EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

If your company is looking to hire someone from the United Kingdom between roughly 117 and 218 years of age, have no fear – there is a criminal records check available for you.  The trial records of 18th and 19th century U.K. citizens convicted of poaching from a rabbit warren, bad language, scrumping for apples and other crimes are now available online courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk.  Due to the age of the records, it is highly recommended that any employer looking to take advantage of this new service contact their legal department regarding the use of these records in denial of employment.

Ancestry puts criminal records online

Genealogy site provides snapshot of criminal trials in 18th and 19th centuries

Written by Dinah Greek, Computeractive – August 7, 2009

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While browsing through the App Store on my iPhone this weekend I realized that there really is an app for everything!  Currently in the #6 spot for all paid apps in the Apple App Store is Offender Locator.  This app allows users to view registered Sex Offenders living near their families.

The iPhone’s Latest Hit App: A Sex Offender Locator

Looking over the top 10 paid iPhone apps list today, the list appeared pretty typical: A bunch of games, a camera app, etc. Then I noticed one called Offender Locator [iTunes link], mostly because it has a creepy icon. I figured it was a game — it’s anything but. It’s an app to show you registered sex offenders living around you.

While all 50 states require that sexual offenders register themselves, and allow anyone to access the information online, most people never look at it. That’s why it’s surprising that this app is a top seller — especially considering that it’s not free (it’s $0.99). Certainly, it’s good to be aware of these people living around you — especially if they have committed acts against children, and you have children — but it’s interesting that it’s the iPhone that is making such information “popular.”

The app allows you to see a list of offenders based on your current location (using the iPhone’s location services), any contact’s address, or it allows you to manually enter an address. The app then scours the database and lists the sexual offenders based on their proximity to the location you gave. You can click on any of these names to get a picture of the person, their information like date of birth, height, weight, and a picture. And you can also see the specific sexual crime they were charged with.

But, as you might imagine, such an app is not without controversy. First of all, there’s a disclaimer when you first load it up warning that all of the information may not be accurate. The reason it gives are that the sexual offender lists are continuously updating, so some parts may be out of date or incomplete.

An even bigger problem is that the app may not be legal in all states. As someone who reviewed the app notes, “This app is not legal, at least under CA law. Selling the personal information of people (even ex-criminals) for profit is forbidden.” It is rather odd that this app costs money when the information is available freely on the web. As a top 10 app, the developer is likely making thousands of dollars a day off of this app.

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A local newspaper in Austin, Texas recently issued a follow-up piece to a feature story they published about an 81-year-old female pilot who has logged nearly 29,000 flight hours during her lifetime.  The intention of the story was to make its readers feel good and highlight the incredible achievement of this woman who is still going strong despite her age.  Shortly after the story was published, the newspaper got wind of an incident that occurred nearly 40 years ago that they felt was important to inform their readers about – namely, a murder conviction for the death of her 6-year-old stepson.

The story describes what happened and why they have chosen to inform their readers about the woman’s past.  While this isn’t a case of conducting a background check for employment purposes, one can clearly see the similarities. 

81-year-old pilot still flying high - June 10, 2009

Pilot says she has skeletons in past - June 13, 2009

Why we do background checks

By Debbie Hiott, Austin-American Statesman – June 15, 2009

Last week we ran a front page feature about Smithville pilot Lori Adams, who continues a lifetime of flying at 81. Saturday, we ran another story about Adams, this time pointing out a bit of her history that wasn’t in the original story, that Adams had been convicted in 1973 for the murder of her 6-year-old stepson. Her conviction did not show up in the background check we routinely do on profile subjects before we put them in the paper.

Some of our readers thanked us for the additional information about Adams. Others complained that the murder wasn’t relevant to Adams’ life as a pilot. They wondered why we felt compelled to come back and do the second story. Still others were bothered that we do background checks at all.

The original profile, a nicely-written account by Andrea Lorenz, could easily be seen as a celebration of the pilot’s life and spirit. It was a feel-good piece about how one local woman persists in following her passion.

When we discovered after the article ran that our routine background check had failed to reveal a murder conviction, that information seemed significant enough to Adams’ life story to warrant a follow-up article. We didn’t do it out of any desire to embarrass Adams or to pass any sort of judgment on her. Our sole motivation was that we felt readers deserved a more full picture of Adams’ life in light of the previous profile we had run.

As for those background checks we do, they are checks of public records — the sort of information available to anyone about anyone else. A person can use a service or dig through individual courthouse records. We generally check through a service for criminal background, lawsuits, liens and bankruptcies. We do the checks to make sure we aren’t surprised about someone’s background after a story comes out, as we were in this case. Had we known about the murder conviction in this case, we might have included it in the original profile or we might have decided not to do a story about the pilot at all.

