Phone records investigated. Trash rummaged. Backgrounds and license plates checked. Meetings infiltrated. It sounds like an FBI investigation of the Mob.

In reality, those were among the tactics the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington used against a group of local Jewish activists who had organized to press for better care for their family members at the nursing home in the mid to late 1990s.

The Hebrew Home paid more than $54,000 from September 1997 through November 1999 to the now-defunct Maryland-based security firm Beckett Brown International, according to invoices addressed to Hebrew Home CEO Warren Slavin. The invoices were among dozens of documents provided to WJW by a former investor in the firm. The existence of the documents related to the Hebrew Home was first reported by The Washington Post.

The Hebrew Home said in a statement that the incident happened "long in the past" and that it hired the firm because it believed the group was a "danger" and officials needed "to ensure our continued ability to guarantee the safety and security of our residents and staff."

The former Beckett Brown investor, John Dodd III of Easton, Md., said he thought he was investing in a firm that provided security when it was founded in 1995, but was shocked when he began looking through Beckett Brown records and discovered numerous examples of corporate espionage. The company went out of business in 2000, and he has since been contacting people named in the documents to let them know what he found.

"I want all the victims to know they were victimized," he said.

In the Hebrew Home's case, the victims were members of a group called Advocates for Enhanced Long-Term Care, mostly relatives of then-residents or former residents of the home who thought that there were deficiencies in care at the facility.

According to the Beckett Brown documents, a mole was apparently present at AELTC meetings and filed detailed notes after each one documenting how many people were present, how long the meeting lasted and what was discussed. One meeting is described as a "war story and bitch session." Another report states that "frustration is growing among group members because they feel no one is listening or taking action with their concerns."

Repeatedly mentioned in the meeting notes is Ilene Henshaw of Falls Church, a member of AELTC whose father had been a resident of the facility.

Henshaw said she was in "complete shock" to hear someone had been spying on the group.

"It's appalling," she said, that a nonprofit facility would spend more than $50,000 investigating her advocacy group instead of looking into what she believed were "serious quality [of care] issues."

Ironically, she noted that that AELTC activists would have welcomed any Hebrew Home leader who wanted to attend their meetings publicly. "That's what we wanted," she said.

She also was quite upset that the home would "assume that we had any malicious intent. That was absolutely untrue."

Henshaw believes that the group's complaints were backed up in December 2004 when the Home was fined and restricted from admitting patients for two weeks after the state of Maryland found problems with the facility's quality of care. At that time, the home created an internal audit process and two new nursing positions to do quality control.

Potomac's Barbara Frumkin, who had been a member of the group after she became unhappy with her mother's treatment at the home, also said she was appalled by the revelations. "That $50,000 could have gone a long way toward hiring aides that were more qualified," she said.

Among the other documents is a list of long distance phone calls made in July and August 1997 from the home phone number of Carole Henkin Weiss of Potomac, a member of AELTC whose son was then living in the home.

Weiss said she wasn't that upset to hear that her phone calls were being investigated because "they weren't going to find anything out about me" that would have been damaging.

The documents also include a sheet of paper with "Hebrew Home" written at the top. It then lists "2 Targets," Marty Kamerow and Fred Hamburger, along with Hamburger's home address, and notes that neither has relatives at the home.

At the bottom of the sheet of paper is written "What H.H. wants" and below it "Hamburger's motive" and "Why Kamerow is now interested in AELTC." Also in the documents is a Mapquest map and directions from a Beckett Brown investigator's house to Kamerow's Rockville CPA office.

The documents also include work logs that cite "D-Line" surveys in Rockville and Potomac -- where Hamburger lived -- on behalf of the Hebrew Home. "D-Line," in the firm's terminology, meant "obtaining documents by any means possible," according to Dodd, including possible break-ins, crawling through dumpsters and obtaining access by any means necessary.

Contacted this week, Kamerow, who has taught tax preparation to Russian Jewish immigrants in the area for many years, said he had virtually no recollection of being involved with the group and could only remember making a phone call to Ron West, the home's president at the time, to ask him about the organization.

He said he would be "flabbergasted" if someone had looked through his trash, particularly because his firm did not shred its confidential documents at that time.

Hamburger died in 2005.

Also among the documents is a background check of Israel Rubin, one of the group's leaders who also has since died. It includes social security numbers, property and cars owned and other information.

A spokesperson for the Hebrew Home refused to answer questions about its relationship with Beckett Brown, other than to say that "story is very old."

The home did provide a statement, which was the same statement it provided to the Post. It states that in 1997, the facility "was confronted by a few individuals, some of whom had no immediate connection to the Home, who were expressing concerns about the Home. We became seriously alarmed about their tactics, which we believed posed a danger to our facility, residents and staff. These individuals were threatening staff, interfering with care, and putting the health and well-being of our elderly residents at risk."

The home would not provide specific details on any such incidents. Weiss acknowledged that the Hebrew Home filed charges against her for allegedly hitting a staffer with her son's wheelchair, but said she was acquitted.

The home's statement continues: "We sought advice from both our attorney and a public relations firm, and upon the recommendation of the public relations consultant, our legal counsel engaged a highly recommended security firm, Beckett Brown. We took this action to ensure our continued ability to guarantee the safety and security of our residents and staff.

"This is an incident long in the past, and long since positively resolved. We are not aware of anyone on behalf of Hebrew Home having approved or directed, nor would we condone, any unethical activity that may have been undertaken by Beckett Brown," adding that "we have not had a relationship with Beckett Brown for many years."