Jack Whitman was allegedly a Eurasian rugs importer. However, in actuality, the rugs importing group was a cover for his true job as an unlicensed Arms Dealer from within the same area.
At some time in his life, he was indicted and did time in jail for mail fraud and stolen property.
In 2005, Jack Whitman was minding his own business in his office with a copier, when it had jammed. However, a SWAT team from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, under suspicions of his actual job, started to raid the office. Thinking fast, Jack Whitman burned every single file relating to his business before they could open up. However, he wasn't able to retrieve the file jammed in the copier before they burst in, so he was forced to keep it there. As the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau was not able to incriminate him for the illegal arms trade, the best they could incriminate him with was for tax evasion, and sentenced him to five months in Jail. At some time before his release on Wednesday, the copier ended up sold to Natalie Teeger at a Police auction, who got it set up just the day her headquarters was being developed. Whitman managed to trace it down to her due to it being a public event. He noticed a repairman about to open the copier's lock, so he rushed towards his car, brought up an AK Assault Rifle, and after killing a security guard on the roof, fired at the copier with the intention of wrecking the copier to prevent anyone from accessing it, as well as planting a fake sniper note claiming that either Natalie drop out of the race or he will kill her to keep the police off his trail. He did, however, make a mistake as he misspelled Natalie's last name (or rather, he copied it from the poster her daughter made, of which it was misspelled due to the "R" in the last name falling out) He later joined the Campaign group with the intention of trying to get into the copier, but as a result of his prior actions, he never got a chance due to the police being stationed constantly at the HQ. He later attempted to kill Monk after he became suspicious during a mock debate with a Chechnyan-made RGB-5 Grenade, an assassination attempt that Monk just barely managed to evade by both heroism and sheer dumb luck (Monk placed the grenade in the refrigerator, but briefly opened it back up again out of compulsion of placing it in the egg carton before closing it and running out, causing Stottlemeyer to irritably state to Monk that he plans to request to the mayor two things: one, that he give Monk a medal for his heroic efforts, and two, that the Mayor allow Stottlemeyer to take away the medal because of the dumb luck after learning this from Disher). Jack Whitman inadvertently exposed himself to Monk during the actual debate when he gave him a folded paper of a document he made: a document folded the exact same way as the fake sniper note. Monk also noticed that he hesitated before opening a door, which is usually done if they served time in Jail due to their usually having to wait until the Jail guards open the door for them, which indicated to Monk and Disher that he had been let out of jail recently. Their suspicions of his doing time were later confirmed by Stottlemeyer after reviewing his case file giving a list of times he's been sent to jail and for the crimes, and notes that some of the countries that he imported rugs from are the same countries that the AK and the Grenade came from. Monk eventually managed to figure out what was going on while attempting to vote. Stottlemeyer manages to bust Whitman just as he opens the copier, and explains after seeing this that he has a friend in the Bureau who was looking for the jammed paper.
Behind the scenes[]
Several of the weapons he had or intended to sell/buy are AKs, a Chechnyan RGB-5 Grenade, M4 Carbines (seen in a photograph on the incriminating client's list), Stinger Missiles, Rocket Propelled Grenades and various others.