What's on Your Background Check?

Do you know what's on your background check? Are you confident there is nothing on there that would prevent you from getting a job?

A common complaint among job seekers is that they apply for a job, have a great interview and then get are rejected after believing they were a top candidate for the position.

IAmScreened.com was developed to help job seekers find out what exactly is on their background check before they even go through the interview process. Since its inception in early 2009, IAmScreened.com has found that roughly 30% of its customers have found errors or criminal records on their background checks that they weren't aware of.

One customer had been trying to find a job for over six months and couldn't understand why he wasn't having any luck. Desperate, he turned to IAmScreened.com and ordered a full background check on himself. The results were shocking, yet most helpful. He discovered that the university he attended was reporting he did not earn a degree, but only attended school there. He said, "I can't believe that all this time, my potential employers thought I was lying on my application." He contacted his university and was easily able to get his information corrected. He was employed shortly thereafter.

IAmScreened.com offers three levels of background checks so customers can get exactly what suits their needs. Everything from criminal background checks to employment verifications is offered for a reasonable cost and these are the exact same checks an employer can request. Reports are normally returned to customers in one to three working days. IAmScreened.com also offers customer support to those who have issues or questions about their background checks.

Bus Driver Causes Fatal Crash in California; Had Criminal Record

A bus crash on Sunday, which killed 8 and injured 30 people, was allegedly caused by a driver who was under the influence. The bus was on its way to a Northern California casino and carried about 43 passengers.

Police arrested Quintin Watts on Monday as he lay critically injured in his hospital bed. This incident is under investigation and police officers are waiting for results of Watts' blood tests.

According to a witness, the bus drifted across a two-lane road and the driver over-corrected causing him to lose control. The bus rolled over and into a ditch. Some passengers were thrown out while others were crushed by the rolling bus.

The story is even more horrific.

The bus' license plates were not valid. The driver has a history of substance abuse as well as a long history of motor vehicle offenses. In fact, he just recently got his license reinstated in January of this year after having it suspended for two years. At this point, the police do not even know who or what company owns the bus involved. While it says "Greyhound" on the side, Greyhound explained that they sold the bus several years ago.

Authorities are investigating Cobbs Bus Services and if they owned the bus. One of the passengers killed, Daniel Cobb, is also being investigated as having possibly owned Cobbs Bus Services. The last operator of the bus is listed as Prayer Apostolic Faith Christian Center of Modesto, which has the same address as the listing for Cobbs Bus Services.

Buses taking tourists to local casinos in California are popular. Unfortunately, it seems whether or not this industry is taking the proper steps to background check employees is seriously in question.

Is this accident and all of the fatalities going to have the impact to make background checks happen?

You Have Some Explaining to Do, Mr. Mayor.

In Jeffersontown, Kentucky, Public Works Director, Joseph McMillan, was fired last week after being arrested for possession of crack cocaine. The arrest prompted the city council to take action and last night they voted unanimously to establish random drug testing for all city employees. The city council is also going to meet later this week to discuss implementing background checks on all employees.

McMillan was hired in January of this year by the Jeffersontown's mayor, Clay Foreman. The job application for the city does not ask if applicants have ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor. McMillan was already on probation for charges of DUI and criminal mischief when he was hired, which would have been uncovered by a simple, quick background check.

Mayor Foreman has been friends with McMillan for years but claimed he did not know about his criminal record. He noted that McMillan possessed a commercial driver's license and had experience in his family's construction business. Foreman said he hired McMillan because his family had done lots of work for the city over the years, dating back to the 1980's.

It has since been discovered that McMillan has been arrested nine times since 1985. Mayor Foreman fired him last Friday.

Don't Wait Until It's Too Late to Run Background Checks

Jeremy Semprebon, a registered sex offender, was arrested on August 14, 2008 on five counts of "Prohibition from Child Care Services of Persons Convicted of Certain Offenses," which are all felony charges.

