The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "financial records" ...
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Bales: Army suspect in Afghan shooting was liable in financial fraud
On the day that tips arose about a U.S. soldier who may have strafed two Afghan villages, I left the office for a flight to Tacoma. Within 48 hours of the soldier’s being identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, I and two colleagues broke the news that the emerging hagiography of Bales drafted by family and attorneys had more to it than the story of a soldier who enlisted at the ripe of 27 driven by outrage over the 2001 terrorist attacks—and then broken down by an unrelenting cycle of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Our story started with pure spidey senses: Bales’ s family and lawyer said he had left a stockbroker’s career to enlist, as they explained his call to serve. Yet he had not finished college and clearly had financial troubles, I had determined. And he was active in brokerage in the late 1990s in Florida I learned by checking assorted online records—which raised my suspicions about the quick-money penny stock trading that was commonplace then. Based on those instincts, while also doing the running daily story from Bales’ Army base in Washington state, I had checked some online brokerage records and enlisted Julie Tate to look at others and run through civil and criminal filings in Ohio (Bales’s home state and then nationally). Within an hour, I had found one suspicious record and Julie had found others and we were off on a 30-hour run of investigative reporting and boots on the ground interviews that yielded the breaking news of Bales’s more complicated—and less laudatory—past in the period just before he joined the Army. We located and I interviewed an elderly couple who had lost substantial savings in accounts managed by Bales and received copies of detailed financial records that corroborated their claims and showed Bales as the account manager. We also peeled back corporate records for a now-shuttered firm run by Bales and his brother with backing from a longtime friend and reached him to further flesh out the checkered professional history of the Staff Sgt. at the center of an explosive, fast-moving and intensely competitive story. The story demanded intense investigative reporting that netted notable results in far far less than 30 days of a breaking event.
Tags: U.S. soldier; Afghanistan; military draft; terrorist attacks; deployment
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Local officials are likely to profit from fracking in Southern Tier
Local government officials have been lobbying the state to the controversial oil and gas extraction process known as fracking. But when they spoke at public hearings and pushed in other forums, were they just representing their communities, or did they have more at stake? In a four-month investigation, SUNY New Paltz students reviewed thousands of public records in two states. The investigation found more than 30 locally elected officials who have been outspoken proponents for fracking. Public records and additional examinations identified about 20 percent of those with more than political philosophy at stake — the chance to gain personally and financially. To open government advocates such as Common Cause, these instances raise concerns about transparency and conflicts of interest among locally elected officials. About six months after publication, and after further moves by local officials to press the state to approve fracking, the state attorney general has launched inquiries into whether local officials have violated conflicts of interest.
Tags: Oil; gas; oil and gas extraction; fracking
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Barry Minkow 2.0
The LA Weekly found that Barry Minkow was duping investors for the second time, while the media looked the other way. Using thousands of pages of court documents, public companies' financial reports, and real estate records, the Weekly discovered a pattern of Minkow shortening stocks his Fraud Discovery Institute was about to issue critical reports on, sending the stocks plummeting.
Tags: Barry Minkow; fraud; extortion; libel; SEC
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Missing Oversight
These six stories cover financial problems surrounding one of of Glendale's most notable nonprofit organizations, New Horizons. The series started as an article on the long-delayed construction of a planned $4-million childcare center, but quickly grew into a much larger investigation of financial misrepresentations made by the nonprofit's founder and lax city oversight of federal funding. In addition to finding significant budget problems at the nonprofit, the stories revealed that city officials had repeatedly doled out limited federal funds at a time the nonprofit's own records showed they had little funding for the project.
Tags: nonprofit; NGO; federal funding; budget; New Horizons; Glendale; corruption; misrepresentation; finance; construction; childcare center
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Bosnia-Herzegovina Politicians' Assets
By law, Bosnian politicians are required to disclose their assets. When the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo explored financial records of individual politicians, small unreported private fortunes were uncovered. Corporate kickbacks from special interests were found as well.
Tags: Bosnia; Herzegovina; assets; politicians; disclosure; finances; officials; officeholders; private business;
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Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?
"Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown" explores lending practices of big banks leading up to the near collapse of the financial sector in 2007. Findings suggest large banks such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs bankrolled about 72 percent of the industry's risky subprime lending while executives reaped record bonuses and collected billions in federal bailout money.
Tags: banking; financial; meltdown; collapse; bailout; bonuses; subprime; lending; loans; banks;
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The Casino Kings
The state of South Dakota partners with thousands of bars and restaurants that offer video gambling. The state takes in more than $100 million each year from the games, but basic information about who owns and operates the establishments is hidden from public view by state law. Using liquor license records and business registrations, the newspaper built a backdoor database of owners, officers and financiers that took six months. The reporting revealed a consolidation of licenses by a handful of individuals and partnerships in the state's most lucrative markets.
Tags: video gambling; bars; public records; South Dakota; lottery; money; license
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The high price of Rutgers sports
For a decade, Rutgers Univeristy pushed hard to become a college football powerhouse. But a six-month investigation of Rutgers athletics -- including a new review of public records the university fought to keep confidential -- found big-time college football came at a greater price than the school disclosed and still refuses to fully document. The investigation found that Rutgers has hiked tuition, canceled classes and eliminated six other varsity sports while doubling its football spending budget; hid millions of sports expenses, including salaries and charter flights, from public view; rushed into a $102 million expansion of Rutgers Stadium to retain coach Greg Schiano and refused to reveal several other financial and fundraising efforts.
Tags: Rutgers University; college football; financial records; private universities; expense reports; stadiums
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Wright Did Not Account for $119,607
Schreiner analyzed Rep. Thomas Wright's campaign disclosures from 1992 to 2006 and compared it to the reports of donors' contribution. "That analysis revealed that Wright hadn't disclosed $119,607 that donors reported that they had sent him."
Tags: campaign finance; accounting; cross-auditing; money; financial records; donors; North Carolina; Blue Cross/Blue Shield; disclosure
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On Their Honor
This story reveals a problem within the federal court system. The system bars judges from hearing cases where they have a financial conflict, but leaves the decision to withdraw from the case up to individual judges. Consequently, this investigation found that Milwaukee County Circuit Court judges often make rulings in cases that involve corporations in which they have substantial economic interests.
Tags: Philip Meyer Award; justice system; judges; courts; ethics; federal government; county court system; public records; FOIA