Dave and Bill Meet Kirk Torgensen, Chief Deputy Attorney General
Saturday, July 5th, 2008 
The CyberHood Watch partners had their cake, and eat it too…
Not only did we have the Chief Deputy Attorney General of Utah on the CHW radio show on Wednesday, but we also still get to have the Utah’s Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff on the show as soon as he is feeling better… How cool is that?
Kirk Torgensen, was appointed the Chief Deputy in January of 2001. He knew Mark Shurtleff before because he had hired him into the AG office years before. We both left the AG office for other endeavors but when he was elected AG in November of 2000 he asked me to come back to the office with him as a Chief.
Kirk was admitted into the Utah State Bar in August 1986, after graduating from the University of Utah Law School, he immediately joined the United States Air Force as a Judge Advocate and was stationed in Germany. During his tour in Germany he focused primarily on criminal prosecution and criminal defense work. This included over forty jury trials in venues located throughout Europe. After leaving the Air Force in 1990, he joined the Utah State Attorney General ’s Office in the Criminal Appeals Division. After eight months in this position he was promoted to Section Chief over the Civil Rights section. He served four years in that capacity, and then was selected from among eleven applicants to develop and supervise the first money laundering and racketeering unit in the State of Utah. During that same period, he also tried two death penalty cases resulting in convictions.
In 1998, he was appointed by Governor Michael O. Leavitt to be the Director of the Adult Probation and Parole, where Kirk was responsible for supervision of 500+ employees and a budget of over 35 million dollars. The agency was responsible for supervision of over 15,000 offenders in Utah. In January 2001, Kirk was appointed by newly elected Attorney General of Utah to be the Chief Deputy of the Utah Attorney General ’s Office.
Kirk Torgensen has been honored in that capacity for various achievements, including a recent award as the outstanding contributor to Law Enforcement in Utah by the Utah Police Chief’s Association. Kirk’s also been awarded the Nelson Kempsky Award by the Conference of Western Attorneys General as Outstanding Leader and Manager of the Year for 2005-06.
Kirk Torgensen has a long-standing commitment to quality training for Utah peace officers, and have appeared regularly over the last 16 years as an instructor for POST, UNOA and Utah Prosecution Council. Kirk’s also an adjunct professor for both Weber State University and the University of Utah, where he will teach Constitutional Law and Criminal Justice classes.
What a very special day for Dave and I, we have been working very hard for months to get great guests to help all of our listeners with the daily problems and situations on and offline!!! One of the biggest things that we learned from Kirk is ID Theft is a bigger offline problem, than online…
In-fact Chief Deputy Torgensen says that our MAIL is the easiest and quickest way identity thieves work…
#1 Tip - SHRED IT that means everything… nothing thrown away with your name on it that has not been properly crosscut and shredded!!!
Kirk shared so many great ideas, advice thoughts on Identity Theft that I couldn’t explain them all so please listen to the interview as you will be so amazed at how many golden nuggets of information there are in just 60 minutes… yes one full hour with one of our top state leaders teaching us about the mindset of today cybercriminals… and how to prevent ID Theft, and how to AVOID the pitfalls of assuming that it only happens to everyone else and not you!!!
and if you want a very detailed list of what Kirk shared with the listeners go check out what David had to say on the BTR Blog…
Kirk also suggested that Managed PC Care is a great way to protect your home computers and your personal ID’s but you still need to follow his Tips and Be Proactive! Please go and visit the IRIS website to find out what Kirk and the state recommends for people in Utah, and also anyone who has been a victim of ID Theft! and why you should use the Identity Theft Reporting Information System.
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