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 "prosecutor" ...
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Dark Markets
The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of financial markets in 2012 performed a rare and extraordinary service: It exposed evidence of hidden manipulation by corporate executives and professional traders that the markets’ official government watchdogs were utterly unaware of. Reflecting potential widespread harm to millions of ordinary investors, federal prosecutors and securities regulators raced to follow the Journal stories with major investigations. A team of reporters spent six months creating a database examining how more than 20,000 corporate executives traded their own companies’ stocks over the course of eight years. What the team found was disturbing: More than 1,000 executives had generated big profits, or avoided big losses, by trading their company stock in the days ahead of corporate news announcements that led to big moves in the shares. The Journal also exposed a regulatory loophole that had helped the executives take advantage of inside knowledge ahead of other investors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission all launched investigations the day the Journal article appeared.
Tags: Financial markets; corporate executives; stocks; Federal Bureau of Investigation
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I-Team: Highway Robbery
WCPO's investigative unit exposed widespread theft of traffic fines by court clerks in a local community notorious as a speed trap -- Arlington Heights, Ohio. Bigger than the thefts by a pair of court clerks was the government cover up that persisted for at least a decade. We obtained documents showing two successive police chiefs had warned the mayor and fiscal officer of Arlington Heights that a substantial amount of cash was missing as far back as 2002. Rather than heeding those warnings, the elected leaders of Arlington Heights marginalized both police chiefs, who eventually resigned. Our ongoing investigation has directly resulted in: · Multiple felony indictments against two government employees for theft in office. · Passage and subsequent repeal of an illegal ban on television cameras in public council meetings. · The complete and permanent shut-down of the speed trap on I-75 through Arlington Heights, Ohio. · A call from the county prosecutor for the village to be dissolved and annexed into a neighboring city. · Committee passage of Ohio House Bill 523, eliminating mayors' courts in communities with fewer than 1,000 residents. · The adoption of a new public records policy for the Village of Arlington Heights, conforming with Ohio public records and open meetings laws. Chief Investigative Reporter Brendan Keefe successfully fought against a wall of resistance to obtain public documents and gain access to illegally-closed council meetings.
Tags: Theft; traffic fines; police chiefs; mayor; fiscal officer;
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Broken Justice in Phillips County
A five-part series preceded by an initial investigation into dysfunction in the criminal justice system in an Arkansas Delta county known for corruption and poverty. The year-long investigation uncovered errors and archaic practices in the handling of fugitive warrants and speedy trials that allowed felony suspects to remain free for years without fear of answering to the charges against them. As a result, prosecutors had to drop hundreds of cases for failure to take them to trial in a timely manner. Since publication, the Phillips County sheriff has made changes in how his office handles failure-to-appear warrants, and court officials have reduced case backlogs. Nevertheless, problems persist.
Tags: Criminal justice system; corruption; poverty; fugitive warrants
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Bronx Prosecutors Drop Staggering Loads of Cases
A nine-month investigation by WNYC’s Ailsa Chang revealed that people accused of crimes in the Bronx have a greater chance of walking away without charges than anywhere else in New York City. Chang’s two-part series shows that the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office declines to prosecute thousands more cases than do the four other District Attorney offices. And the main reason is a troubling internal policy that no other prosecutors’ office in the city follows: In the Bronx, a case is dropped if a victim doesn’t cooperate within the first 24 hours after an arrest. Bronx prosecutors declined almost one quarter of all their cases in 2011. That’s nearly four times the average rate Manhattan and Brooklyn prosecutors declined cases.
Tags: Crimes; charges; prosecutors; declined cases; victim cooperation
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Many Bullets, Little Blame
This two-day series uncovered a significant, serious and growing problem in Kansas City: Police routinuely shut down investigations into nonfatal shootings because victims wouldn't talk or detectives had trouble finding them again. Reporter Christine Vendel spent months studying a year's worth of shooting reports, knocking on victims' doors, and interviewing police, experts and others. Her series revealed that 60 percent of the 2011 cases had been shut down, even in instances where other witnesses existed. Meanwhile, charges were filed in only 10 percent of cases, leaving nearly all shooters free to threaten, maim and possibly new victims. The second day of the series drew comparisions to domestic violence issues of 20 years ago, when those victims faced similar problems. Police, prosecutors, lawmakers and others worked on solutions back then -- but no one was working today to help shooting victims. Vendel's series changed that.
Tags: Police; shootings; victims; detectives; prosecutors
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Spa shooter sidestepped police
Following a mass shooting inside a suburban Milwaukee spa, reporters John Diedrich and Gina Barton dug into the history of shooter Radcliffe Haughton with police in his community of Brown Deer. They uncovered a series of failures by police that left a dangerous man on the street, emboldening him to become more violent. Let down by police, Zina Haughton sought protection with a restraining order. She was dead days after it was issued. Diedrich and Barton found Brown Deer did not follow the state’s mandatory arrest law in such cases and failed to uphold its most basic duty: protecting the public. The most remarkable finding was that Brown Deer police actually retreated from a standoff with Haughton even though officers had saw him point what appeared to be a rifle at his wife. The police chief was defiant. Elected officials in Brown Deer deferred to the chief, who operates with little oversight in the village, the reporters found. The case revealed a loophole in state’s domestic violence laws: No one could hold local police accountable for failing to follow the law as designed by legislators. Data reporter Ben Poston joined the effort to examine how many domestic violence cases referred to prosecutors result in charges, thus holding other parts of the criminal justice system accountable.
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RGJ: ATF/US Attorney Rift
A months-long Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that after Reno’s chief U.S. Attorney told local ATF agents that her office would not prosecute their cases until certain unnamed “issues” were resolved, most of the agents transferred to new jobs outside Nevada, leaving Reno vulnerable to gun violence. The investigation found that the federal prosecutors dismissed or refused more than a dozen cases involving violent criminals. The RGJ probe also revealed that dozens of people who bought guns and later failed background checks were allowed to keep the guns because the rift emptied the Reno ATF office of the very agents who are tasked with retrieving those guns. The RGJ series led to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and an independent review of the dropped cases. It also sparked Congressional action.
Tags: Department of Justice; guns; gun violence
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Presidential Pardons: Shades of Mercy
The investigation exposed a system in which race, privledge and bureaucracy combine to frustrate justice. The story takes the reader inside the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney where a small group of career prosecutors choose whom the president will consider for a pardon.
Tags: Justice Department; prosectors; pardon
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Home Health Care Fraud
Exposing how the health care company Maxim Healthcare overbilled their patients, costing the U.S. taxpayers thousands of dollars. Through a whistleblower prosecutors were able to build a case against the firm, resulting in the largest home health care fraud fine ever.
Tags: health care; fraud; maxim health care; medicare; medicaid; whistleblower; fine; overbilling
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Criminalizing Cartoons
The investigation exposes a police chief's desperate attempt to acquire the name of an anonymous cartoonist, mocking his department on the Internet. A person going by the moniker MrFiddlesticks (and other names) was airing internal affairs dirty laundry in the form of parody. To find out who, the city prosecutor, police chief and a local judge teamed up to craft a criminal search warrant. KIRO-TV's investigative unit not only uncovered questionable legal tactics (like prosecutor shopping), but later caught police shredding hundreds of records related the case. First Amendment and FOIA issues are central to this ongoing investigation.
Tags: cartoonist; search warrant; shredding