Our Lead Investigator
Meet Our Lead Investigative Partner
Funds raised by NILJ are used to contract investigative services, oversight, and case management led by Detective Mark Pucci.
To learn more about our board of directors and advisory council, click here.
Mark Pucci
Mark Pucci, Co-Founder and Board President of NILJ, is a highly decorated, retired NYPD Detective. Mark's investigative experience while working for the New York City Police Department encompassed all facets of law enforcement from Vice, Narcotics, Illegal Firearms, Gangs, and other violent crime related investigations, to Special Operations Division, city-wide major-crime pattern identification, and the apprehension of many of the city's most wanted criminals. Mark's extensive undercover, observational surveillance and covert, special operations training and experience during his tenure as a Detective with the NYPD is considered by many to be unparalleled in the private sector. Since Mark's retirement from the NYPD and re-entry into private sector investigations, Mark has worked with several large scale National & International Investigative Firms in the capacity of, Chief Investigator, Executive Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer and as a National / International Investigative Consultant.
During his 30+ year career in the public & private sector, Mark has successfully investigated and supervised the completion of thousands of cases in a wide array of investigative practices, (many of which have garnered "national and international" media coverage and attention), encompassing, civil / criminal law, accidental / wrongful deaths, homicides, missing persons, child abductions, cold cases, white collar, corporate, and cyber-crimes, and a passionate personal specialty in "Adoption-Adoptee Location" (birth-parents/children/siblings); and the "identification, location and reunification", of those who desire to be reunited. Throughout these years, Mark had become overwhelmed with the realization that in spite of the substantial number of victims, victims’ families and loved ones who he had been able to help in their quest for answers, justice and closure (pro-bono in many cases), a far greater, seemingly ever-increasing number of other families remained largely underserved and unrepresented. The majority of these families were unable to afford any form of additional investigative services to continue the search for answers once the public sector investigations had been closed for any multitude of reasons.
With this in mind, Mark and his co-founder, Kiersten Hathcock, founded, “The National Institute for Law and Justice” (NILJ), a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. NILJ brings together a national network of current and retired federal, state & local law enforcement professionals, private sector investigators, forensic specialists, crime scene, ballistics, ground, air, canine search teams, dive teams, former state, federal prosecutors, financial crime analysts / retired special forces trackers, and non-traditional investigative specialists (mediums), who all work in coordination to help victim’s families to find answers, at NO COST for their investigative services.