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Speaker 1: At any given time, there are eighty five thousand people

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Speaker 1: missing in this country, according to federal records. The National

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Speaker 1: Institute of Justice has called it the nation's silent mass disaster.

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Speaker 1: Why because it can ruin the lives of the families

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Speaker 1: of them missing in so many ways, putting them in

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Speaker 1: a legal and emotional limbo. Business Week has an article

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Speaker 1: this week entitled the Lawyer Burying America's Living Dead. That

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Speaker 1: lawyer is Thomas Asimo. He's founding partner of Assimo and Associates,

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Speaker 1: and he joins us now. Tom tell us about the

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Speaker 1: slew of complications and questions when someone goes missing for years. Well,

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Speaker 1: one of the big problems that people have is they

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Speaker 1: don't first of all, they don't know where to turn.

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Speaker 1: And when I first got the first case of these,

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Speaker 1: it kind of was a learning experience for for our

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Speaker 1: law firm. You know, we've got four of us and

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Speaker 1: kind of we spit all to this to what do

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Speaker 1: you do um and we kind of came to the

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Speaker 1: conclusion that you're not going to be able to be

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Speaker 1: superman like the police or anything, but you can certainly

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Speaker 1: get the court involved for folks so that they have

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Speaker 1: the authority to deal with the assets that the missing

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Speaker 1: person is left behind, whether it's a house, whether it's

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Speaker 1: making sure that if they get fired from a job,

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Speaker 1: that they can deal with the cobra stuff that comes

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Speaker 1: with that because it gets fired because they didn't show

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Speaker 1: up for work because they're missing, or four one K plans,

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Speaker 1: pension plans, those sorts of things that the original case,

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Speaker 1: it was kind of tough because they had two homes,

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Speaker 1: one of one of which that had to be refinanced

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Speaker 1: because it was on a balloon mortgage, and we had

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Speaker 1: to act kind of quick and so we had to

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Speaker 1: go at first get a conservatorship over that person's assets,

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Speaker 1: which was kind of a cumbersome process. But then once

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Speaker 1: we kind of sat down and said what really happened here, um,

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Speaker 1: the lawyers in our firm started looking at the statutes

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Speaker 1: and said, you know, I think we could probably overcome

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Speaker 1: the five year presumption because it was less than I

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Speaker 1: think less than three years is actually two years and change.

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Speaker 1: And so then take us through what it takes, you know,

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Speaker 1: when you go to go to court, and what's the

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Speaker 1: procedure for getting somebody declared to be dead so that

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Speaker 1: their family can collect on all these things? In a

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Speaker 1: weird sense. At least in Arizona, you've got to you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously in other places too, you've got to prove a negative.

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Speaker 1: So subpoenas to the bank's subpoenas to credit card company's

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Speaker 1: subpoenis credit um services. When you see the absence, kind

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Speaker 1: of the shut off of any signs of life, you know,

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Speaker 1: think about it. When you leave work today, you're going

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Speaker 1: to go to Starbucks, get a cup of coffee, swipe

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Speaker 1: your card. There's a record there. You're gonna be on

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Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna be on the cameras at the

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Speaker 1: grocery store. You're going to be writing a check for

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Speaker 1: whatever it is you're going to go to dinner tonight

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Speaker 1: and put a credit card down. The absence of those

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Speaker 1: things show an amazing amount about people. The same thing

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Speaker 1: with um. You know what people do or don't do

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Speaker 1: when they leave home. John, every morning, I get up,

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Speaker 1: I put my wallet in my pocket, after I get

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Speaker 1: out the shower, and I leave her work. A lot

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Speaker 1: of these cases you have people where the car keys

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Speaker 1: are on the counter, the cars in the driveway. Um,

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Speaker 1: you kind of are basically being an archaeologist, but on

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Speaker 1: a very very specific scale. Tell us a little bit

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Speaker 1: about the case of Ignacio Jimenez. So we had had Ignacio.

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Speaker 1: It's an interesting case to me because he had he

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Speaker 1: has six children, has a wife, He had a great

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Speaker 1: job with you know, security clearance on a military base.

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Speaker 1: So this is not, you know, somebody that nobody cares about.

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Speaker 1: And his wife had come to me because their house

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Speaker 1: was they needed to she was the house was in

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Speaker 1: foreclosure and she needs somebody to help her with the

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Speaker 1: foreclosure on the house, and she didn't have the authority

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Speaker 1: to do anything because her husband was missing, and it

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Speaker 1: was almost too late, and so when she came to us,

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Speaker 1: it eventually be aim too late to save that house.

