Dean Kharasch

Dean Kharasch has been an investigator with the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office since 2001. Between 2001 and 2006, Dean was the State’s Attorney’s Drug Prosecutions Investigator and then moved into the Cyber Crimes Division in 2007. Prior to working for the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office, Dean was a police officer with the North Chicago Police Department starting in 1995.

During his time at the North Chicago Police Department, Dean was assigned to the Detective Bureau, where he remained for more than three years before being hired by the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office. While at the North Chicago Police Department, Dean was a member of a specialized drug enforcement shift where the team made hundreds of drug related arrests that were successfully prosecuted. As a detective at the North Chicago Police Department, Dean was involved in many undercover operations and participated in the Lake County Gang Task Force. Dean worked as lead detective on numerous cases. In these cases, he conducted interviews and interrogations and worked closely with and assisted the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office through the trial process.

Between 2007 and the present, Dean has expanded and increased the role of the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office Cyber Division. The Cyber Division has become the major forensic support site for over 35 police departments in a county of over 750,000 residents. Dean has worked with and provided forensic support to the FBI, the DEA and the Department of Homeland Security.

Dean has handled thousands of criminal cases involving digital evidence. He has assisted all Lake County police departments in cases involving homicides, drug investigations, crimes against children, child pornography and white collar crimes. Dean’s role in the majority of these cases has been to interview witnesses and offenders and conduct forensic examinations at the scene. Dean has testified in hundreds of trials and has been qualified as an expert in the field of digital forensics. He has specifically been qualified as an expert witness in computer and cell phone forensics in homicide, terrorist threat, corruption, child pornography and solicitation of children trials. As the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office Cyber Crimes Division investigator, Dean assists the Lake County Child Advocacy Center on any cases involving children where digital evidence is involved in the crime.

For the last seven years, Dean has continuously presented Internet safety talks to adult and children’s organizations throughout the Lake County area and around the State of Illinois. As an instructor with Wicklander‐Zulawski & Associates, Inc., he provides specialized training to law enforcement on the latest topics and developments related to digital technology and handling digital evidence at crime scenes.