Former IRS special agent opens consulting practice

Pierce opened J. Gregory Pierce Inc. and works as a financial litigation consultant from an office in his Springfield home.

Pierce, who graduated from Missouri State University in 1976 with a bachelor of science in accounting, was the case agent for investigations into crimes such as public corruption, securities fraud, income tax evasion, money laundering, bank fraud, embezzlement and bankruptcy fraud. He’s worked on such high-profile cases as the Whitewater scandal and the investigations that served as the premise for the movie “Casino.”

Now Pierce uses his training and experience as a financial litigation consultant for law firms, insurance companies and corporate legal counsel.

“When I was an agent, I always believed that in justice the scales should be balanced,” Pierce said. “If you have a good prosecutor and investigator on the government side, there should also be a good defense attorney and their support services.”

Pierce set up his business in late 2005 after deciding retirement wasn’t for him.

“I retired December 31 of 2004, so I took some time (off),” said Pierce, adding that he stayed busy tending to his beef cattle ranch for a while. “I finally decided my first love is investigations so I wanted to get back into that.”

He provides his services to defense attorneys in Springfield, Kansas City and Boston, but he declined to share fees.

“What I try and do is gear my services to provide defense attorneys with the experience and the assets that the government has from their investigative resources – basically providing for defense attorneys what the government prosecutors have in their investigative assets,” he said.

As a special agent, Pierce frequently worked with David Jones on several high-profile cases for the government.

“For almost 30 years, I was a federal prosecutor in Springfield and in (Washington) D.C.,” said Jones, who’s been based in Springfield since the early 1980s. “We worked on a daily basis for close to 20 years. He retired from being a special agent and just recently I retired. I’m in private practice now doing criminal defense.”

Pierce and Jones continue to work together now that both have hung up their own shingles.

Jones said, “The government has invested a tremendous amount of money in … training us. His role and my role, too, the reason we can be effective in cases with prosecutors and agents and police is because they know who we are, they know we’re not going to be in there blowing smoke or trying to deceive anyone. The facts are the facts.”

Pierce said that his role is to assist defense attorneys in being proactive in their investigations. He interviews witnesses, takes testimony to determine what type of evidence is out there at an early stage in the investigation, analyzes financial records, tax returns and bank accounts, traces asset acquisition and depositions, reconstructs financial transactions through forensic accounting techniques, and provides expert witness testimony.

“I know how the government goes about putting together cases and I’m providing that insight for defense attorneys,” Pierce said.

Whitewater, ‘Casino’

Much of Pierce’s work can’t be discussed due to confidentiality, but he did share a few of his high-profile cases.

“If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Casino,’ that movie is based upon our investigations of the skim from the Las Vegas casinos. That’s how I got my start. That was my first big case, assisting in that,” he said.

He also worked under the direction of Ken Starr, independent counsel on the Whitewater investigation.

“I was in Little Rock on two occasions that totaled probably over a year and a half,” Pierce said. “I was fortunate enough to be one of the investigators that attended the White House and took the deposition of President Clinton. Instead of him coming to Little Rock for the trial, basically the court moved to the White House and the deposition was taped and replayed for the jury.”

Pierce has no set office hours and doesn’t work a set number of hours per week. Instead, he chooses attorneys who he works with, and due to the nature of the business and his past career, cases make their way to him slowly.

“One of the things that I have to be concerned about is I have to recuse myself on cases that I was aware of when I worked for the government, so I have to worry about conflicts,” he said. “What happens is as those cases work through the process, it takes a while for (me) to go ahead and establish this type of business in Springfield because I was aware, on the government side, of a number of cases and the government’s evidence and position in a number of cases. I can’t then take that knowledge and go out and work for defense attorneys here because of the conflict.”