How this is reported.

Overdrawn follows the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

This podcast is built on state and federal court filings, certified quarterly regulatory reports, county deed records, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, published news reports, insights and analysis from experts, and interviews with people directly connected to this story.

Overdrawn is investigative documentary journalism that examines the cost and consequence of crime. In season 1, my focus is the systems that were supposed to catch the crime and didn't.

Documents lead. Sources corroborate.

Every factual claim broadcast in this series traces back to a primary source: a court filing, a certified regulatory report, a recorded property instrument, a document released by a government agency, or an interview conducted on the record. Where somebody remembers something no document supports, the episode presents it as memory and says what the records do and do not show.

Numbers get checked against the page image.

Figures are confirmed visually against a scan of the document they came from. Machine-read text is used to locate a number and never to confirm one.

Nothing is fabricated or composited.

There are no composite characters in this series, no invented scenes, and no dialogue written to sound like something a person probably said. Where tape is re-voiced by a performer to protect a source's identity, the episode discloses it when it happens.

Contradictions go in.

Where a source and a document disagree, or two sources disagree with each other, the disagreement is reported. Where the reporting cannot establish something, the series says so, instead of arranging the material so a listener supplies the answer on its behalf.

Exculpatory information carries equal weight.

Information cutting against the apparent direction of a story is reported as prominently as information supporting it.

True but unexplained facts are kept away from serious allegations.

Adjacency implies connection. Material of this kind is held until it can be reported with the context that makes it mean something.

This is not a hypothetical. A set of verified, documented, accurate facts was cut from Season 1 on exactly this ground. They may appear later if a pending records request explains them. If it doesn't, they stay out.

Interviews are not scripted in advance.

Questions are not sent to sources beforehand. If a conversation is being recorded, it is recorded start to finish rather than paused and restarted around the parts a subject would rather not have on tape. Anyone who wants something kept out can say so on the record and have that honored.

No surprises.

Anyone whose conduct is described in a way that could damage them is contacted before broadcast, told specifically what the reporting says about them, and given a real chance to answer.

No gotcha.

Sources are told what this project is, where it will be published, and that the reporting continues whether or not they take part. Nobody in this series was recorded believing they were talking to someone else, or about something else.

Family members are not material.

The children and relatives of people convicted of crimes did not choose any of this. They are not named, characterized, or turned into narrative without a clear editorial necessity, and personal detail about their health or circumstances stays out even where it sits in a public court file that anybody could pull. Legal availability is a low bar. It is not the bar this project uses.

Where a privacy commitment has been made directly to a family member, that commitment binds, and it does not expire when the season does.

Deceased subjects are held to a stricter standard.

Several people central to Season 1 are dead. They cannot correct a record, decline to participate, or object to how they are characterized. Claims about them are held to a higher evidentiary bar than claims about the living, not a lower one because the risk of complaint has gone away.

Anonymity is granted narrowly, then protected completely.

Anonymity is offered only where a source faces real professional, legal, or personal exposure. It is not offered for convenience, and not to make a quote land harder.

Before broadcast, every identifying detail attached to an anonymous source is tested against the public records someone could use to triangulate them, including the government rosters that list who held the relevant positions in the relevant years. Voice, biographical specifics, and where in an episode a source appears are all adjustable in service of that. It functions as a gate. The episode does not go out until it passes.

Recording consent.

Every recorded interview is made with the knowledge and consent of everyone on the call. Where participants sit in different states, the strictest applicable law governs. Pennsylvania requires all parties to consent, so that is the standard applied to every call in this project, including calls a looser rule would have allowed.

Sponsors have no editorial role.

Here is what was told to all prospective sponsors: "Sponsors have no editorial input or approval over content. That independence is what gives the show credibility, and that credibility is what makes the sponsorship valuable. Your support is acknowledged clearly and gratefully, and the reporting remains mine."

Sponsors don't hold approval rights, and cannot cause material to be removed, softened, or added.

Nothing is paid for.

No source has been compensated for an interview, for documents, or for access, and no payment has been offered to anyone.

Prior relationships are disclosed on air.

Where I have a personal or professional history with somebody in a story, that history goes into the episode, early, in plain language, rather than surfacing later as something a listener finds out on their own.

Industry experience is a qualification and a conflict.

I've spent nearly thirty years working inside the credit union industry. That is the reason the records in these episodes can be read at all, because a quarterly call report is close to unreadable if you have never handled one. It also means I have relationships across the field that could bend coverage, which is why it is stated here rather than left in a bio. Trade groups, vendors, and industry organizations get no advance look at episodes and no ability to shape them.

Corrections are made, marked, and kept.

Errors are corrected as soon as they are confirmed. A correction will be noted in the episode description, listed on this page, and carried through to every project document the error touched.

The work is shown.

Where a document can be published without exposing a source or violating a court restriction, it is published. Episodes describe how a fact was established and not only what the fact is.

Artificial intelligence is a research tool and never a source.

AI tools are used in this project the way a search index or a transcription service is used: to find material inside large volumes of documents, to draft and organize working notes, and to transcribe recorded audio. Anything an AI system produces is an unverified lead. It is not a source, it is not citable, and nothing it generates reaches air without independent confirmation against a primary document.

No narration, dialogue, or interview audio in this series is synthetically generated. Where a performer reads a source's words to protect that source's identity, the episode says so at the moment it happens.

Editorial control.

Editorial control over this series rests with me. Sponsors have no authority over content, corrections, or the decision to publish.