The Basis of ‘Bad Company’: An Author’s Note

A word on methodology is in order. The material in “Bad Company” was based on interviews conducted over a period of several years. In addition to interviews, I also used court records, in Florida, New York and California, as the basis for parts of the narrative.

The record of criminal proceedings in Los Angeles is particularly detailed and voluminous. The proceedings arising out of the events recounted in the chapters of “Bad Company” and the epilogue are still pending. All the accused have pleaded not guilty.

The dialogue that appears throughout the text is derived mostly from the versions of events provided to me in my interviews. In addition, I have based dialogue on the testimony of witnesses at criminal proceedings, and on the statements of persons interviewed by the authorities.

These statements are contained in investigators’ reports, a kind of diary kept by Los Angeles County detectives of people they interviewed and what they were told. Mostly, the comments of persons interviewed by detectives were written down in these reports in a long narrative. For stylistic reasons, I have taken some of these statements and put them in the form of quotes.