The Catholic Church is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to background screening. For years the public demanded better screening of Priests and other congregant workers. These demands and other public pressures is likely why they adopted a policy a few years back. However, as we can see here, when Ms. Collins was hired in June 2003, background checks were not common practice in the church. Like we always say, money is easy(ier) to recover than ones reputation. Careless oversight and lack screening policies have led them to where they are today. As you will read later in the article, a simple criminal records check on Ms. Collins would have revealed a past recrod; According to court records, Ms. Collins was arrested in June 1999, and charged with stealing at least $46,000 over 16 months from AccuStaff, a Manhattan temporary employment agency where she worked as a payroll manager.
In Million-Dollar Theft Case, Church Worker With a Secret Past
For eight years, the woman worked in accounts payable for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, gaining the trust of her superiors.
Colleagues praised her quiet dedication and hard work, and noted that she prayed often; her volunteer work at an event at St. Patrick’s Cathedral won mention in the church’s newspaper, Catholic New York. No one, then, questioned the hundreds of checks she wrote at the archdiocese to cover small expenses, like office supplies and utility bills.
On Monday, the woman, Anita Collins, 67, was charged with embezzling more than $1 million over seven years from the archdiocese.
Prosecutors in Manhattan said she did not live lavishly. But at her modest home in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, a particular interest of Ms. Collins’s became apparent: expensive dolls.
Detectives emerged from her three-bedroom apartment on Monday carrying boxes filled with personal effects: 17 or 18 were labeled dolls, many from the Madame Alexander catalog; about three more were labeled bears. And when a postal service carrier walked by, she noted the volume of mail and packages that the family received.
“They get packages like no tomorrow,” she said.
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said Ms. Collins was confronted about the missing money in December after an annual audit raised red flags. She was fired, and the archdiocese referred the matter to the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
When Ms. Collins was hired by the archdiocese in June 2003, it did not perform criminal background checks on prospective employees, as it does now, Mr. Zwilling said. So church officials were unaware until recently that she had been convicted of grand larceny in one case and had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in another.
Mr. Zwilling said the scheme diverted money “designated for the purpose of helping to provide Catholic education.” The archdiocese has been closing churches and schools for lack of money, and asking for more than $15 million in an annual charity appeal.
“We are continually reviewing how money is handled, our financial controls,” Mr. Zwilling said, “because we want to be good stewards of the money entrusted to us.”
Prosecutors said Ms. Collins had issued 468 checks from the archdiocese to “KB Collins,” the initials of one of her sons. After each check was printed, she would change internal records to show that the check had been issued to a legitimate vendor, prosecutors said.
“At first, we thought it was only a handful of checks, but we quickly realized that it was much bigger,” Mr. Zwilling said.
She kept the amounts to less than $2,500 each to avoid the approval of a supervisor required for larger checks, a prosecutor, Amy Justiniano, said during Ms. Collins’s arraignment.
We just published The Verifier XXIV, Fall 2011 Edition, a publication intended as an educational tool and information resource for human resource professionals or anyone interested in keeping abreast of recent employment screening and background check industry developments.
Everybody’s doing it; background checks that is. Simon Cowell has reportedly dropped three contestants from his British TV show, Red or Black, after he performed criminal background checks and found something he didn’t like (what he found was unspecified). Evidently, he learned the hard way that performing these checks was necessary when it came out that the show’s first winner had served two years in prison for assaulting another man.
Everyone has their own motivation for conducting background checks. Some do it to protect theiremployees, customers and reputation, some to avoid making a bad hire. Unfortunately, many do it because the have experienced costly incidents that could have been avoided. Food for thought.
Background checks on this year’s field of 36 City Council candidates uncovered a felon, alcohol-related offenses, assault arrests, deadbeat parents, financial woes and a particularly vindictive divorce.
Each municipal election cycle, the Tulsa World relies upon records and databases from courts, jails, law enforcement and government agencies to vet those seeking public office.
The checks revealed current and past issues with 13 of the 36 candidates.
The city’s municipal primary is set for Sept. 13 and general election Nov. 8.
District 1: Democrat Jason Trent Jr., 45, is a convicted felon.
In 1994, Trent pleaded guilty in Tulsa County District Court for failing to return rental property, including a TV and VCR.
Trent was fitted with an ankle monitor, which he eventually cut off and left for Oklahoma City.
As a result, Trent was charged with escape, which he pleaded guilty to in 1995 and spent about 18 months at Jess Dunn Correctional Center in Taft.
“This all goes back to when I was addicted to crack cocaine and making a lot of bad choices,” he said.
