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Who You Gonna Call – When things go wrong, stars rely on private security services for help?
Heath Ledger’s body being removed from his New York apartment By Matthew Philips | Newsweek Web Exclusive Jan 25, 2008 | Updated: 8:46 p.m. ET Jan 25, 2008
In all the chaos surrounding the death of Heath Ledger last week in his lower Manhattan apartment, one reported detail stood out: that when his masseuse found him face down and unconscious on his bed, and then frantically called Ledger’s fellow actor Mary-Kate Olsen, the 21-year-old star’s immediate response was, “I’m sending my private security.” Most people, upon hearing that a friend was unresponsive, with pill bottles nearby, would rush to dial 911. But the masseuse called Olsen two more times before finally calling 911 about 20 minutes later, the second time to tell Olsen that Ledger was cold to the touch and that she feared he was dead. Olsen’s response? “I already have people coming over.”
Her “people” arrived at the same time as the paramedics, nearly a half hour after Ledger’s body was first discovered. So who are these “private security” providers? And why are they–and not public emergency services–the first call a celebrity would make?
To get a peek behind the curtain of celebrity security services, NEWSWEEK’s Matthew Philips spoke with Joseph A. LaSorsa, a security expert, who spent 20 years as a special agent in the U.S. Secret Service. His company, J.A. LaSorsa and Associates, in south Florida has been in business since 1998 and provides a range of high-end expert security and executive protection services to the rich and sometimes famous. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What kind of protection do your personal-security agents provide?
Joe LaSorsa: Personal security can range from estate or residential security to travel security. We’ll stand guard at a residence or travel with clients aboard boats, wherever.
What sorts of people do you have as clients?
My clients tend mostly to be high-end athletes, VIPS and corporate executives and CEOs. I don’t take on a lot of celebrities for the simple reason that they tend to be more problematic. They expect to be pampered and can usually create more problems with themselves than anyone else.
Where do you draw the line between protecting a client from others and protecting them from their own behavior?
I make the point with my staff that when problems start to arise to diplomatically persuade the client to cease and desist from an activity. Part of our job is to pick up on signs that indicate a bad situation. So usually if we’re out at a club and we feel a disruption is about to occur, we’ll quietly whisper to them that we should leave. We’re there not to deal with problems but to avoid them.
Do you typically sign nondisclosure agreements?
Yes, we require it. Part of the contract is to do everything we can to maintain the client’s confidentiality.
What’s the background of the agents who work for you?
Mostly former federal agents and Secret Service agents, whom I consider to be the best long-term private-sector agents because they understand the mentality of the job.
In what way?
In their trained ability to spot situations before they become problems, and to use discretion and diplomacy rather than force to diffuse a situation. If you ask me, too many Special Forces guys are getting involved in the industry, people who aren’t trained in de-escalation but only in escalation. And the problem with celebrities is they’re drawn to these types. Celebrities typically hire people who are big in stature because they think they’ll prevent a problem through intimidation, when in fact those people are more prone to use their size and often end up accentuating problems.
How personal do the relationships get between agents and clients?
We expressly avoid any personal relationship. We assign them in 8- or 10- or 12-hour shifts. There’s no sleeping over at a client’s home. It creates too much of a familiarity, and, as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt.
But it happens?
Of course it happens, clients will develop relationships with protective agents, especially when it’s a male and female, that leads to sexual relationships.
I guess you’re not a fan of the movie “The Bodyguard”?
No, I actually like it because it’s a realistic depiction of how easily that can happen.
What about being bystanders to illegal activity, like drug use?
We don’t tolerate illegal drug use. We will walk away and terminate the contract. Remember, the majority of our staff are former Secret Service. We’ll turn our heads to most issues, but not when it crosses the line of legality. Of course, again, it happens, I guarantee, and the majority of security agents out there wouldn’t feel the way I feel.
How do you handle behavior that’s not necessarily illegal but isn’t something a client would want publicized?
Do we take care of a client if they’ve had too much fun? Sure. We try not to associate with clients where that happens all the time but of course it’s going to happen every so often. People are human, and when it does, that’s part of the protection that’s offered.
What about if you found a client unconscious or with drug paraphernalia around? Would you call the police?
Again, if they cross the line into illegal activity, we’re going to call the police. I can’t speak for other agencies, but I know that pretty much most security agents are former law enforcement, and most of them won’t cross that line. Now, if they’re just passed out, then we’ll see if we can’t revive them–but if not then yeah, we’d get medical attention.
You’d call 911?
If it’s serious, yes. We don’t pretend to be medical technicians. We’re trained in CPR and as EMTs, but if someone needs to be transported in an emergency situation, then definitely that’s our obligation in protecting them.
It seems as though sometimes celebrities are looking for their security agents to be a guardian angels of sorts.
I think that’s accurate in a lot of cases. It’s not something we do, but I’m not going to say that isn’t the case with some people and that some firms provide that for them.
