Essentials of Forensic Accounting

Michael A. Crain, DBA, CPA/ABV, ASA, CFA, CFE, is a principal of The Financial Valuation Group of Ft. Lauderdale, Inc. He earned a doctor of business administration (finance) from the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester in England. He has been a licensed CPA in Florida since 1984 and holds several certifications in valuation, fraud examination, and financial analysis. He is certified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from the CFA Institute, Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) from the AICPA, Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in business valuation from the American Society of Appraisers, and CFE from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He has also received several awards, including the AICPA’s Lawler Award presented by the Journal of Accountancy for best article of the year, and was inducted into the AICPA’s Business Valuation Hall of Fame.

William S. Hopwood, Ph.D., is a professor of accounting at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Florida and has worked extensively with curriculum development in the FAU Master of Accounting—Forensic Concentration Program. He is also a coauthor of widely used textbooks in the areas of Forensic Accounting and Accounting Information Systems as well as an AICPA study guide for the CFF Exam.

Carl Pacini, Ph.D., JD, CPA/CFF, is an associate professor of accounting at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP), where he teaches auditing and forensic accounting courses. He also teaches advanced fraud investigation and forensic accounting legal issues as an adjunct professor in the Master of Accounting (forensic concentration) program at Florida Atlantic University. He received his Ph.D. in accounting from Florida State University and his law degree from the University of Notre Dame. He is a licensed CPA, a Certified Financial Services Auditor, Certified in Financial Forensics, and a member of the Florida Bar. He has published over 75 articles in various academic and practitioner journals. He also serves as a reviewer and member of the editorial board for several journals including Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting, Journal of Business Ethics, American Business Law Journal, Journal of Forensic Studies in Accounting and Business, and the Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting.

George R. Young, Ph.D., CPA, CFE, is an associate professor of accounting at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). He is a CPA and practiced public accounting for nine years before entering academia. He earned his doctorate from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master of Accounting degree (tax concentration) from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Since 2003, he has been academic director of the forensic concentration in the Master of Accounting program at FAU. He was a member of the Technical Working Task Group (sponsored by a National Institute of Justice grant) that developed a model educational curriculum for fraud examination and forensic accounting. He is a coauthor of Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination (McGraw-Hill, 2e) and a chair emeritus of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Higher Education Advisory Committee.