Could I Get Sued For Contacting an Offender's Family and Friends About a Crime

[ImagineThat]

My question involves defamation in the state of: Florida

A former employee stole almost $50,000 of my money, when confronted with the theft this person signed a confession, agreed to pay back the money, then promptly packed up and left the State.

In order to prosecute I need to know where this person has gone. If I were to write, or speak to, their known friends and/or associates, it is likely the reason for my wanting to locate the thief will come to light. It is likely that sharing such information will cause the felon 'emotional distress'. Nothing I would say would be untrue. I have irrefutable proof of the theft, but by making contact with these people, will I be putting myself in a position that the felon may sue me over?

[Mr. Knowitall]

Why do you need to know where the person went? The police can take a report even if he's on the run.

[KeyWestDan]

How do you think you are going to find that person? And to what end? It sounds like you want to locate the person to sue them. That seems rather pointless until the person is arrested and convicted, and in any case, there probably is no money to collect.

You don't say how the person stole that much money and I really don't care. But it sounds like you were pretty dumb and didn't have proper controls in place.

In any case, you need to get the DA/SA to issue a warrant for that person's arrest and it will be put into NCIC. Nobody is going to go out and look for that person, but sooner or later they will have contact with the police and their name will be run resulting in their arrest.

There is no defamation liability here. That is absurd.

[ImagineThat]

My experience with local law enforcement is if you don't make it easy for them to to do their job, it simply doesn't get done. I'd like to be able to tell them where this person has run to, and I'm sure that some of his close friends/family have to know where he is.