EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

If you needed a reminder of what a sick world we live in, just follow stories of  former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky and former Syracuse coach Bernie Fine.  These are high profile stories that have rocked the nation, but in truth their deviant behavior is repeated by lesser known people throughout the country on a daily basis.

I just read about a man who has been charged with six counts of sexual molestation while we was working at a DHS licensed after-care program.  And guess what?  He was a convicted felon at the time of his hiring.

Here’s where this story gets tricky.  The 2004 felony conviction was for fraud and the agency knew about it after the conducted a criminal background check.

Side note: Buyer beware. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation system showed that this individual was clear.  The conviction was found when they actually went into the court system.

The conviction wasn’t of concern to them since it didn’t involve drugs, child abuse or violence.  So here’s the question: what would you have done?

We keep hearing from the state and federal government that the threshold should always be job-relatedness.  And to a certain extent, I agree.  Why, for instance, should a job that does not require use of a company or personal car be denied to an individual who has one misdemeanor DUI conviction on their record from three years ago? But how about a conviction for fraud?  Doesn’t that speak to a person’s honesty and integrity?  Regardless of the position they are hired for, wouldn’t a reasonable person have a healthy sense of distrust of this individual throughout the tenure of their employment?

Now true, this conviction would not have told the agency that this person would molest children.  But it sure should have raised some red flags.  What do you think? See story below.

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By now, every one is aware of the disgusting chain of events that have unfolded on Penn State’s campus over the last 13 years.  And the one thought that keeps popping into my head and that is “if only”.

• If only back in 1998 when it was first brought to the attention of the university that the football team’s defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky exhibited deviant behavior, perhaps the police could have taken more action.
• If only we all really knew why Sandusky resigned in 1999 and started a children’s charity, maybe a number of children wouldn’t have fallen victim to this despicable human being.
• If only in 2002 when then-graduate assistant and former football player Mike McQueary saw a 10 year old boy being raped in the team’s locker room by Sandusky, he would have stopped it instead of running out.
• If only after reporting the incident to famed football coach Joe Paterno and seen that no action had been taken, he decided to call the police.  After all at this point he now knew of at least two incidents.
• If only Joe Paterno did more than he was legally obligated to do by notifying it to his “superiors” and reported the incident to the police.
• If only those same superiors reported it.
• If only the school’s athletic director and vice president didn’t perjure themselves when questioned by a grand jury.

And on and on we go.

Well, if these incidents were reported than we know that others would not have suffered.  We know that there would have been some type of criminal record that would have identified Sandusky as a pedophile.  We know that upon conducting a background check, the charity and all of its high profile donors would not have supported this man.

Here’s the other thing we know.  While Paterno is a legendary coach, he failed miserably to expose this entire series of events.  Paterno was the king of Penn State, with more status and power than anyone at the university including the school’s president.  He could have stopped this. But he didn’t.  Nor did the cadre of individual’s listed above.

Paterno is probably not a bad man.  He has been a great teacher who has touched the lives of many, both his students and the fans of Nittany Lions football.  He is an icon.  But, unfortunately this grave error has cost him a job that he has held since 1950.  It has also brought shame and embarrassment to students, faculty and alumni, tarnishing an honorable university’s reputation.

And most importantly, it has caused at least nine kids to suffer unspeakable acts for which they might never 100% recover.

If Only . . .

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According to People Magazine (yes, I really just quoted People), Top Chef finalist, Morgan Wilson has been indicted on charges of possession and intent to distribute child pornography.

Now, to be fair to the Bravo television network, it looks like the arrest took place after the show was aired last fall.  However, Wilson does hold a job with the Ritz Carlton hotel in Dallas.

So, here’s the question.  Should the hotel have known about this arrest?  Well, he was hired in 2007, so a background check at that time wouldn’t have revealed these charges.  It is, however surprising that the hotel wouldn’t have heard about this before the indictment was announced earlier this month given Wilson’s high profile status.

Okay, so let’s say that the hotel wasn’t aware of the arrest and charges.  What could they have done?  Many organizations are now performing criminal background checks on their employees on a regularly scheduled basis to ensure that nothing has changed since the time of their hiring.  Now, I certainly can’t fault the Ritz for not doing this, since those that do are still in the minority.  Just something to think about though.  In this case, it certainly might have helped keep their name out of the papers.

P.S. Not that the allegations against Chef Robert Irvine for resume fraud were even close to as serious, but this isn’t the first time a television chef has fallen from grace.

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An Illinois man is suing both his former employer and their background screening provider because they errantly reported that he was a registered sex offender and didn’t take the time to ensure that the record found actually belonged to him.

Stories like this really get my blood boiling because they make us all look bad.  The perception is that all employment screeners don’t care whether they report accurate information or not and that employers blindly make hiring decisions without allowing the candidate to refute the information.  It is also stories like these that cause government agencies and advocates to scream that employers are misusing background checks and that the practice requires further regulation and guidelines.