In some cases we decide the information we have found isn’t relevant to the story because it’s old, it’s minor or it has no relation to the current situation. In this case, the nature of the crime for which Adams was convicted was such that we felt we should present the information to readers and let them decide whether it changed their perceptions of the original story.

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First came diploma mills - organizations ready and willing to issue and verify a fraudulent college, graduate or doctorate degrees for an applicant.  Then came employment mills who, for a small fee, will make applicants “employees” of one of their partner companies in order to fabricate work experience.  Now, we have document mills - underground organizations selling false citizenship documents to illegal aliens to aid them in obtaining employment in this country.

I don’t even want to contemplate what’s next.

Illegals Using Fake Documents to Obtain Jobs

WBZ – May 21, 2009

For immigrants living in this country illegally, often the only way to get a job or a driver’s license is with phony documents.

It’s an underground business thriving in several communities around Boston. Chief Correspondent Joe Shortsleeve says federal agents are working undercover to shut down these shady operations.

The video is blurred and grainy but the man in the driver’s seat is an undercover federal agent posing as an illegal immigrant. The video shot by federal investigators in Lynn shows the agent buying phony documents needed to work or to get a driver’s license.

Bruce Foucart is the top federal agent in Boston charged with tracking down criminals who are making big bucks selling bogus documents to people who are in this country illegally.

Foucart says “it is very big problem.”

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency’s Boston office is a busy place these days. Foucart says it matter of national security. “The people who are making and selling these documents do not run background checks. So they do not know if they have terrorist or a murderer from another country.”

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While a charge of “Felony Stupidity” would not show up in a background check (although in this case, maybe it should), you can be sure that any hiring manager who has the name Louis Caldera cross their desk will think ‘Was this the guy?’  But don’t be quick to judge  – this is a pretty common name.  If he’s got “Director of the White House Military Office” listed on his resume however, you know you’ve got the right one.

Words of advice for the Louis Caldera in question: Don’t apply for a job in New York City – EVER.

What took place in the city of New York on Monday is both shocking and deplorable.  How Mr. Caldera could have approved such a  mission (and a ridiculous one at that) is mind boggling, especially when a much faster, cheaper and less calamitous alternative exists.  It’s called Photoshop.

“Furious’ Obama Orders Review of NY Plane Fly-Over – CNN

Create-Your-Own NYC Air Force One FlyOver Photo…We Did. – By Owen Moritz, NY Daily News Writer

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Forgive the nearly two week interruption in posts from me.  The truth is that nothing has caught my attention as “blog-worthy”.  It seems like the daily stories we receive of school employees hired even though they’ve been convicted of a violent crime, of accountants with convictions for embezzlement and of CEO’s who’ve lied about their academic qualifications are becoming mundane.

However, this could be the day the cycle ends.  It’s the day that represents a symbolic sign that we have made it through the abyss of another long, dark and cold winter.  Today is opening day for Major League Baseball.  A day that hope springs eternal. A day that says “Move out of the way winter.  Here comes summer!”.  A day that says the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs have not been mathematically eliminated and still have a shot at the World Series.  And maybe even a day when lightening strikes and I am finally struck with a unique idea for how to wax poetic about background checks once again or am outraged by another shoddy background check story.

Oh yes!  It could all happen today.

Just one hitch: it snowed last night and they’ve already canceled the White Sox home opener.  And I’ve walked into the office and found more stories about teachers, accountants and CEO’s who could have used a background check.

Will this vicious cycle ever end?

Predictions:

AL Pennant- New York Yankees

NL Pennant- Chicago Cubs

World Series Champ- Chicago Cubs (maybe not, but this city would go crazy)

We will continue to see background check stories about teachers, accountants and CEO for the foreseeable future.

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This isn’t something you see everyday.  For the company’s sake, let’s hope that this employee appreciates the second chance he has been given.  Many criminals only dream of the same opportunity.

Web maven gives convicted botmaster keys to the kingdom

Mahalo.com embraces Acidstorm

By Dan Goodin, The Register

For the past four or five months, Mahalo.com has entrusted its site to a security consultant who stole hundreds of thousands of bank passwords with a massive botnet, which he sometimes administered from his former employer’s premisis.

For most of that time, serial entrepreneur and Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis was in the dark because no one at the company had bothered to Google the employee. But even after learning that 27-year-old John Kenneth Schiefer confessed to extensive botnet crimes just 16 months ago, they are continuing to trust him with system root passwords and other sensitive company information.

“After really a lot of careful deliberation and looking at exactly what damage he could do here and how he was being supervised, we made a compassionate decision to let him work up to the day that he goes to prison,” Calacanis told The Register. “We’ve made a point of supervising him and I talk to him on a daily basis.”

