Playing a Game of Cat and Mouse

For three days last week, Westlake Village private investigator John Grogan and his staff had been tailing their target--a supposedly bedridden man.

The target, a Simi Valley security guard, claimed that a back injury left him unable to walk or sit for more than five minutes, lift more than five pounds or work his shift without severe pain.

The man’s insurance company had paid thousands of dollars in workers’ compensation benefits over six months and was preparing to make a large final settlement on his claim. Then it hired Grogan’s Gold Star Investigations company to make sure he was really hurt.

Through powerful binoculars and video cameras, the investigators had watched the man.

They caught him walking normally, bending at the waist and going to work full time at a second job he had held down for four months--even after claiming he was too injured to work his first job.

This fourth day was the clincher--the last day of evidence of ongoing conduct needed to prove the man was probably a fraud, Grogan said.

No longer worried about being inconspicuous, Grogan switched his surveillance vehicle from a series of innocuous Japanese sedans to a big, comfortable van.

He slumped in the green velour captain’s chair, the floor next to him cluttered with cameras, a cellular phone and a pager. The stereo played ‘70s rock tunes.

“It’s just easy money, and big easy money if they’re working at the same time,” said Grogan, staring through binoculars at the target’s car 100 yards away.

“We did a job in Camarillo,” he offered with the detached air of an investigator who has seen everything. “We’ve got this (other) guy water-skiing and putting a roof on his home, both without a shirt on. Then we followed him to his deposition and he had on a back brace.”

For 90 minutes, Grogan waited. Then he sat bolt upright and grabbed his camcorder.

“This looks like our guy,” he said, lens on the target, who sauntered out to his beaten little coupe and swung two heavy-looking brown paper bags into the trunk.

“Claimant carrying two large bags, heavy, probably newspapers, bending at the hip,” Grogan murmured into the microphone, as the man stooped easily to pick up something he dropped.

Then they were off, Grogan following two or three car lengths behind and one lane over from the target so he would not appear too frequently in the man’s rearview mirror.

When the target left Grogan at a changing traffic light, the investigator wheeled the van through a right turn, then a U-turn, then another right to shortcut the red light and keep up.

The man stopped at a deli and strolled inside with one of the heavy bags slung casually over his shoulder, Grogan videotaping him moments later through a powerful lens as he walked out and drove away.

Grogan then tailed the little car to the Simi Valley Courthouse where the man ran inside and ran out again 90 seconds later, his vigorous behavior captured on videotape.

By now, Grogan did not even bother staying back to keep from being seen.

He had what he wanted. He let the man go and headed back to his office to prepare the film, tapes and notes for the insurance company.

“If right now, he stopped us and said, ‘Hey, are you guys following me?’ it just wouldn’t matter any more,” Grogan said. “It’s all over now.”