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Speaker 1: And I started looking at the police reports and started

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Speaker 1: making phone calls and started realizing that the US government

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Speaker 1: helps Americans that are in danger abroad, and so the

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Speaker 1: FBI had some jurisdiction there. So we were able to

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Speaker 1: bring them into it, and they were incredibly helpful. The

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Speaker 1: police department down in the city where she's at. I

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Speaker 1: was able to interview all of the police officers there,

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Speaker 1: look at the records from the Customs and Border Enforcement,

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Speaker 1: and because Ignacio went now with another person, so there

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Speaker 1: was two of them. You know, the chances of him

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Speaker 1: just saying you know who needs you I got Mexico

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Speaker 1: were a little bit less because he was with another person.

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Speaker 1: That other person is has never surfaced either. So when

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Speaker 1: you kind of build the brick wall of that case,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately there's only one conclusion I think that's reasonable, and

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Speaker 1: that's the conclusion that the judge reached UM. The outpouring

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Speaker 1: for his family was something that was nothing we've ever

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Speaker 1: seen at our firm, because I must have gotten phone

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Speaker 1: calls because it was around Christmas that it started getting

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Speaker 1: a little bit of media here in Phoenix, and so

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Speaker 1: we had a lot of people in the community here

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Speaker 1: sending Christmas gifts to our office to give to our client.

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Speaker 1: We had people offering to pay UM some of the

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Speaker 1: rent and some of the back issues that our client

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Speaker 1: had with respect to UM housing her family, and we

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Speaker 1: were able to help with that. One of my other

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Speaker 1: clients saw the paper, the story and the heirs and

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Speaker 1: Republic and arranged for a Thanksgiving dinner for the entire

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Speaker 1: family and had it delivered from the grocery store down

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Speaker 1: at Sierra Vista. Well, in a case like this or

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Speaker 1: or the other cases you handle you're talking about the

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Speaker 1: things you have to prove and how difficult it is.

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Speaker 1: What is what's the burden of proof here? What do

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Speaker 1: you have to show the judge? So I've never done

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Speaker 1: criminal work, but that's beyond a reasonable doubt. This is

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Speaker 1: the standard of proof below that, at least in Arizona,

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Speaker 1: which is clear and convincing evidence. UM. I remember the

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Speaker 1: law school professor that said, you know, when you see

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Speaker 1: the crumbs on the mustache of the guy, you may

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Speaker 1: not have ever seen a cookie, but you can kind

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Speaker 1: of conclude the THETA cookie. It's kind of that high

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Speaker 1: as opposed to the I saw it on video tape.

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Speaker 1: And and there are cases that have come to us

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Speaker 1: where you know that there's something not right, where I

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Speaker 1: don't want to prove by clear and convincing evidence because

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Speaker 1: they're trying to make something happen that didn't happen. And

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Speaker 1: have you come across any cases where the missing person

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Speaker 1: was actually trying to hide their disappearance. Um. There there

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Speaker 1: was a case I think that was linked to the

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Speaker 1: story that Felix Gillette had in Business Week which talked

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Speaker 1: about a Phoenix case from years and years and years ago. UM.

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Speaker 1: And and that's exactly what had happened. I think the

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Speaker 1: guy had disappeared and came back seventeen years later, twelve

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Speaker 1: years later or something like that. Well, it is a

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Speaker 1: fascinating eating story and it certainly will enlighten a lot

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Speaker 1: of people about what you go through. It really is

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Speaker 1: a long, long legal process. That's Thomas Ossimo. He is

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Speaker 1: a founding partner at Ossimo and Associates. And if you

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Speaker 1: want to read more, you can go to this week's

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week to read about that story and what

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Speaker 1: he's been doing. That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow at one pm Wall Street Time.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to our technical director Chris strike Comey and our

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Speaker 1: producer David Sucherman. Bloomberg Markets with Carol Master and Corey

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Speaker 1: Johnson starts right now in fifteen seconds. Corey, what do

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Speaker 1: you have? Well, we've got all kinds of stuff. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna look the markets. Of course, we've got to the

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Speaker 1: end of the quarter, so the close that is actually

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Speaker 1: going to be irrelevant. Once people are trying to sort

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Speaker 1: of see what their numbers are like and maybe some

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Speaker 1: of the last minute training to make the numbers look good.

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Speaker 1: All right, sounds great. Nice to have you both here

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Speaker 1: in the studio with us. That's up next, Bloomberg Markets.

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Speaker 1: Carol Master and Corey Johnson have a great weekend. This

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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg