FOIAengine Tracks Three Private Eyes on the Trail of Short-Seller Culper Research
Brian Willingham is a licensed private investigator in New York, ID# 1000149418. He runs an investigative agency called Diligentia Group. The company’s motto is “We Find Evidence That Normal People Can’t.”
Molly Donaldson also is a licensed private investigator in New York, ID# 11000185885, as well as in Minnesota, ID# PDC 2382. She runs a Wall Street-based investigative agency called Waverly Research. Waverly’s tagline: “Tailored Solutions for Intelligent Investigations.”
Krystal Ramirez is a licensed private detective in Washington, D.C., ID# PD40000089, one of seven detectives at D.C.’s Greenberg Corporate Intelligence. Ramirez has been there for two years. Before that, she did opposition research for the Democratic National Committee. On its website, Greenberg says it offers “investigative research you can trust.” Its clients are attorneys, private equity firms, hedge funds, and compliance teams.
Apart from sharing a furtive line of work, all three detectives have something else in common: They are using the federal Freedom of Information Act to conduct counter-surveillance on behalf of anonymous clients.
The use of FOIA proxy requesters is common and well known. We first bumped into the above three investigators a few weeks ago, while researching our story about the activist short-seller Christian Lamarco; his firm, Culper Research; and the mysterious “Jeff Bourland.” (See “Some Research Into Short-Seller Culper Research.”)
All three detectives have had their eyes on Lamarco. This week, we’re taking a closer look at some of the requests filed by those three private investigators who are acting as proxies for parties who, it’s safe to assume, don’t want their identities revealed.
Short sellers like Lamarco are reviled by the companies they target. An activist short seller borrows a company’s stock, sells it, and then publicly challenges the company’s business practices, financial reporting, or management, often alleging fraud or overvaluation. The goal is to expose alleged misconduct or fundamental weaknesses, prompting a big drop in the stock price. The short-seller then covers the short, profiting from the decline.
Sometimes, the targets fight back with lawsuits. Lawyers for companies considering going on the offensive might hire an investigator first, to see what else the short seller might know. That is what appeared to happen in Lamarco’s case.
The three detectives started poking around, using FOIA to see what they could find out about prior FOIA requests made by short-seller Lamarco, his various corporate entities, and a FOIA requester (likely Lamarco) who was making FOIA requests using the pseudonym “Jeff Bourland” in order to keep his identity a secret.
FOIA logs maintained by federal departments and agencies vary in format and completeness, but they all share the attributes of being brief and cryptic. Some agencies identify the requester and an affiliation; others provide one or the other, but not both. Fictitious names and affiliations cannot be ruled out. The use of proxy requesters may further disguise the true source of interest.
Usually an agency’s FOIA log includes a brief summary of each request. But if a requester seeks records that have previously been sought by someone else, the description might be nothing more than a reference number that, in itself, reveals nothing without further research. Such FOIA requests are opaque, appearing simply as a list of numeric identifiers that must be traced back further.
PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine, which tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows, facilitates this research by standardizing disparate data sets and allowing the logs of more than 40 agencies and departments to be searched simultaneously, across multiple years. Trends begin to stand out.
As we began research for our story on Lamarco and Culper Research last month, we turned to FOIAengine to see how FOIA was being used – not only by short-seller Lamarco but also by the proxies for those he was attacking.
The three private detectives with no apparent connection to one another were all on Lamarco’s trail, in what appeared to be a coordinated effort. According to FOIAengine, on the same day last December, the licensed investigators bombarded the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration with dozens of FOIA requests – all focused on Lamarco, as well as Lamarco’s FOIA alias, “Jeff Bourland”, and Shadyside Partners LLC, the corporate entity behind Culper Research.
The detectives’ FOIA requests coincided with Lamarco’s short-selling attack late last year on an internet ad-tech company called Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA). Lamarco claimed, in essence, that Zeta Global’s business model was built on fraud. (Zeta Global denies this.) The stock got crushed.
Here’s what each of the detectives wanted to know:
Brian Willingham, of Diligentia Group, submitted six FOIA requests on December 12 – five to the SEC and one to the FTC, followed by a seventh request, also to the FTC, that was logged on December 17. From the SEC, Willingham sought, among other things, “all documents and correspondence/communication pertaining to Jeff Bourland or Jeffrey Bourland, including any correspondence with email addresses with the email domains @culperresearch.com and @shadysidepartners.com.” In multiple requests, Willingham had the same basic question for the FTC. The following day, December 13, the FDA logged three more requests from Willingham, each seeking copies of any documents provided to Lamarco’s pseudonymous “Jeff Bourland.”
