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 "restitution" ...
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MOMA's Problematic Provenances
In January 2010, the heirs of the German artist George Grosz lost a lawsuit against the Musuem of Modern Art. Their claim for three paintings was rejected on the grounds that the statue of limitations had run out before the suit was filed. But many observers experienced in the field of Holocaust-era art restitution believed that if the judge had considered the facts instead of ruling on a technicality, the verdict would have been different.
Tags: Art; George Grosz
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Crime Doesn't Pay (Back)
A look into court-ordered restitution in Texas reveals that in the last five years, more than 90 percent of parolees still owe their victims money. In fact, only 5.3 percent of the $435 million in restitution that Texas parolees were ordered to pay in those five years has ever been collected. The state does nothing to attempt to collect the money from these people once they are discharged from the system.
Tags: Restitution payments; court-ordered restitution; Texas; parolees; Texas Public Information Act; City of Houston
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Restitution System Flawed
"People convicted of crimes often are fined and told to pay back their victims. But in York County, Pa. the system doesn't work. Victims, the court systems and local government are owed millions of dollars by those who haven't paid, can't pay or won't pay.
Tags: court; restitution; fines; court cost;
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Restitution: Broken Promises
This story looks at Germany's promises to restore art that was lost, confiscated, or sold under Nazi Germany during World War II. The investigation uncovers the flaws of Germany's federal restitution policy due to its highly decentralized structure and unstable public authority.
Tags: World War II; Germany; Nazi; federal restitution policy; museums
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Austria: Justice Delayed
This story looks at how art work stolen from Jews during the Holocaust are still hanging in Austrian museums. The museums working certain loopholes in the Austrian law system are not being forced to return these works to their rightful owners.
Tags: art; art museum; art restoration; art restitution laws; Austrian art; Holocaust
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Haysville School Superintendent
A KWCH-TV investigation reveals that a local superintendent embezzled thousands of dollars, paying for personal expenses with the school district credit card. While teachers suffered on a tight budget, Dr. Lynn Stevens spent taxpayers' money on expensive dinners, electronics, clothes and perfumes. This went on for years until a high-school student, running for the school board, looked into his spending and tipped the TV station about the embezzlement. Stevens pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service and restitution payments.
Tags: embezzlement; fraud; parents; students; community; education; teachers; casinos; credit card receipts
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Consumers: State Refund claims bogus; Attorney general consumer watchdog inflated claims by $2.5 million
An investigation by the Cleveland Plain Dealer reveals that Ohio's attorney general inflated her restitution figures "by at least $2.5 million." The newspaper's investigation "showed how not just that her office puffed its numbers but how: It took credit for refunds secured by other agencies, included refund offers from companies that consumers never accepted, inflated the dollar value of refunds and counted refunds that companies promised but never delivered."
Tags: Ohio; attorney general; consumers; refunds; local government; agencies
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Who Owns the Lubomirski Durers?
ARTworks follows through the centuries the path of Lubomirski Durers, a group of great drawings worth millions of dollars. The paintings were placed in a Polish museum in 1823 by Prince Henryk Lubomirski, later seized by the Soviets, exposed in a Ukrainian library, and finally looted by the Nazis. The art pieces were discovered by U.S. troops and secretly turned over to the grandson of Prince Lubomirski by order of the State department, the story reveals. Now both the Polish museum and the Ukrainian library demand the return, but American high-level diplomats and ten museums in the U.S.A. Canada and Europe have made a decision to reject the claims. "Experts say [this] is the most complicated of all war-loot restitution cases," the magazine reports.
Tags: National Archives; Monuments; Fine Arts & Archives (MFA&A); Central Collecting Point (CCP) Munich; property; National Gallery of ART; Ossolinski National Institute in Lemberg (Lviv; Lvov); CAR
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The Master Swindler of Yugoslavia
ARTnews reports on artworks looted from Holocaust victims by the Nazis. Many of the pieces ended up in Yugoslavia, after a "Yugoslav art thief forger and probable spy Ante Topic Mimara ... tricked American art restitution officers into turning over 166 artworks to him in 1949 by falsely claiming that the Nazis had stolen them from Yugoslavia." The duped Americans later searched for the artworks, never found them and covered up the incident, the story reveals. ARTnews has located some the pieces in museums in Serbia and Croatia. The investigation includes photographs of the artworks.
Tags: Nazis; artworks; Soviet Union; National Gallery of Art; Milosevic regime; World War II; Belgrade; Zagreb; paintings
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Twice Taken
The WTHR investigation "found that offenders are getting away without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to their victims because of the county’s failure to enforce the orders. ... We made a surprising discovery: The courts were often writing off the restitution orders with the stroke of a pen, issuing civil judgments against the offenders. While that sounds good in theory, it leaves the onus of collecting on the victims themselves."
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT victim restitution; prisoners; offenders