Grostyan Investigations has over 45 years of combined experience in providing investigative services to attorneys, businesses, and private individuals.
Michael A. Grostyan
Michael has over 30 years of experience as an investigator and five years as a licensed law enforcement officer. Michael has worked on numerous high-profile criminal cases in Minnesota. His extensive experience and professionalism is unrivaled and has garnered the respect of the most well-respected attorneys in the area. As a result of his exceptional background and experience, Michael was featured in the May, 2000 issue of “Minnesota Monthly” magazine.
DeWayne Franks
Mr. Franks has been involved in the investigations business for over 25 years in the public and private sector. His experience includes but is not limited to:
- Kansas/Missouri Branch Manager of an investigations company based in Minnesota with offices in Iowa, Colorado and Missouri that specialized in Worker’s Comp and Insurance Fraud. During that time he had investigators in the states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.
- He worked in the Gaming Surveillance and Investigations section for a Native American Casino in Minnesota. During that time he also established a Special Investigations Unit that worked with over 1500 agencies world wide to identify threats to gaming facilities and their associated enterprises. He developed a intelligence database that at its peak, had over 1500 contacts providing information to its files. This included law enforcement agencies both in Canada and the US, casinos in Bermuda, Canada, Greece, the Virgin Islands, cruise ships and a casino in Mexico.
- He is a graduate of the Executive Protection Institute, Class 42 and is a certified Personal Protection Specialist (PPS). He has provided security to celebrities and musicians at a casino, for the election party of a mayor and even provided security to a racehorse used for stud services in Minnesota valued at over 2 million dollars.
- Mr. Franks also worked for 10 years at the Minnesota State Board of Public Defense as an investigator assigned to Hennepin County, MN. During that period he also obtained the Certified Criminal Defense Investigator (CCDI) Certification from the Criminal Defense Investigator Training Council located in Stuart, Florida. He finished his career there assigned to the Juvenile Division of the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office and also as the Investigator for the Conflicts Section of the Hennepin County Public Defender’s Office.
- Mr. Franks has also provided training in the areas of Use of Force from both the security/law enforcement and criminal defense perspectives. He is Instructor Certified in Use of Force-Firearms and in the areas of Aerosol Subject Restraint (ASR) and Tactical Handcuffing. In addition he is also certified as an ASP/Expandable Baton Use of Force Instructor.
- He has also taught classes in the use of the Internet as an investigative tool. He was one of the first investigators in the criminal defense field to teach social media investigations and was successful in assisting attorneys on how to use information obtained from social media websites in the area of criminal defense. He has since completed training with Kevin McClain of Kevin McClain Investigations in the area of Social Media Investigations. Mr. McClain is one of the leading experts in the criminal defense field in this area and he and Mr. Franks are in weekly contact with each other concerning this area of investigations.