EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

A Georgia woman has been accused of stealing from residents of the nursing home that she worked at.  Coastal Manor Long Term Care Facility said they conducted a comprehensive background check on the woman.  Nursing homes are required to conduct background checks in many states and apparently the problem of abuse in nursing homes is so prevalent that it has its own blog, Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog. The fact that this blog exists at all should convince any nursing home that is not currently conducting background checks the need to start ASAP!

Woman accused of stealing at nursing home

 LUDOWICI  — An employee of Coastal Manor Long Term Care Facility was arrested Friday and has been charged with stealing from the nursing home and several of its residents.
According to Ludowici Police Department Investigator Sal Genualdi, Demetria Denise Williams was arrested after Elise Stafford, the home’s chief long-term care officer, reported the center had information showing an employee had been stealing.
After gathering information from Stafford, Genualdi went to Coastal Manor and arrested Williams, 28, a military spouse who lives on Governor’s Boulevard in Hinesville. �
Genualdi said Williams was then taken to the LPD, where she was charged with theft by deception, theft by taking and exploitation of the elderly.
Genualdi said Williams has been charged with stealing more than $4,000 and that he anticipates as many as 25 more theft warrants.
Genualdi alleged Williams stole from residents by taking money for their families, but not depositing it into appropriate accounts.
Stafford said Williams also stole from the facility by taking payment of services not provided to residents.
“The majority of the money that was stolen was from payment for services,” Stafford said. “There was a minimal amount taken from the residents.”
She said she has reported the alleged crimes to state regulators and has asked for an independent auditor to look at the incident.
Genualdi said the initial charges all related to thefts from individuals, not from the home, which operates under auspices of Liberty Regional Medical Center in Hinesville.
Stafford said job applicants go through criminal back ground checks and that nothing was found on Williams to have prevented her from being hired.
“Our goal is to provide good quality care for our residents, and to protect them from any type of abuse,” Stafford said.
Genualdi said a $5,000 bond was set for Williams, but as of Thursday, she was still in the Wayne County Jail.

Continue Reading

According to a new study released by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, about 90% of US bills contain traces of cocaine.  Researchers have said that this could lead to false positive drug test results if the employee handles large quantities of money as part of their job.  It could also lead to claims that cash handling is the reason for a failed drug test.  Imagine Tony Montana coming into your office after failing a drug test, saying “I never used cocaine, it’s because I used to be a bank teller.”  How much cocaine do you have in your pocket?

90 percent of U.S. bills carry traces of cocaine

The term “dirty money” is for real. In the course of its average 20 months in circulation, U.S. currency gets whisked into ATMs, clutched, touched and traded perhaps thousands of times at coffee shops, convenience stores and newsstands. And every touch to every bill brings specks of dirt, food, germs or even drug residue.

Research presented this weekend reinforced previous findings that 90 percent of paper money circulating in U.S. cities contains traces of cocaine.

“When I was a young kid, my mom told me the dirtiest thing in the world is money,” said the researcher, Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “Mom is always right.”

Scientists say the amount of cocaine found on bills is not enough to cause health risks.

Money can be contaminated with cocaine during drug deals or if a user snorts with a bill. But not all bills are involved in drug use; they can get contaminated inside currency-counting machines at the bank.

“When the machine gets contaminated, it transfers the cocaine to the other bank notes,” Zuo said. These bills have fewer remnants of cocaine. Some of the dollars in his experiment had .006 micrograms, which is several thousands of times smaller than a single grain of sand.

(more)

Continue Reading

A Florida water park employee has been accused of molesting 3 girls.  That sentence is disturbing enough but what is even more disturbing is the fact that the employee was a Registered Sex Offender.  The company that hired the accused man ran a background check on him.  The background check was a search of the state sex offender database and local arrest history.  If the company had run a comprehensive background check, they would know that he had been convicted of sexual battery in 2003.  Who knows, maybe even a quick check of the iPhone sex offender locator would have prevented him from being hired.

Broward County investigating how sex offender got job at Deerfield park

More girls accuse Deerfield park attendant of molesting them

Continue Reading

While browsing through the App Store on my iPhone this weekend I realized that there really is an app for everything!  Currently in the #6 spot for all paid apps in the Apple App Store is Offender Locator.  This app allows users to view registered Sex Offenders living near their families.

The iPhone’s Latest Hit App: A Sex Offender Locator

Looking over the top 10 paid iPhone apps list today, the list appeared pretty typical: A bunch of games, a camera app, etc. Then I noticed one called Offender Locator [iTunes link], mostly because it has a creepy icon. I figured it was a game — it’s anything but. It’s an app to show you registered sex offenders living around you.

While all 50 states require that sexual offenders register themselves, and allow anyone to access the information online, most people never look at it. That’s why it’s surprising that this app is a top seller — especially considering that it’s not free (it’s $0.99). Certainly, it’s good to be aware of these people living around you — especially if they have committed acts against children, and you have children — but it’s interesting that it’s the iPhone that is making such information ???popular.”

The app allows you to see a list of offenders based on your current location (using the iPhone’s location services), any contact’s address, or it allows you to manually enter an address. The app then scours the database and lists the sexual offenders based on their proximity to the location you gave. You can click on any of these names to get a picture of the person, their information like date of birth, height, weight, and a picture. And you can also see the specific sexual crime they were charged with.

But, as you might imagine, such an app is not without controversy. First of all, there’s a disclaimer when you first load it up warning that all of the information may not be accurate. The reason it gives are that the sexual offender lists are continuously updating, so some parts may be out of date or incomplete.

An even bigger problem is that the app may not be legal in all states. As someone who reviewed the app notes, “This app is not legal, at least under CA law. Selling the personal information of people (even ex-criminals) for profit is forbidden.” It is rather odd that this app costs money when the information is available freely on the web. As a top 10 app, the developer is likely making thousands of dollars a day off of this app.

Continue Reading