EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette launched a 9-month investigation into the backgrounds of registered Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletics Association (PIAA) referees and can you guess what they found?  They discovered “dozens of officials had convictions involving child pornography, molestation charges, drug offenses and assaults, among other offenses.”  Surprising?  No.  Why you ask?  Because there are still so many organizations out there that haven’t jumped on the background check band wagon as evidenced by the stories you read on our blog every day.  But I’ll tell you what is surprising.  The fact that PIAA representatives are quoted as saying they are generally satisfied with the process they have in place - that process being relying on those applying to officiate the sporting events to disclose their past criminal history.  Our own Kevin Bachman wrote about background checks in Youth Sports and wasn’t happy with what he saw.

To be honest, I really hope that process works out for them in the end.  But the odds of that occurring are slim.  Because all it will take will be one incident, one allegation and that process they are so satisfied with will be blown completely out of the water.  And what will they have to show for it?  A quote on the record stating they were “satisfied” with their current process even though this newspaper proved their so-called process was flawed and a sore backside from kicking themselves for their foolishness.

Click here to read “Report Finds Dozens of PIAA Officials With Criminal Backgrounds”

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Another day, another story about a person working with children without a proper background check.  A simple background check would have revealed this individual’s New York conviction for endangering the welfare of a child.  It doesn’t matter that the teaching positions were in Hong Kong.  If officials in Hong Kong wanted to know, they could have easily found out.

Additionally, a comment made by the individual in question intrigues me:

“I never changed my face. I still have the same beard, dark hair,” he said. “If I (was) trying to sneak in, why would I use my real name?”

If that is the case, then my question is: If you weren’t trying to hide, why go to the other side of the world where nobody knows you?

Food for thought…

Disgraced US Priest Teaches in 10 Hong Kong Schools Without Checks

The Earth Times – September 16, 2008

Hong Kong – A US priest accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy said in an interview Tuesday that he had moved to Hong Kong and taught in 10 schools without any background checks being carried out. Dennis Sewar, 57, resigned from his position at a Hong Kong primary school where he taught English last Friday after parents found out about his criminal past by doing checks on the internet.

Sewar was charged with third-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child in Rochester, New York, after allegedly molesting a 14-year-old boy around 50 times between 1999 and 2001.

He last year pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of endangering the welfare of a child, meaning he did not have to register as a sex offender, and came to Hong Kong after serving a year’s probation.

In an interview with Tuesday’s South China Morning Post, Sewar said he was never asked about his past when he took up a succession of part-time teaching posts from August 2007 onwards.

He insisted to the newspaper he was not a paedophile and had never sexually touched a child, and said he had at no stage tried to hide his identity or past.

“I never changed my face. I still have the same beard, dark hair,” he said. “If I (was) trying to sneak in, why would I use my real name?”

Sewar said he came to Hong Kong to start a new life after his conviction in the US and said: “It’s my gift that I work very well with kids.

“But obviously people aren’t going to want you with all these allegations flowing around … I would never get another job in school.”

Sewar’s case raises further questions about the checks done on criminal pasts of people working in Hong Kong schools.

In February, a Hong Kong man with three previous convictions for indecent assault was prosecuted for opening a tutorial school on his release from jail and molesting at least five more girls.

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The City of San Francisco has learned a very hard lesson over the last few months – that not running a background check can equal catastrophe in more ways than one!  First, they hire a criminal to work in their IT department without conducting a background check (strike one!).  Then, they fail to properly supervise him (strike 2!).  Lastly, due to these swings and misses, this person was able to appoint himself ultimate ruler of the entire city’s network by creating a super password – which only he has.  And he’s not sharing! (strike 3 – you’re out!)

If the city had done its due diligence and ran a proper background check on this guy, they may have opted not to hire him and would not find themselves in the situation they now face.  It may take them months, even years to discover all of the little devices and roadblocks this ex-employee built to make their lives as difficult as possible.

Score:

City of San Francisco: 0

Sneaky Techie: TBD

Rogue Sys Admin Still Haunts San Francisco

After finding yet another unauthorized device on its network, the department has the jitters.

Richard Adhikari, Internetnews.com – September 12, 2008

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First, we have the Justice Department.  Now, the Department of Homeland Security.  Who will be next?  Place your bets!

By the way Department of Homeland Security personnel – forget Google in your background screening process.  A simple employment verification would have provided you with all of the information you needed know in order to avoid this obvious blunder.

