taking pleas and criminal cases or in mediation if they were civil cases.

[00:21:11] One of my professional dog trainers for the protection dogs is a North Norfolk cop. And he said, man, is there used to be we're just go into court and they would believe us. This is now the defense attorneys. There's always the video. Yeah. Where's the audio?

[00:21:29] We've come we've grown quite fond of our media. Know audio or video images. Those are all if they can be authenticated, they're they're better than a witness because, you know, you can actually see the events as opposed to hear them interpreted by another person.

[00:21:46] Right. So what do people need to know about becoming an expert witness?

[00:21:49] Well, you you have a expertise that's tried and true and you've got time behind you. Of of history. You have classroom training, you've got on the job experience. And I take continuing education every year because there's new software, there's new techniques that have to be identified and learned, you know, how do they operate? So we just saw the other day I had my first Alexa audio that I needed to do an authentication on and that required a little bit of research. It was the first case we've ever had in our lab that the audio source was Alexa. So the basic bones of being an expert in anything is you have to have the ability. If you look at federal rule of evidence 702, it gives you a nice outline, I believe, in four bullet points that a forensic expert has to qualify for. And basically to kind of sum the whole thing up is you've got to be able to do something. The average person can't do in order to help the trier of fact. Judge or jury understand the role that evidence plays in court.

[00:23:02] Now, have you ever been in the position where an attorney wants you to skew your results to suit their side of the case, or do they just not use your your your details?

[00:23:16] Well, I'm going to say ninety nine percent of the time we give them the answers and they take it and they either use it or they don't use it. There's always that one attorney, usually a criminal defense attorney that wants me to understand their client's innocence and how something must be wrong with my testing. I just did a big voice identification case a few weeks ago. And the bottom line is the client really challenged me on a conference call with several attorneys and other persons who were on their litigation team about the processes that I use because they claimed that they had alibis to them being in a different place when these recordings were made. And they said that, you know, you need to really do some searching and figure out how your equipment failed with these tests because it's not true. And then the attorney came in and said, well, you know, tell us, Mr. Primeau. How could a software have failed our testing? And I paused for about five seconds, which was an eternity. You know, when you've got all these people on a conference call and I came back and I said, I can't think of any. And that was that was the end of that. And I haven't heard a word about that since. Well, here's another beautiful thing that I learned years ago Tom and boy, what a great tip. You know how when you hire a contractor to work on your house, they usually ask for a downpayment? You know, deposit. So you've engaged you, you get a deposit. Well, I thought, gosh, a long time ago, probably ninety three. Well, what happens if somebody goes to jail? How in the heck you're going to collect from them. So we started asking for our entire fee in advance. Whatever the scope of work is, we provide a quote and we get paid for the whole job in advance. And I think our integrity is what what makes that a seamless operation, because we nobody balks about that anymore. They they look at my skill set. They look at my record that I have testifying all the cases. You have this thing called a curriculum vitae, which explains your training, where you came from, your background, the cases you've testified in the courts. They were in the attorneys that you worked for their contact information so anybody could check you out. And when you're that transparent, I think people trust you and they pay you in advance so that you don't have to chase money

[00:25:45] You ought to write a book about this.

[00:25:48] I'm going to write a couple hundred books by the time you and I are done some back and forth. You're giving me lots of ideas.

[00:25:54] So you've got all this expert knowledge in your head. People would kill for this stuff. Can't wait to see those books coming out.

[00:26:04] Oh, yeah, I'm working on it right now. Thanks to you. Thank you.

[00:26:07] We got to take a brief sponsor break and we come back. We'll ask Ed what a typical day looks like for him and how he stays motivated.

[00:26:15] So, folks, our sponsor is is me again. You know, I guess after 200 episodes, you may have noticed that, but really excited about our school, the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia, and what it's doing for people and letting them create lifestyle businesses that they can get up when they want, they can go to bed when they want. They can only deal with people that they like, could play with the dogs, sleep in. Take a nap. Well, a lot of wonderful things about being in your own business. You do have to be a little bit of a self-starter because nobody's telling you what to do. But I really like that that nobody's telling me what to do. So check out IMTCVA.org. That's Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia dot org. But just because it's in Virginia doesn't make any difference because it's a distance learning school. You can be anywhere. You can get an internet connection. You don't have to buy any books. You don't have to travel, you don't have to run apartment, nothing. You can get the entire training online and still have instructors and access to me and my whole crew to help you get through this and start your own lifestyle business. So check it out at IMTCVA.org and if you happen to be military, put a slash military there.

[00:27:38] Let's get back to the main event. We've got forensic expert Ed Primeau here. What's a typical day look like for you? And also, we forgot to mention that you work with your son, which is nice.

[00:27:50] It's pretty amazing. Actually, I I've had this skill. For a long time and my son watched as I worked and he started to help me with with tasks. Oh, about three years later we realized that he was pretty neck and neck with my skill set. So it occurred to me that I was able to teach him a lot of what I knew. All that was next for him was to actually take some test results and go and testify in court, which he's been doing now for eight years. Then we found Audrey, Graduate Affairs, State University and Forensics, and we taught her the digital media aspect of an investigation. She's been with us a little over two years now, just doing fantastic. And we've got Jack Palmer, who is another employee of ours. And I've I've learned that I can teach my skill set to other people and help mentor them to get to be a forensic expert. Audrey and Jack haven't testified yet, but a day in the life as we all come to the office here in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and we have activities on our outlook calendars that need to be done that day.