“I’ll be honest with you, I was a straight up (screw) up.”
Trent said he has been “clean and sober” for 15 years, but when the Tulsa World brought up a 2001 charge for marijuana possession, he said he meant he was clean off of crack cocaine for that period.
Trent added he hasn’t used any illegal substances since that 2001 arrest.
In that case, Trent pleaded guilty in Tulsa County on charges of speeding, driving with a suspended license, obstructing a police officer and marijuana possession. He received a one-year suspended sentence.
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Look closely at the video above to see what it looks like when a commercial driver that has over 50 moving violations, including a DUI since 1986 is allowed to drive a gravel truck. You think any number of these violations would have turned up on a Motor Vehicle Record check or a criminal background check? Someone is going to have to answer questions as to why this guy was behind the wheel. Thankfully, no one on the train which normally carries 850 passengers was injured.
Over the last several years as employment screening has become the norm, various government agencies and others have been critical of the process. Their reasons differ but the debate is the same, in its most simple form many that are critical simply don’t understand exactly what we do as an industry. Many of the critics have used the same argument over the years.
Employers use credit scores to eliminate applicants with bad credit.
Any criminal record will ban you from employment anywhere.
Employers are intentionally creating a second class of unemployable citizens who have criminal records.
Having an employer run your credit will ruin your credit.
These are all false assumptions. Pre Employment Credit Reports do NOT contain a credit score, in fact, many things that appear on a consumer credit report do NOT appear on an Employment Credit Report, such as account numbers and other information not relevant to employment. In addition, pulling these reports count as a soft inquiry, thus not affecting the overall credit score. Under federal and many state laws, these negative things should only be used if within the scope and responsibilities of the job. In our experience, less than 10% of employers even utilize these types of reports.
Now let’s discuss criminal records. Like credit, simply having a criminal record would not bar one from employment everywhere. Under Federal and many State laws the nature of the offense and conviction should be recognized and compared to the job responsibilities. It is very important to remember, companies spend a lot of money finding and recruiting good talent. The intent of the company is to hire the individual, not find ways to exclude them. If the company feels the offense or conviction will be a risk to them based on the position, they may chose to look elsewhere.
As screeners, we believe there is a job for everyone. However, there are times when because of someone’s past, they may not be the best fit for the job they are seeking. A candidate with no job relatedness convictions and solid background and qualifications just might have the edge for certain positions; there is no mistaking this reality. It is simply an employer’s right to choose what is best for their organization and mitigate their risk as much as possible. Organizations are simply damned if they do and damned if they don’t. When a company decides to take a risk on someone they are then vulnerable to a Negligent Hiring lawsuit. In a nutshell, employers are getting sued of they failed to properly screen an applicant. If they could have known, they should have known. If they don’t take the risk they are vulnerable to other types of suits and penalties such as violations of the EEOC. The only fair thing to both parties is to at least allow the company knows what type of risk they may be encountering.
A recent article on the Huffington Post really takes aim at the employment screening industry and employers. The writer mentions a recent report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP). They cover many of the misconceptions outlined above but also falls short in many areas. What the report fails to mention is the over 50% of applicants who simply lie and misrepresent things on their resume. In a recent study conducted by EmployeeScreenIQ over 56% of people lie on their applications. These include individuals with fake degrees from known diploma mills, false salary histories, misrepresenting degrees altogether and jobs they actually never had.
For critics of the process I offer two recent stories:
Mark E. Lawlor bludgeoned a women, Genevieve Orange, 29, to death with a hammer, and then raped her as she lay dying. The photos of her body were too gruesome to be shown in the courtroom. Her assailant was a leasing agent in her building and used his passkey to enter her apartment as she slept on her couch. He bashed her in the head 30 times with a hammer, and 17 more times on her arms and body, an autopsy showed, then sexually assaulted her and left behind DNA that implicated him. What was in his background? While on probation in New Jersey for an earlier crime “Lawlor moved to southern Virginia. But at 18, he drunkenly stole a truck, rolled it over and killed a friend. He went to prison for the first time. . . In 1998, while Lawlor was living in Northern Virginia, he began stalking an ex-fiancée in Great Falls. One night, he snatched her from her car by smashing her windshield and swiping the keys. He did another five-year prison stretch.”