Homeland Security’s Hiring Procedure Comes Under Fire

MINNEAPOLIS – One week after ousting disgraced Minnesota transportation official Sonia Pitt from the job she found at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the massive federal agency has taken a new step to beef up its vetting of potential hires.

From now on, more job candidates will have their backgrounds searched on Google.

The policy change, put forth by Kip Hawley, the top administrator of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration, is one among several signs that TSA’s admitted blunder in hiring Pitt on the heels of her scandalous firing from the Minnesota Department of Transportation has become a serious issue in Washington.

The incident is raising fresh questions about the effectiveness of Homeland Security, which has been dogged by recurring questions of competency since it was created in the spring of 2003 to protect the country from a repeat of sophisticated terrorist attacks.

Members of Congress and a watchdog group say they are alarmed by the hiring of Pitt, who had been fired in November from her executive-level emergency response job at MnDOT.

The 44-year-old Red Wing, Minn., resident failed to return for 10 days from an unauthorized state-paid trip to Washington during the aftermath of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

MnDOT said she misspent $26,400 in state funds and made 94 hours of personal calls from her state-paid cell phone to a Federal Highway Administration official with whom she had a relationship.

Homeland Security officials are now investigating why Pitt continued to hold a federal security clearance after her MnDOT dismissal, whether her TSA application was complete and truthful, and whether cronyism or corruption was involved in her hiring.

Click here to read the rest of the article

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Scenario:  Your company is looking for a top level executive to join your team.  You use every type of screening tool known to man to make sure this guy is who he says he is.  You run a background check with all of the bells and whistles, a drug and alcohol test, an assessment test – basically, the works.  The results come back and this person is as clean as a whistle.  You hire him, he does a fantastic job and makes your company oodles and oodles of money.  Where could you have possibly gone wrong?

Well, for starters, did you screen his administrative assistant?  Or how about the mail room employee?  Or the intern you hired for the summer?

Understandably, there are some companies out there who cannot justify spending the money to screen lower level employees, even conducting the most basic of background checks.  But a new study out of the U.K. indicates that it is the lower level employees that commit more fraud than those top level executives costing employers millions and millions of dollars every year.

It might be time for those companies to re-think that decision, don’t you think?

Click here to read “So, Just Who Do You Think You’re Employing?“

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Yet another example of what can happen when proper background checks are not conducted.  We read (and blog) about companies who don’t conduct background checks or aren’t conducting them the way they should be all the time.  We’ve almost become immune to it because we see it so much.  But this story stirred me.  It’s almost unbelievable an oversight like this can happen.

On second thought, it’s downright scary.

Audit: Michigan OKed ‘Unsuitable’ Day Care Providers

By The Associated Press

Tuesday July 22, 2008, 11:08AM

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A state audit released Tuesday shows Michigan put thousands of children at risk by authorizing sex offenders and other “unsuitable” day care providers between 2003 and 2006.

The audit said the Department of Human Services shouldn’t have licensed, registered or enrolled about 1,900 day work providers.

The audit said background checks done by the state weren’t effective in identifying perpetrators of child abuse or neglect, sex offenders and others.

State officials agreed with the audit’s recommendations. They said in the audit report that in April 2007, they began running additional background checks after being informed a main background check program wasn’t flagging enough offenders.

“We now conduct four background checks in addition to a central registry check,” said Lisa Brewer Walraven, director of the DHS’ Office of Early Education and Care. “The health and safety of children is a high importance to us.”

Walraven said the state terminated day care providers after being alerted by the auditor general.

Between October 2003 and March 2006, the state enrolled 116,585 day care providers to care for 273,364 children whose lower-income families get financial assistance for day care. About 4,600 of those children were put at risk, according to the audit.

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Virginia law recognizes a claim for the negligent hiring of an employee or an independent contractor. With respect to independent contractors, the Virginia Supreme Court recognized a rule of liability for negligent hiring of an incompetent independent contractor, adopting the principles set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 411 which recognizes a defendant’s “liability for physical harm to third persons caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care to employ a competent and careful contractor…to do work which will involve a risk of physical harm unless it is skillfully and carefully done.”

