Employers, more than ever before, need to protect themselves against accidents and crimes committed by their employees. With negligent hiring, lawsuits, training costs, workplace violence and theft on the rise, pre-employment screening as well as taking the correct pre-employment screening steps are no longer an option, but rather a necessity for businesses.

Ronald McGwin and three managers of Tip Top Shows were arrested on Sunday, August 3, 2008. Tip Top Shows is a company that runs the midways and carnival booths at fairs. The managers who were arrested allegedly hid the identity of McGwin in order to allow him to work the fair.

All employees were to have background checks. When they were completed, three employees showed up with prior sex arrests and were not allowed to work the fair; however, McGwin was not listed among them.

It was only after a customer at the fair found a Florida identification for McGwin and gave it to authorities that suspicions arose. It was discovered that McGwin was a registered sex offender who also has active warrants from Illinois for burglary and disorderly conduct. The identification showed that McGwin lived in Florida, but the sex offender registry shows him as coming from Illinois. It was later proven that the identification was his brother’s and not his.

Apparently, the three managers provided a fake name for McGwin because he was a good employee for them. They are all being charged with obstruction of justice, and authorities in Wisconsin are investigating whether or not they can charge McGwin with failure to register as a sex offender.

Calls to Tip Top Shows went unanswered.

Tags: background checks, carnival worker, employee background checks

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.