The man, Bill Mattox, who is assistant director of accounting for the Pulaski County School district, has taken his suspicions to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Mattox said that Starr's chief investigator, Hickman Ewing, told him the information and documents were intriguing but currently outside the scope of the investigation of wrongdoing in Arkansas.
"My friend, Hickman Ewing, has a copy of an awful lot of it. He was interested, but Hickman said he couldn't connect it to Whitewater, so it would be outside the scope. He suggested someone in the press might be interested in it," says Mattox.
Ewing wouldn't comment. But I've confirmed that Starr's investigators are taking Mattox's accusations seriously although any investigation is temporarily on hold.
Mattox recently contacted me and, if his suspicions are ultimately borne out, a number of Wall Street biggest investment firms could be pulled into the Arkansas mess.
Mattox says he doesn't hate President Clinton and has no ulterior motive other than fidiciary responsibility for coming forward. In fact, he says that if there is wrongdoing, it won't necessarily be linked to Clinton.
At the root of Mattox's suspicions are the greatly expanding investment fees that were paid by the two pension funds - the Teachers Retirement System and the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System. Those are just a pair of the retirement system statewide that collect assets for public employees and invest them.
Fees can run into the many millions of dollars. And investigators are concerned that brokerage firm might be getting a share of these burgeoning fees in exchange for campaign contributions.
"I think there is something amiss. They pass laws to keep politicians out of these funds and yet they kept millions and millions, maybe tens of millions, into Wall Street firms all over the country," Mattox says.
Mattox says the two retirement accounts that he has knowledge of have greatly increased the fees its pays to Wall Street advisers - all of which are outside the state - in disproportion to growth in the assets under management.
(John Crudele is a financial columnist with the New York Post. His mailing address is P.O. Box 610, Lincroft, N.J. 07738. Click here to send him e-mail).