[00:28:58] Like shoveling snow like you sent me a picture last time.

[00:29:01] Yeah. Right now we've got a 42 degreer out there today. That's kind of where we're walking around in our spring coats today. It was kind of nice, but it's some it's a scheduled activity calendar that we like to keep and we try to stay true to it. But the phone rings. We just did a big case for one of the largest newspapers in our country. And hopefully we'll be able to talk more about that down the line. But for right now, we'll leave it at that. When that case came in, we started to move some of our other cases aside because it was a time sensitive investigation. We get police shootings and officer involved shootings from different jurisdictions, and they want us to help them review their footage to make sure that there's not something in there that they should know about. Like, you know, with with the authenticity aspect of it. With the events, you know, can we enhance something to better show the events that happened? Can we create a demonstrative component to it? So all of those things happen. You know, some days it's like a triage room. Things come in and it's it's urgent. So we have to reschedule some of the events that are on our calendar that day, the different investigations that we're doing in order to make room for this more urgent case that came in. But we're we're kind of lighthearted here, too. You know, as heavy and awful as some of this footage in these recordings can be, we kind of have a lighthearted office. When it's somebody's birthday. We take a good hour, at least we all sit down together, we order lunch, we talk, you know, we get to know each other and we work very well as a team. There's seven of us currently and we're in the process of doing some additional hiring. So something tells me that next year will be better than this year and this year was better than last year. And that's kind of the story of my life going all the way back to ninety one. It just it just keeps getting better and better. I absolutely love my job.

[00:30:59] You have an office or is this all at your your house.

[00:31:05] No. We have an office and it's two miles from my house so I don't commute.

[00:31:08] You've got a commute I have to cancel this whole interview.

[00:31:12] It's a two mile commute and I ride a bike in the summer. Doesn't that count?

[00:31:17] So how do you stay motivated?

[00:31:23] I stay motivated. You know, back in the day when my kids were young and they were going to college, I just kept a picture of them eating in the corner of my desk. And I'd look at that every once in a while. And I was feeling lazy. And they gave me the energy to get me out of it now. But seriously, I stay motivated by helping the people that we work for. We just had my son testified in a trial last week. A woman was had some criminal convictions. And, you know, when you're in the criminal system, you could spend a lot of money before your case actually sees the light in the courtroom. But the testimony my son gave acquitted her of these crimes. And she came in yesterday to pick up her electronic devices that we had to to have to do the investigation. And she brought a card and she was elated. She had tears in her eyes. You know, that that type of of problem solving is what keeps me motivated. Every investigation is different. So it's not like the same exact day to day job. There's always new components that come in just like that. Alexa, recording that we had to figure out I mentioned earlier. So my need to learn and investigate when I'm doing my cases gives me motivation. I'd love to learn. I love to help bring answers to questions that court cases have. Litigators have. And everybody else here loves it, too. So as a team, it just excites all of us and it keeps us going every day.

[00:32:59] That's really great. You know, my my comic mind couldn't help going from that lady that came in with the card and thanking you in tears in her eyes to the to the guy that comes in there was got out, you know, escape jails, spending 10 to life and said, you put me away, you son of a gun.

[00:33:23] Well, that's awfully optimistic. We haven't had any of those problems yet. So hopefully that will never happen.

[00:33:29] All right. So the people who listen to this show, we call them screwballs, too. So what kind of closing business tips they. They're starting a business or they're trying to improve the business. They have some parting thoughts.

[00:33:42] Well, one of my biggest AHA's my entire career as an entrepreneur has been people will give you money if you can prove that you have integrity and that you can help solve their pain. And when the cash is a little low on the bank account, all you gotta do is make some sales. You get the deposits, it puts more money in the bank account. And I've learned that it's a constant process. Marketing, advertising, talking to prospects, processing the cases. It's the activities that need to be done on a regular basis.

[00:34:13] Yeah, I get a lot of people, you know, they do the part they love doing. And then the marketing comes to a stop and then when they finish the job they're on, there's nothing in the pipeline. So. You gotta you gotta keep them both going. All the time. All right, man. So thanks so much. Tell them how they get a hold of you if they need expert witness, if they need forensic work done. Is it a different Web site? If they need restoration, what's how they get ahold of you?

[00:34:41] Everything is available through our main Web site, which is primeauforensics.com. My email addresses Ed@primeaucompanies.com. Feel free to shoot me an email and ask me any questions you'd like. I always answer all my inquiries, all my emails, and if you don't hear from me for some reason there's a chance that e-mail went into spam. Just pick up the phone and call us. Our 800 number is 800 647 4281. I welcome all questions and comments from everybody.

[00:35:30] Awesome. And we'll have all of this in the show. Notes, folks, this is episode two hundred and thirteen, so screwthecommute.com/213. And I want to thank Ed and want to make sure he gets back down here to Virginia Beach so we can go to Captain George's again. Give me a good excuse.

[00:35:51] I'm looking forward to it Tom. Thank you very much.

[00:35:53] All right. Say hi to Michael for me.

[00:35:55] I will do that. Thank you.

[00:35:56] All right. Thanks, everybody. We'll catch you on the next episode. See ya later.

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