A U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia recently applied this principle in the context of the selection of a tractor trailer truck carrier by a freight broker or third party logistics company. In Jones v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., a tractor trailer truck crashhttp://www.valawyersweekly.com/usdc-va-western-opinions/2008/06/12/008-3-216-jones-v-ch-robinson-worldwide-inc/ occurred when an inexperienced tractor trailer truck driver crossed the median and struck another tractor trailer truck head-on. The plaintiff driver sued the broker that hired the negligent driver’s carrier under a theory that the broker was negligent in the hiring of the negligent driver’s carrier. The court initially found that the operation of a tractor-trailer involves such a risk of physical harm contemplated in the Restatement, and, thus, that the plaintiff’s claim for negligent hiring of an independent contractor was viable under the facts of the case.

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Negligent hiring lawsuits can be very costly for companies.  Conducting a simple background check can save your company a lot of money and heartache.

Law & Disorder: Mother Sues Restaurant in Murder of Son

By The Times-Union

The mother of a Jacksonville restaurant worker killed on the job by a co-worker has sued the restaurant company, accusing it of negligent hiring and supervision.

The lawsuit by Faydra McNair, mother of Martaze Harris, contends La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill shouldn’t have hired Kyle C. Bass because he had a felony record for cocaine possession. Bass pleaded guilty to the June 2006 murder and is serving a life prison sentence.

The lawsuit, filed Friday against REF Holdings, La Salsa’s parent company, doesn’t ask for a specific amount of damages. REF attorney Stephen Feidelman wouldn’t comment.

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I will not go into a rant about inadequate background checks in our schools, I just won’t.  This story speaks for itself!  Our kids in public schools are being protected by an inadequate, antiquated background screening process.  Most States require a fingerprint check at the State level and a FBI check at the National level, only if the candidate has lived outside that State in the past five years.

They say they don’t have the money, schools are underfunded.  How many kids have to get assaulted before they realize metal detectors are not the only way to protect students.  A thorough criminal check must be done at the county level.

Since schools are the theme of this posting, administrators should read my series; Employment Screening 101.  Schools are just as liable as corporations.  Standing behind the budgetary excuses and doing the minimum required by state law does not stop 15 year old girls from getting sexually abused.  Administrators can start looking forward to negligent hiring lawsuits in the same way Corporate America does; If you could have known, you should have known!

Local drama teacher charged with sexual abuse had sexual assault allegation again him in past

(WHAS11) – We have new information about a Bardstown High School drama teacher arrested along with his wife last week.

Police say Kevin Holladay had an inappropriate relationship with a female student and his wife Marta Holladay was charged with assaulting that student.

Now, we’ve uncovered new information about Kevin Holladay’s past.

We found some information Kevin Holladay probably didn’t want Bardstown schools to know about and because of the way the district currently does background checks it remained his secret. Until we told his former boss about it on Wednesday.

The drama coach, who goes by the name “Campfire Kev”, had his own summer camp experience 11 years ago, one that could have landed him in prison for 20 years.

In July 1997, Kevin Holladay was charged with sexual assault against a child.

According to reports, Holladay was a counselor at a summer camp in Wisconsin, when he allegedly fondled a 13-year-old girl who fell asleep while watching a movie with him.

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A triple threat, a hat trick, a triple double, how about three strikes and you are out? As an avid sports fan reading an article about sports at the University of Tampa the sports cliches are just poring out.  The negligent hiring doctrine lays out a simple rule; “If you could have known, you should have known!”  This case however brings a multi-pronged suit to the University of Tampa.  Aside from the obvious, Negligent Hiring, we also have Negligent Retention and Negligent Supervision.  I won’t regurgitate the reasons, you will see that in the article.  I will however stand on my soapbox and say “I told you so.”

No one is immune from a lawsuit.  We have been saying it for years, organizations are liable for not running thorough background checks.  Screening your employees is the simplest way of avoiding a very expensive lawsuit.

This story is a classic text book case. The Case should raise the standard of care when Colleges and Universities make decisions about why, how and who to screen.

Former Cheerleader Suing UT for Hiring Coach Who Raped Her in 2004

Complaint says background check and his prior arrests should have led to red flags

By: Charlie Hambos

A former cheerleader is suing the University of Tampa for negligently hiring her former coach, who pleaded guilty this year to raping her in 2004.

She says the university erred in its background checks and supervision of the cheerleading coach.

Heather Wienclawski, a former Spartan cheerleader and economics major, says she could not finish her studies at UT because she was raped by Thomas Andrew Hall, who had previous battery charges including one on a police officer, when he was hired part-time at UT.

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