Semprebon was working for a non-profit agency in New Hampshire called AIDS Response Seacoast where he was working as an education coordinator. Police say that he had access to minors at least two times this past spring as part of his job and he failed to let the agency know of his prior conviction; Semprebon was found guilty of aggravated rape against a 5-year old child in 1995.

New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services is now reviewing its contract policies after learning of this incident. Three-fourths of Semprebon's salary was paid by a grant issued to AIDS Response Seacoast through the DHHS. Because his job description was to educate adults about AIDS and HIV prevention, no background check was required.

Director of Public Health, Dr. Jose Montero, has stated, "We are reviewing the policy and trying to have a fair policy, but the fact that someone has something in their background doesn't mean they shouldn't have a job."

As a result of the Semprebon incident, DHHS is now considering running background checks on applicants to reveal crimes or offenses applicable to the specific positions. Furthermore, AIDS Response Seacoast is now conducting background checks and has made their hiring practices stricter.

Police were able to identity Semprebon as a registered sex offender because of the business card he carried. However, that business card was not approved, nor issued by AIDS Response Seacoast.

Finally, AIDS Response Seacoast's reputation is now in danger as it has been alleged that the agency discovered Semprebon's sex offender status last fall, but did not tell its partners. Authorities do not know how many other non-profit agencies Semprebon had contact with, but they do know he worked with the Feminist Health Center in Greenland, New Hampshire.

Thankfully, it does not appear that any harm came to anyone connected with Semprebon. On the other hand, one quick, low cost background check could have saved a non-profit organization from negative publicity and a loss of reputation.

Semprebon's sex offender status can be found here.

Sex Offender Arrested While Working a County Fair

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.

Part II: Time Warner Contractor Arrested on Sexual Abuse Charges

Recently, in Oneonta, New York, a registered sex offender obtained a job with Sure Connect, a company who is a contractor for Time Warner. He allegedly assaulted a woman in her home on June 20, 2008. Subsequently, Time Warner has terminated its contract with Sure Connect and is now requiring notarized certification from its contractors that background checks have been performed.

Stan McGinnis, founder and CEO of Secure Signals International, a company who specializes in "theft of service, internal theft, loss prevention and account fraud solutions with bottom line impact" and who screens potential employees for many contractors of cable companies, sat down with us to offer his insight into background checks and the cable television industry. What follows is the second part of our interview:

"Their [Time Warner] contract employees are obligated to do the same background checks that Time Warner does on their employees, which is supposed to be criminal, driving and a credit report. I'm working on a Time Warner system right now where the contractors have not done any background checks on any of their employees. I fired a contracting group out of a Time Warner system because the contract owner was in prison for drugs and his guys weren't doing their work. I know that system is not following the corporate guidelines of checking criminal history, credit history and driving records. They are supposed to submit an affidavit that they are doing these things. There is a fine line that Time Warner & Comcast are careful not to cross and that is that they can't manage the contractors' employees. Therefore, they don't make the contractors employees by managing too much of their business.

For Time Warner to say that it was not their employee and does not have any effect on them is bogus because any employee of a contractor that gets caught doing something like that...it is always going to reflect poorly on the fact that Time Warner hired this contracting group that hired a bad employee. In Sacramento, California, Comcast missed six felony convictions on a felony rapist by using Kroll because their database wasn't up to date. The employee went out and raped the first customer at home, which happened to be a mentally retarded girl. That case was just settled six months ago and that happened four years ago. Two years ago, in Chicago, Illinois, Comcast had a contractor kill a customer. The police interviewed the installer and let him go. They took some DNA from his shirt, but they didn't process it because they didn't have him as a person of interest. A week later, he killed another customer and then they arrested him.

I've had discussions with Comcast and Time Warner's corporate legal departments. The background checks they perform meet the minimum standard for the minimum cost, which allows for these opportunities to occur in the marketplace. When you look at the case in Sacramento, it went on for four years. The City of Sacramento tried to cancel Comcast franchises and there were city hall meetings. The public relations of that one incident make you ask the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't it be better to get it done right the first time, than to suffer the embarrassment?" It is incredulous to me that we step over dollars to pick up dimes because it is efficient. They want their reports back in 24 hours and we can't do that because the information we need is not readily on a database that is just going to pop up and be correct all the time. We want to be correct on our assessment so it takes time to get a good, accurate report; otherwise, why do the background check at all? Other than that you have some way of mitigating your damages when you get sued in court. This isn't correct, either.