More recently in New York a casino bus driver crashed on a NY highway killing 15 people. This individual had a history of driving without a license and other vehicular offenses and served nearly seven years for manslaughter and grand larceny. His two criminal convictions: for stabbing a man to death and stealing from the Police Athletic League. Williams shouldn’t even have been at the wheel – his driving privileges were suspended after he ignored tickets for speeding and driving without a license in 1995, The Associated Press reported. Now to be fair, we don’t know if the driver did anything illegal to cause the crash, but with the aforementioned convictions (especially the driving offenses), what was this person doing driving a tour bus? This company failed to run a proper background check, they have learned the hard way. In addition to these 15 innocent people being killed, the victims families are already filing multi million dollar suits against the company.
These cases may be extreme but we come across these things regularly. I am curious to hear what you think?
Last Friday, I started to write a post about Ted Williams, a man who has become an overnight sensation and a cult hero of sorts. I made it about half way through the post and decided to stop. Why? Because while I started to talk about what a great story it was, I was already struggling with the fact that the story really wasn’t over yet. See this excerpt below from the post that wasn’t.
I know we’ve already posted a story on this, but I am blown away about the story of Ted Williams (aka “The Man with the Golden Voice). It is indeed a heart touching story and comes at a time when so many people have lost so much. It is my sincere hope that Williams is able to handle his new found fame and not return to a life of drugs and crime. I also hope that he is able to surround himself with people that can help him do so and not take advantage of his situation.
Of course, I had no idea of the events that would unfold just a few days later, but unfortunatley it confirmed my fears for what might happen to someone in his position. After hearing of his troubles, I tried to revise the post, but decided it sounded too “I told you so”.
Everyone deserves a second chance, unless your company is the one who has to give it, right?
I love hearing stories about recovery and redemption. What makes these stories so powerful (and relatively rare) are the odds against legitimate second chances are so incredibly high.
When I heard about Ted Williams and his story, it was a feel good story for sure. A man who, against all odds, found fame for simply being good at something. He was living on the streets of Columbus, Ohio and nobody knew that he had this incredible voice.
Of course, what happened next wasn’t a surprise to anyone who has taken an employment risk before
Guess what? Employees make mistakes
USA Today reported that Ted Williams, the man who rose to fame just a week ago, is heading to rehab:
During a taping of the Dr. Phil Show today in Los Angeles, Ted Williams — with his family’s support — said he has decided to enter a private rehabilitation treatment facility for his alcohol and drug dependency, a show spokeswoman says. Williams came to the conclusion following a lengthy one-on-one conversation with Dr. Phil, which will air tomorrow.
According to the show, the decision was made due in part to Williams’ strange behavior over the past several days, which culminated in a physical altercation with one of his daughters at a Hollywood hotel. He was briefly detained by police and later released.
Ouch.
If you know anything about substance abuse, you know that the road to recovery is full of all sorts of issues (including, unfortunately, relapses). While the story about Williams initially said he was sober for several years, it is obvious that this wasn’t the case.
Will those who have offered him a job continue to honor that commitment or will they withdraw their offer and take the safer bet of separating themselves from the situation?
Separating talent from conduct outside of work
When talent is undeniable, it is hard to not reach out and take that risk.
Certainly Williams has it, and Michael Vick is another prime example of talent trumping the risks that poor personal choices can have on an organization. Vick recently led the Philadelphia Eagles to a playoff berth but before he was slinging passes for the team, he was doing hard time for his involvement in a dog fighting and gambling scandal.
For an organization like the Eagles, or a public figure like Vick, there may be some different rules. Fans reactions have been divided. I know several (now former) Eagles fans who aren’t supporting the team at all. Still others are putting their personal feelings aside and giving him a second chance.
While most would acknowledge that people like Vick and Williams probably deserve second (or third) chances, are they willing to put their money where their mouth is?
Employment decisions run counter to talk
Late last month, President Obama called the Philadelphia Eagles owner to congratulate him for giving Vick a second chance. I was sort of bemused about that since there is little doubt in my mind that Vick wouldn’t have been given a second chance by the federal government itself. Nick Fishman of EmployeeScreenIQ agrees saying:
Does anyone actually believe Michael Vick could have gotten a job at the White House or any other government agency for that matter? We would have never passed a background check. Now, I’m not suggesting that the government should abandon its employment screening policies. What I am suggesting is that it is hypocritical to commend an employer for hiring those with a criminal past, when you, yourself would not. I am also suggesting that the government’s drive to curb the use of background checks or the information they are allowed to use in a hiring decision runs counter to their own hiring policies.
The question in my mind continues to be this: which companies are willing to walk the talk when it comes to giving employees second chances? It is incredibly easy to say someone deserves another chance, but when it comes to your company’s money and risk, are you recommending an action you would not take yourself?