Entrepreneur
From Secret Service to Sunshine State
March 08, 2004 By: Neil Reisner
Joe LaSorsa doesn’t need references to convince potential clients that he can protect them.
His I-hide-my-eyes-behind-sunglasses-and-I-probably-take-no-prisoners gaze is likely enough.
But then there are his references.
Former Presidents Reagan, Ford and the Bush’s, for example, whom LaSorsa protected during his 20-year career with the U.S. Secret Service, three of them on the elite Presidential Detail.
If LaSorsa, 50, could protect the likes of them, he reasoned, then the less prominent but more wealthy clientele he hoped to cultivate would believe he could protect them, too, and buy what he wanted to sell – safe rooms, fortress-like refuges supplied with food, water, electricity and communications that can cost upward of $100,000, into which residents of a home under attack by robbers, kidnappers or other bad guys can retreat while summoning help.
LaSorsa teamed up initially with Donald O’Neill, who operated the Orca Fund, a hedge fund based in Fort Lauderdale, but backed quickly away after becoming suspicious that all might be on the up-and-up. His instincts proved sound when O’Neill was indicted on multiple counts of mail and wire fraud and money laundering.
The former agent, who has 29 years in the security industry altogether, quickly regrouped, took out a home equity loan and in May 2002 opened J.A. LaSorsa & Associates in an office around the back of a two-story professional building on a nondescript stretch of Federal Highway in Pompano Beach.
“I believe South Florida has a tremendous market of those individuals who have a need for a high-end security consultant,” said LaSorsa, who cuts an imposing figure at 5 feet, 11 inches and 210 pounds. “The number of super wealthy snowbirds is incredible.”
A top South Florida security consultant agreed.
“If he has knowledge that sets him aside from other people and he can develop a good following of individuals who are in need of that kind of protection, I think he will be very successful,” said former Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro, now head of Fort Lauderdale-based Navarro Security.
“The product he’s selling is himself. If he can market himself, it will be a good thing for him,” Navarro said, remarking that a security company founded two decades ago in Virginia by former presidential guard Chuck Vance sold last year for a reported $67 million.
It’s not LaSorsa’s first try at going solo.
His first shot came in 1998, two years after he retired from the Secret Service, when he opened a security consultancy in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he then lived with his wife and three sons. But there wasn’t a lot of demand for what he had to offer, even in a place where well-heeled socialites descend for the summer horse racing and concert season.
The family relocated to South Florida the following year. After stints directing security at two local corporations, he decided to try again. This, despite the fact that the region is already home to about than 900 private investigation agencies and 3,600 licensed private investigators, according to state records.
After nearly two years, things are going pretty well, LaSorsa said, and getting better. Last fall, with some $60,000 invested, he was netting between $4,000 and $5,000 monthly from fees ranging between $75 and $150 an hour plus expenses. That covered the nut and has allowed him to start drawing a salary.
More recently things have gone even better. He now projects a 2004 net between $75,000 and $100,000.
Still, not everything has worked out as planned.
Demand for safe rooms was low despite heightened security concerns in the aftermath of Sept. 11. LaSorsa believes that’s in part because nothing’s happened in South Florida to make those at risk believe they need security and in part because the faltering economy makes even people with money reluctant to spend what they have, especially given that 24/7 security on just one person can cost upwards of $1 million annually.
“The 9-11 attack placed a lot of focus on home and personal security. But not a lot of people building rooms,” he said, seated at a desk surrounded by memorabilia from presidential trips – the 1985 Summit of Industrialized Nations in Geneva, the London Economic Conference in 1991 and the bus tour Bill Clinton took after snagging the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. “People with big money are being very judicious. I think it’s a mistake, because they’re still very wealthy. They are public figures in one way or another and need to be concerned about their security and their family’s security.”
But with flexibility born of long training to deal with the unexpected, LaSorsa adjusted his business plan mid-course. Safe room design and construction remain among LaSorsa’s services, but he’s added a menu of other offerings, including vulnerability assessments; residential, yacht and business security systems; bodyguard protection at home and while traveling; confidential investigations; and executive protection training seminars.
LaSorsa’s clients appear to be satisfied.
Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney Gary Lazarus represents a teenage girl raped by a group of men who detailed autos at a Central Florida dealership in a suit charging the dealership and the men’s employer with negligence. He hired LaSorsa to analyze security at the crime site.
“I was impressed by his pedigree, specifically that he was on the personal security detail for President Reagan,” said Lazarus, adding that LaSorsa was able to find witnesses other investigators couldn’t and that he now uses the former agent regularly. “He’s an expert witness who can testify as to the foreseeability of a crime at a particular location.”
LaSorsa said that other clients – he keeps their names confidential for obvious reasons – have retained him to develop corporate security plans, guard executive offices after potentially disruptive personnel moves, investigate potentially bogus workers’ compensation claims, find embezzlers and convince them to return the money they stole and even to design the occasional safe room – three in South Florida and one in upstate New York.
And he’s promoting a solar-powered wireless security system that can be quickly installed to protect the perimeter of an estate or a docked yacht.