In the Sacramento case where the background check was done by a Kroll database, the Judge said, "You could have used a better service and gotten the right information. You could have known, you should have known, you didn't and so you’re liable." I believe Kroll picked up all the expenses on that on behalf of Comcast. What if a contractor didn't have the means to do that? Aside from that, the damage is already done."

Bill to Require Camps in Ohio to run Background Checks

A new bill in Ohio, Senate Bill 321, calls for criminal background checks on all staff members of camps, FBI checks if the staffer has not lived in Ohio over the past five years and Social Security Number verification on all volunteers.

Up until now, background checks have only been required of day camps, but if this bill passes, all types of camps would be required to run the checks.

The bill stems from an incident last year in which a camp volunteer, Timothy Keil, was caught sexually molesting a child inside a cabin at Perry County Youth Camp. This revealed the loophole wherein the background checks were required for day camps, but not other types of camps.

Keil was convicted and is serving time in prison, for Gross Sexual Imposition. While he professed his innocence in court, another counselor testified finding Keil lying on a bed, caressing a boy who was on top of him. Keil has also been on probation for four years in Pennsylvania due to misdemeanor charges of indecent assault and corruption of a minor.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of Ohio Department of Job and Family services, said they are working on this issue, "We're just kind of taking on a more positive, proactive kind of role so that we can get out of there and make sure children are safe." Her department is teaming up with health inspectors in order to notify camp directors about the required background checks.

NASA Sued Over Background Checks

In August of 2007, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists and engineers sued NASA and the California Institute of Technology. The California Institute of Technology was named in the lawsuit because they manage JPL for NASA and hire its employees.

The background checks resulted from the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) that called for all federal employees and contractors to undergo background checks and to use a standardized identification card.

The employees challenged the background checks that NASA and other federal agencies implemented after the terrorist attacks on September 11th. The plaintiffs contended that the background checks should not be necessary to those employees who do not have access to classified information. NASA required background checks on all of its employees, from high-level engineers to janitors. Employees who did not submit to the background check by the deadline indicated by NASA would be subjected to “voluntary termination.”

On January 11th, 2008, a federal appeals court ruled that NASA should be blocked from running background checks on employees considered to be “low risk.” None of the plaintiffs in the case worked on classified projects, but several did work on high profile projects, such as the Cassini mission to Saturn. The court said that the 28 plaintiffs faced “a stark choice – either violation of their constitutional rights or loss of their jobs.”

On April 10, 2008, NASA and the government petitioned the Ninth District Court of appeals for a review of the injunction on the background checks. The court denied the review on April 25th, 2008. Robert Nelson, a senior research scientist at JPL released a statement stating, “We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reaffirmed its earlier decision. Intrusive personal background investigations of loyal federal employees constitute a violation of basic civil liberties that our Constitution guarantees to all.” Nelson believes that the background checks violate employees’ civil rights because NASA wants to investigate medical and financial records as well as sexual histories.

In a letter from the scientists to the Senate requesting an inquiry into the background checks NASA planned to conduct, it was apparent that the employees were not against having background checks run, but their concerns were regarding the extent to which NASA will be checking into their personal lives.

The court’s denial on April 10, 2008, means that this case will return to a federal district court for trial.

Man Charged with Selling Clean Urine Samples to Parolees

Russell Grant, 31, was arrested on April 23rd, 2008 for allegedly selling clean urine samples to parolees and people on probation. He is being charged with bribery and attempting to influence a public official.

Grant was employed at the Williams Street Center, a drug-rehabilitation center which has a contract with the Colorado Department of Corrections. An investigation was launched approximately one year ago by the Office of Inspector General in Colorado after they received a complaint that someone was selling clean urine samples. The samples were sold to people on probation or parole who were required to undergo urinalysis screening.