It’s not an easy decision to make, but what choice are you willing to make when it comes to overlooking personal conduct for talent? Are you passing over candidates like Ted Williams or Michael Vick, and are you cognizant of the conflicting risks of both taking or leaving surefire talent to someone else because of a bad past?
The Cleveland Cavaliers have played terribly this season with the loss of premadonna LeBron James. Today they announced a great play, the hiring of Ted Williams. Now, many of you die hard Cleveland fans might be saying to yourself; “Wait, they unfroze Ted Williams, one of the best baseball players of all time to play BASKETBALL????” Right on, he will likely play better than any of the scrubs currently running up and down the court!!
Employment screening is not always about denying people jobs who have an unsatisfactory history. Many times its about finding the right job, for the right person. This is a touching story of a man, down on his luck that was just given a HUGE second chance!
While the Cavaliers are struggling on the court this season without their former superstar, the organization is still making waves in the community. In perhaps one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever seen.
Ted Williams, who was previously homeless held up a sign every day telling the world about his “Golden Radio Voice”. Someone pulled off to the side of the road to speak with him and video taped the man, and he wasn’t lying. This guy has an incredible voice!
Apparently the Cleveland Cavaliers took notice after the Columbus Dispatch featured the man in the paper they and offered him a job and a house. Williams was on a local radio station, WNCI exclaiming “The Cleveland Cavaliers just offered me a full-time job and a house! A house! A house!”
He also added “I’ve been out there about a year; I just didn’t know anything like this would ever happen. There’s so many words. I’ve already been compared to Susan Boyle. I’m just so happy.”
It’s unclear what position the Cavaliers have offered Williams, but it is an incredible story of redemption after Williams threw his career away years ago admittedly due to drugs and alcohol.
“Just to get back to some normalcy and responsibility.. If I can get a job, whether it’s a $25,000 or even $18,000, I’d be happy. At least I know God has me where he wants me.”
Here is the video… it’s pretty incredible how this all went down.
After three years of litigation, appeals, public outcry on privacy-rights, etc. the U.S. Supreme Court will finally hear arguments as to whether subjecting NASA engineers to background checks is in fact, constitutional. Believe it or not, you might be surprised to learn that I am a bit torn on this case.
This morning, the LA Times published a letter written by Dennis V. Byrnes, principal engineer and chief engineer for flight mechanics at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL is the engineering company contracted by NASA), explaining why he is opposed to these checks. Brynes writes:
“You may ask what can be so bad? The full answer is long; however, the release form required to keep one’s job gives part of the answer:
“I authorize any investigator, special agent, or other duly accredited representative of the authorized federal agency conducting my background investigation, to obtain any information relating to my activities from schools, residential management agents, employers, criminal justice agencies, retail business establishments, or other sources of information. This information may include, but is not limited to, my academic, residential, achievement, performance, attendance, disciplinary, employment history, and criminal history record information.” [Emphasis added]. Additionally, if other releases are required for things such as medical records or tax forms, they too must be given.”
He goes on to say the following:
“I want to be very clear. Neither I nor any of the plaintiffs have anything to hide. I care nothing for my personal privacy. I care for the terrible damage being done to the guarantees of our Constitution. I care for the loss of trust most of us once had in our government. I care that the longstanding trust and collegiality between engineers and scientists at JPL and their management is being destroyed and replaced by a poisoned atmosphere of mistrust by employees and heavy-handed paternalism by management. I care that all across the country, many talented technical people will leave government service or choose not to apply in the first place because of this unwarranted assault on their constitutional freedoms. I fear that carried to its natural end, this process, with its false promise of national security at the expense of freedom, will forever damage our country.”
I wholeheartedly believe that NASA and any other employer for that matter, has the right to conduct background checks on any employees, whether current or prospective as a condition of employment.
Byrnes general thoughts about background checks in the second quote make him appear to be out of touch with the current realities of today’s security conscious work environment. So while I don’t agree that background checks, in general, violate privacy and are unconstitutional, I am concerned that the screening criteria mentioned in the the former quote is not aligned with the position or job responsibilities; particularly the part about past medical records, residential management agents and retail business establishments. I also recall hearing a couple years ago that they were looking into the candidates sex lives including their sexual preferences (not sure whether that is true or not).
If what Byrnes says is correct about the fact that the work they perform is not top secret, classified, sensitive to the government, etc., then the screening criteria seems to be overreaching and should be re-evaluated. If the the government can demonstrate that the information sought has a direct bearing on the job, then so be it.
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In Million-Dollar Theft Case, Church Worker With a Secret Past
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