Promoting yacht security, of course, means attracting the kind of clients who own yachts and it’s to them that LaSorsa aims his marketing. He’s taken ads in magazines that cover life’s finer things for those who can afford them, including the DuPont Registry, Robb Report and Ocean Drive . And he’s sent direct mail pieces to every attorney in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
He’s even designed some security rooms, four modest installations in South Florida and one high-end under construction in upstate New York .
But LaSorsa is only beginning to capture that elusive high-end clientele he mapped his business plan to pursue.
He’s off this week to conduct three executive protection seminars in Australia that developed after a Melbourne man attended one of LaSorsa’s seminars here.
He’ll then spend a week at an undisclosed destination providing security for a vacationing international business consultant from Palm Beach County and his family.
“I’m not doing too much close-in security,” LaSorsa said. “I’m beginning to think that many people in this area still think that they’re not vulnerable.”
LaSorsa is convinced that’s flat-out wrong.
“The wealthier you are the more of a target you are,” he said, predicting that world crackdowns on terrorist finances may spark the kind of kidnappings-for-ransom South American rebel groups use to fund their activities. “It’s not only going to be international terrorism coming to the shores of the U.S. I see the foreign kidnapping plague becoming a U.S. plague.”
Neil Reisner can be reached at nreisner@floridabiz.com or at (305) 347-6611.
By RICK KARLIN , Staff writer
First published: Thursday, April 22, 1999
Schools weigh safety efforts
Although crisis tactics are taught, some doubt the possibility of preventing a Colorado-type shooting.
Go to a typical Capital Region high school and you’ll likely see administrators with cell phones in their pockets and crisis management guides on their bookshelves.
Like school officials throughout the nation, educators here have been on edge since last year’s spate of massacres. There have been “armed intruder drills” and workshops on how to spot potential mass killers and avert tragedies. Some schools have secret code words given to teachers in the event of a “lockdown,” when students are to be kept in their classrooms.
“We are all very frightened about guns, and if we hear things, we are pretty much on top of that,” said Kathryn Martin, a social worker with the Capital Region BOCES, who helps offer safety and anti-violence training. But all the drills and caution in the world can’t really prepare people for the kind of tragedy that took place Tuesday in Littleton , Colo. , when two youths tore through Columbine High School on a shooting and bombing spree that left 15 dead, including the killers.
The incident marked the eighth time since October 1997 that U.S. youths had taken up arms against classmates and teachers.
If Tuesday’s killings carried one lesson, local educators say, it’s that schools should never, ever, assume that “it can’t happen here.” “We try to prepare, but there is no way you can really prepare for these tragedies,” Martin said.
“There is no way of getting away from these things. These are social issues that pervade the entire country,” said Blaise Salerno, superintendent of the Guilderland school district.
Moreover, despite the heightened vigilance that has taken hold during the last year, security experts and psychologists alike are wondering if schools are doing all they can to prevent similar catastrophes in the future.
“We’re too complacent, as a society, as a whole,” said Joe La Sorsa, a security consultant and former Secret Service agent in Saratoga County . La Sorsa last winter met with a group of school superintendents in the Glens Falls area to discuss security measures they could take beyond the basics, such as hall monitors and video cameras.
Among his suggestions: Pay close attention to behavior patterns by kids that could signal potential violence, such as killing animals, constant talk of racial hatred or wearing military garb.
The school officials, La Sorsa recalled, seemed concerned, but they explained that taking such measures can spark lawsuits and other administrative problems. Many of the educators complained that their hands were tied by rules and procedures designed to protect the rights of students.
“If they ask too many questions, it’s opening up a Pandora’s box,” La Sorsa said.
The fact is, spotting potential mass killers simply isn’t the top priority at most school districts, said Theodore Feinberg, North Colonie ‘s senior school psychologist, who chairs an emergency assistance team of experts who help people deal with mass tragedies.
Gov. George Pataki has started a school violence task force, and there have been numerous calls from teachers unions and others for tougher laws on school discipline. Mayor Jerry Jennings on Wednesday announced the establishment of an Albany Fund for Safe Schools/Safe Communities, which will initially be used to help Littleton in some way, though Jennings said he hopes it will be an continuing resource to support youth violence prevention programs in schools, community centers and day care centers throughout the Capital Region.
But paying close attention to all of the students, all of the time, in a given school is a tall order. Nor are schools the only place where such problems need to be addressed.
“It’s not just a school problem,” said Dave Ernst, spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association. “It’s a community problem, it’s a family problem and it’s a law enforcement problem.”
“There is no safety zone,” added Feinberg.
Contributions to the Albany Fund for Safe Schools/Safe Communities can be sent to Key Bank at 60 State Street , Albany 12207, or deposited at any Key Bank branch.
Copyright 1999, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y. The information you receive online from Times Union is protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The copyright laws prohibit any copying, redistributing, retransmitting, or repurposing of any copyright-protected material.
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