Grant sold a clean urine sample to an undercover police officer posing as a parolee. He received $180.

Williams Street Center is owned and operated by Community Education Centers Inc., which is based out of New Jersey. Our staff attempted to contact Bill Palatucci, senior vice president of Community Education Centers, by phone and email, but received no response. Mr. Palatucci was quoted in the Rocky Mountain News as stating that background checks are conducted on all employees, even Grant. However, a quick search at the Denver County Courts website showed that Grant had a 2004 misdemeanor conviction for disturbing the peace.

Grant was released on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond and is scheduled to appear in court again on May 24th, 2008.

Wal-Mart Tightens Its Gun Sales Policies

On Monday this week, Wal-Mart announced that it was going to tighten its policies on selling firearms, including running background checks on any employees who will be handling firearms.

Jami Lamontagne, Demand Media Manager at Wal-Mart, provided our staff with a press release that details a 10-point voluntary code between Wal-Mart and the group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The code is called the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership.

In the press release, JP Suarez, senior vice president and chief compliance officer for Wal-Mart stated, “Wal-Mart currently uses a strong point of sale system that allows us to serve the many hunters and outdoorsmen who’ve made us their retailer of choice, while also ensuring the responsible sale of firearms. This code is a way for us to fine tune the things we’re already doing and further strengthen our standards. We hope other retailers will join us in adopting the code.”

New York City Mayor and co-chair of Mayors against Illegal Guns, Michael Bloomberg stated, “I’ve always believed in leading by example, and Wal-Mart has again demonstrated why it’s a great American company. The Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership makes good sense – it will have no impact on a well-intentioned and law-abiding gun buyer – but will help keep Americans safer.”

The 10 points of the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership are:

1. Videotaping the Point of Sale for All Firearms Transactions. Participating retailers will videotape the point-of-sale of all firearms transactions and maintain videos for 6 months to deter illegal purchases and monitor employees.
2. Computerized Crime Gun Trace Log and Alert System. Mayors Against Illegal Guns will develop a computerized system that participating retailers will implement over time to log crime gun traces relating to the retailer.
Once the program is in place, if a customer who has a prior trace at that retailer attempts to purchase a firearm, the sale will be electronically flagged. The retailer would have discretion to proceed with the sale or stop the sale.
3. Purchaser Declaration. For sales flagged by the trace alert system, participating retailers will ask purchasers to fill out a declaration indicating that they meet the legal requirement to purchase the firearm.
4. Deterring Fake IDs. Participating retailers will only accept valid federal- or state-issued picture IDs as primary identification. Retailers will utilize additional ID checking mechanisms.
5. Consistent Visible Signage Consistent Visible Signage. Participating retailers will post signage created by the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership to alert customers of their legal responsibilities at the point-of-sale.
6. Employee Background Checks. Participating retailers will conduct criminal background checks for all employees selling or handling firearms.
7. Employee Responsibility Training. Participating retailers will participate in an employee responsibility training program focused on deterring illegal purchasers. The Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership will create an online training system based on Wal-Mart’s training program.
8. Inventory Checking. Participating retailers will conduct daily and quarterly audits. Guidelines will be based on Wal-Mart’s existing audit procedures.
9. No Sales Without Background Check Results. Participating retailers would prohibit sales based on “default proceeds,” which are permitted by law when the background check has not returned a result within 3 days.
10. Securing Firearms. Participating retailers will maintain firearms kept in customer accessible areas in locked cases or locked to racks.


The press release continued by stating, “A new national poll conducted jointly by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and The Tarrance Group and released last week found that Americans overwhelmingly support measures like those included in the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership. For example, 91 percent of Americans favor requiring gun stores to do background checks on employees. According to the poll, 93 percent of gun owners said being video taped in a store while purchasing firearms would make no difference to them or would make them more likely to purchase a firearm from that retailer.”