Investigator Molly Donaldson made seven FOIA requests, also on December 12 – three to the SEC and four to the FTC. Donaldson sought from the SEC “all correspondence/communications, investigations or enforcement actions pertaining to Shadyside Partners LLC (d/b/a Culper Research) or Christian Matthew Lamarco.” A same-day request to the FTC was nearly identical.
Several of Donaldson’s other requests from December 12 made clear that she had a particular interest in Lamarco’s targeting of web marketer Zeta Global. The report by Lamarco accused Zeta of using “consent farms” to deceptively gather consumer data through misleading tactics. He also accused Zeta of “round tripping” – artificially inflating ad clicks and impressions by repeatedly sending traffic back and forth between the same or similar web properties. Lamarco titled his report “Shams, Scams, and Spam.”
Detective Krystal Ramirez was also making FOIA requests about Lamarco on December 12, and was also focused on his attack on Zeta Global. She filed seven requests with the SEC and two more with the FTC on that day. Detective Ramirez mostly sought records, previously requested by others, about Culper Research. One request to the SEC was for “the unredacted SEC statement in response to Culper Research FOIA request.” Another request to the SEC sought “a letter clarifying the reason behind the specific [7(A) law-enforcement] denial given to Culper Research, referenced in the Culper Research FOIA request in the attached publication.”
One day after Detective Ramirez’ FOIA queries about Lamarco to the SEC and FTC, the FDA logged five requests from Ramirez’ detective bureau, Greenberg Corporate Intelligence. The requests referenced earlier FOIA requests from the pseudonymous “Jeff Bourland” – an alias presumably used by Lamarco to hide his identity, as we explained in last month’s story. (Lamarco didn’t respond to our questions about this.)
To anyone who thinks the life of a private eye is all cloak and dagger, one of the three investigators shadowing Lamarco offered a different perspective.
“Some investigators like to perpetuate the cloak-and-dagger image with their secret sources, inside intelligence and years of law enforcement experience,” investigator Willingham said on the Diligentia website.
“Ever since I started in this business more than 10 years ago, I have been fascinated by people’s perception of what private investigators do. It seems that years of television and movies have warped any true sense of what a private investigator really does. When I am first introduced to someone and tell them what I do for a living, I’m usually met with some oohs and aahs. Then I am asked if I do stakeouts on cheating spouses (I don’t), or if I could tell them how much money was in so-and-so’s bank account (I can’t … it’s illegal). Or they’ll tell me they think I know everything about them even though I’ve never met them before (I don’t, but I guess I could if I really needed to).”
Willingham’s approach explains where FOIA fits in. “There are no cloaks and daggers here. . . . Our approach is simple and transparent. We use open sources, public records and thoughtful and creative investigative techniques to get answers.”
To see all the requests mentioned in this article, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine user.
Next: The latest hedge fund requests to the SEC, FTC, and FDA.
FOIAengineis the only source for the most comprehensive, fully searchable archive of FOIA requests across over 40 federal departments and agencies. FOIAengine has more robust functionality and searching capabilities and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with. Learn more about FOIAengine here. Sign up here to become a trial user of FOIAengine.
PoliScio now offers everyone free daily FOIAengine Email Alerts when a new FOIA request matches one of your personal keywords. Sign up here to create your account and identify your keywords.
FOIAengine access now is available for all professional members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism. IRE is the world’s oldest and largest association of investigative journalists. PoliScio Analytics is proud to be partnering with IRE to provide this valuable content to investigative reporters worldwide.
John A. Jenkins, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington journalist and publisher whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and elsewhere. He is a four-time recipient of the American Bar Association’s Gavel Award Certificate of Merit for his legal reporting and analysis. His most recent book is The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist. His next book, Summer of ’71, about fateful events before Watergate, will be published in May 2026. Jenkins founded Law Street Media in 2013. Prior to that, he was President of CQ Press, the textbook and reference publishing enterprise of Congressional Quarterly. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a new venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Jenkins and Washington lawyer Randy Miller. Learn more about FOIAengine here. To review FOIA requests mentioned in this article, subscribe to FOIAengine.
Write to John A. Jenkins at [email protected].