Here’s the story according to ABC News:

“In October 2010, [Samuel] Jackson was offered a job as a live chat response specialist for Optics Planet, an Illionois-based online catalog for binoculars, camera lenses and other optical equipment. The company then contracted Infotrack to run a background track, and Infotrack returned information tying Jackson to seven ‘possible matches’ from the national sex offender registry, according to the suit.”

“The background check misidentified Jackson, who is a white male in his twenties, as a black male in his fifties who had been convicted of sex crimes in states where Jackson has never lived.”

We’ve talked for years about the importance of confirming and verifying the information that is found before reporting it to an employer.  The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires Consumer Reporting Agencies to follow reasonable procedures to assure accuracy and to notify individuals when a report may adversely affect their job application.

In EmployeeScreenIQ’s case, we won’t report a record without confirming the proper identifiers.  We look for a combination of the following matches name, date of birth and, or social security number.  That means a name match only is not sufficient to authenticate a criminal record.

Furthermore, we work with our clients to ensure that they provide the candidates’ with proper notice when they take adverse action and allow them to dispute any information they believe is erroneous.

In this case, it seems that neither of these things happened.  And rather than face the negative publicity, the expense of litigation and potential damages, it would have been a heck of a lot easier to just follow the proper protocol.

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Question: What do the producers of Sesame Street and the Iowa City Fair have in common?

Answer:  They both don’t want the publicity they drew when it was discovered that the fair hired a registered sex offender convicted in 2005 of lascivious acts with a 7 year old girl to wear a Cookie Monster costume and greet children.

I don’t know, just a thought, but do you think maybe the fair should have conducted an employment background check?  Between a criminal record search and a check of the sex offender registry they most surely would have discovered that maybe the should move on to the next applicant.  But hey, that’s just me.

According to Reuters,  “The owner of the costume company that hired Rogers says that they did not run a background check. The owner said that Rogers needed a job, so he was put to work almost immediately. Rogers would have also been sent to work at other private events and birthday parties if he hadn’t been discovered by a parole supervisor who recognized him at the fair.”

Thank goodness nothing happened.

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We posted a horrific story earlier this week about a Brockton, MA elementary school student who was raped by a student teacher.  Now, the school’s longtime human resource director has announced her retirement, effective at the end of the school year.

There was a lot of misinformation about whether the school had conducted a background check or not.  They have now admitted that in addition to their earlier admissions that they failed to meet their requirement of conducting a new criminal background check on all personnel in January of 2010, that they neglected to check the backgrounds on “a handful” of student teachers.

I’m sure that the oversight was not due to malice.  It’s just an unfortunate situation that might have been avoided should the school have followed through properly.  Now, a poor little girl’s life has been changed forever, the school faces what will be costly litigation along with a settlement or judgement against them (of which tax payers will no doubt foot the bill) and a well respected employee’s career has been ruined.

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Well as we head into the big Thanksgiving Holiday (the greatest holiday of all), the media and the random people that are selected for additional screening at the airport are up in arms about “extra love” they are receiving from our friendly TSA employees.  Some claim that the pat downs have left weary travelers needing a cigarette and a shower (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Anywho, I’ve got no problem with the extra security precautions.  If this is what it takes to ensure we are all safe, then I believe it’s a small price to pay.  Heaven forbid the TSA backs off the policy and something that could have been prevented passes through without a concern.  The same people would be calling for their heads.

The only thing that becomes even more abundantly important is the responsibility of the TSA to conduct thorough employment background checks on it’s employees.  The background checks should include a comprehensive criminal record search including a Sex Offender Registry Check.  Because with the new security measures, this could bring in a flood of deviants hoping to slip through the cracks (definitely no pun intended).

That’s all I’ve got.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

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What does the BP oil spill have to do with background checks?  Nothing, at least when the spill initially happened.  Like most stories we post, the two have nothing to do with each other until it is found a proper criminal search was NOT conducted.

Investigation: Could background check have prevented alleged rape?

BP and a company used to hire workers in the gulf explain why background checks aren’t always being done on oil spill cleanup workers on tonight’s “AC360°” at 10 ET.

Pascagoula, Mississippi (CNN) — A lack of screening of oil spill cleanup workers meant a sex offender got a job, and left him free to rape a colleague according to a Mississippi county sheriff.

A CNN investigation into the incident reveals that basic background checks were not done on those hired to remove oil from the beaches in and around Pascagoula.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd told CNN he was shocked when he met with the head of BP security for the area several weeks before the alleged rape took place. He said the BP representative told him that only drug screenings, not background checks, were being conducted on the cleanup workers.

“I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘There’s so many of them, we were told to do drug screens and that was it.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s not good at all.’ ”

Byrd said he told the BP official that “you’re going to have every type of person coming in here looking for a job, and you’re going to have the criminal element in here, and we’re not going to know who we’re dealing with if we don’t do background checks on these people.”

