Money Laundering: Drop Your Pants Here

Public records are used every day by journalists in the newsroom at The Tampa Tribune, however, one man stands above of the rest. Political Reporter William "Windy" March utilizes these records more than any other at the Tribune. They are the backbone of his reporting and that is no truer now than it was in 1996.

During this time, President Bill Clinton was raising soft money for the Democratic Party. While reading an article in the New York Times, March noticed something strange. One of the top 10 donors was a man named Mark Jimenez of Miami. March, a seasoned political reporter in Florida, had never heard of this man, so he decided to investigate this mystery donor. March searched public records on a site called sunbiz.org and found that Jimenez owned Future Tech, Inc., a corporation located in Miami. March then began research at the federal level on fec.gov, the Federal Election Commissions website. Here he found a list of employees at Future Tech who donated the maximum of $1,000 to Clinton's campaign. March researched these individuals further and found that none of them had given money to any other political campaign at any other time.

Something was definitely off here, so March auto tracked these individuals. After receiving a large compilation of public records about them, he found that many of the employees lived in cheap houses and condos in shady parts of Miami. He also found that they drove cheap, older model vehicles. This prompted March to make a trip to Miami himself.

Here he found the employees' small, cheap houses and took pictures of them. He also found that Future Tech was run out of a warehouse and not a large office building. He also found, through public records, that most of the employees who donated money either never voted or weren't registered to vote. March wrote an article on these findings and Jimenez was indicted for money laundering.

Public records were vital to March's extensive investigative work on Jimenez and the money laundering scheme. However, it's worth noting that without doing the leg work like traveling down to Miami and finding these records and homes, the story would not have been as compelling or convincing as it turned out to be. Although public records were a major help to March and his investigation, it was the dedication and hard work of March himself that helped put Jimenez and Future Tech out of business.