“It’s sad because you got a victim now by a sex offender, and he’s in our jail. Had we have known this, he would have been arrested before the crime could have been committed,” said Byrd, who also said that if asked, his department would have done the background checks for free.

Rundy Charles Robertson, 41, who faces charges of sexual battery and failure to register as a sex offender, is in the Jackson County, Mississippi, jail with bail set at $505,000. He told police that he had consensual sex with the woman. He has not yet entered a plea.

Robertson has a criminal history dating back to 1991, according to police records. He was put on the national sex offender registry for a 1996 conviction for contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Louisiana. He is also on probation after being convicted in 2003 in Georgia for cruelty to children.

Robertson had been supervising a crew of cleanup workers, including the alleged victim. She told CNN he offered to take her home one day in June because she was not feeling well.

However, she said, when he dropped her off, he asked to use the bathroom in her motel room. When he came out, she said, he raped her.

The woman told CNN she is scared and angry that this happened.

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In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a convicted sex offender in Alabama did not by law have to register in the state of Indiana because his conviction pre-dates the 2006 passage of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).   Thomas Carr, convicted in Alabama in 2004 of first degree sexual abuse of a minor, was arrested in Indiana and faced a 30 month prison sentence for failing to register as a sex offender in that state.  Carr took his case to the Supreme Court arguing that since his conviction pre-dated the SORNA law, imprisoning him for not registering would be unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court agreed.

One of the reasons the Justice’s agreed with Carr was the use of the word “travel” in the language of the Act.  Congress used the present tense of the word (travels), not the past tense (traveled) when referring to sex offenders who move from state to state.  In the Justice’s opinion, if Congress had wanted to make registration requirements retroactive, they would have used the word “traveled.” 

A very big mistake on Congress’ part or too narrow of a reading of the law?  Perhaps both.  Either way, a hard hit to law enforcement and the general public.

So, yet another very valid reason that running a background check in an applicant’s state of residence alone is not a good policy.  If Carr had applied for a position with a company in Indiana that only conducted state of residence background checks, they would not have known about his sex offender status in Alabama.  If running state of residence only checks, employers may miss some very key components of their applicants’ past that could alter their hiring decision by 180 degrees.

Registry law doesn’t apply to all sex offenders, Supreme Court rules

A sex offender who moved from Alabama to Indiana in 2004 does not have to register with authorities because his move predates the registry law Congress enacted in 2006, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

By Warren Richey – June 1, 2010

A national sex offender registry law does not apply to interstate travel by a sex offender that took place before Congress passed the registry statute in 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

In a 6-to-3 decision, the high court rejected the Obama administration’s expansive reading of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Instead, the majority justices embraced a narrower view of the law, while overturning a convicted sex offender’s 30-month prison sentence for traveling to another state and failing to register.

The decision triggered a heated dissent by three justices who warned that the ruling will impair the ability of law enforcement officials to locate and register some 100,000 convicted sex offenders who have eluded authorities.

“Under the court’s interpretation, the many sex offenders who had managed to avoid pre-existing registration regimes, mainly by moving from one state to another before SORNA’s enactment, are placed beyond the reach of the federal criminal laws,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote.

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It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I am a huge (understatement) classic rock fan.  Its also no secret that I also happen to be a huge football fan.  So this week my excitement is doubled because not only do we have the Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday but the classic rock band, The Who will be performing at half time.

We have written some ‘cute’ stories in the past linking well known celebrities and athletes to background checks.  NFL players make a writers job so easy because the criminal charges are endless.  I need something new…….new inspiration for a great story about background screening and the Super Bowl. Bam, it hits me, Pete Townsend is a sex offender.

Classic rock is not without its indiscretions.  From Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Phish, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.  (Note: If you have not heard of the aforementioned bands I don’t even want to know you) You would be hard pressed to find a classic rock band that didn’t have a run in or two with the law.  However, most of these arrests were due to drug use and/or possession.  Some would argue that their drug use made their music what it was.  Few of these come close to Guitarist Pete Townshend’s 2003 arrest for accessing child pornography.   Child abuse advocacy groups are up in arms about the NFL allowing Townshend and The Who to perform at this year’s game.  The NFL is well known for their background checks and tolerance of certain offenses. Did they think about this when asking The Who to perform?

Pete Townshend’s Sex Offender Past Threatens Super Bowl Gig

The Who are scheduled to play during the half-time show at the Super Bowl in Miami, but child abuse advocacy groups are urging the NFL to drop the act because of an incident in guitarist Pete Townshend’s past.

Townshend was arrested in 2003 for accessing child pornography online several years before. He pled guilty, claiming he was doing research for his autobiography and revisiting memories of childhood sex abuse, and was not charged. Still his name remained in the UK’s sex offender registry for five years.

Now 1500 of these fliers have been distributed to homes and schools in the Miami area.

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