On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced Schiefer to serve four years in federal prison and pay $20,000 in restitution and a $2,500 fine. The hacker, who went by the names Acid and Acidstorm, has been given 90 days to surrender to prison officials.

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Here at employeescreenIQ, we are big fans of the Fox action/adventure/drama series 24.  In honor of its return after missing a season due to the writers’ strike, we thought it would be fun to write a blog about its main character, Jack Bauer.  Particularly, what types of services we would want to run on him for a background check and the kind of results we would obtain. 

To start, we would definitely want to run a social security number trace on Jack.  The SSN trace would provide us with his residential history as well as any aka’s he has used.  Results from the SSN trace would show two aka’s – Kiefer Sutherland and Frank Flynn (kudos to anyone who remembers this name from the beginning of season 5)!  Since Jack is a resident of Los Angeles county, we would start with a criminal search in that county court. 

There, we would find two DUI convictions under the name Kiefer Sutherland.  Running a federal criminal records search would show pending human rights violation and torture charges for his use of excessive force while working for the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) . If convicted, this could certainly disqualify Jack for employment with most companies. There have been times in during his employment with CTU that he has killed more than 30 people in one day.  He boasts a career high of eliminating 186 people in 6 days and 5 hours.  Though, one could argue (especially Jack himself), that they had it coming. 

 Since Jack’s job requires frequent travel, both foreign and domestic, we would probably also run any applicable statewide, national and international criminal checks, just to be on the safe side.  I can’t speak intelligently about what information we would find with these searches as most of Jack’s operations have been classified.

 Jack’s employment history would consist of verifications from the US Army, CTU, and the FBI (he currently holds a consultant position with this government agency).  Some former CTU supervisors (obviously the ones who are not already deceased) would say that Jack has consistently shown a blatant disregard for rules, but does have a tendency to produce the desired results.  At this point, the FBI may not have good things to say about him since they are under the impression he is aiding and abetting terrorists.  However, if he were to list former President Wayne Palmer as a former supervisor, we would surely hear about how Jack Bauer is a man who knows how to get the job done by any means necessary.

 So while Jack Bauer may not look too good on paper from his criminal record history and opinions from some of his former supervisors, one can’t argue the fact that he is a dedicated employee.  So if you are looking for someone who is willing to violate company policy when necessary, is committed to eliminating the competition, or is just an all-around bad a**, then Jack is undoubtedly your guy.

Special thanks to Jonah Green, an Account Executive with employeescreenIQ, for his contribution to this blog post!

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We tackled this subject not too long along ago (see Investigation Reveals Some Military Honors Claims are Bogus).  We now have a real life example of someone who made claims of being a Vietnam POW and a recipient of four Purple Hearts who is currently being prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.  Though this isn’t a situation of the employer discovering the falsehood, it easily could be.  If this person had the fortitude to stand up in front of a crowd of military personnel and provide an interview to a Navy newspaper making these claims, I doubt he would have thought twice about including it on an application or resume.

Feds: Vet Made False Claims Of Purple Heart

Newschannel 4 Jacksonville – December 9, 2008

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A 68-year-old St. Augustine resident who told people he received four Purple Hearts during his military service and was keynote speaker at a recent military service is facing federal charges for making false claims.

U.S. Attorney A. Brian Albritton said Tuesday that Charles T. White was never awarded a Purple Heart. White was charged with violation of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.

Albritton said White wore a Purple Heart ribbon on various occasions over the past year and had made several verbal claims that he was a Purple Heart medal recipient.

The U.S. Attorney’s office cited an interview White gave to a Navy newspaper about being a featured speaker at a POW/MIA ceremony at NAS Jacksonville earlier this year as one of his false statements. In the newspaper story, White claimed he was awarded 22 military medals, including four Purple Hearts.

In his remarks a the NAS Jax ceremony, White told the crowd he spent more than seven months as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam in 1967-68.

POW Network posted a letter from the National Archives and Records Administration saying it had no record of Charles T. White having ever been a POW. According to his service record also posted on that Web site, White served in the Navy from July 1959 to July 1961 and in the Marines from November 1964 to May 1967. He had achieved the rank of lance corporal when he was discharged.

Mary Schantag, a spokesperson for the POW Network, said they’re the ones that contacted the FBI after she said someone saw the article, and questioned if White was a POW.

“There’s a curiosity. They want to see the story and they want to hear what it’s all about, and they want to know why he was a hero and why he was awarded what he was and how long he spent in captivity. When they can’t find the answer, we usually get the questions,” Schantag said.

She said that same day, they found that the man who gave a keynote speech to other men who served most honorably was not a prisoner of war himself.

“They’re stealing their honor, and they’re literally changing the history of the Vietnam War. Their stories are recorded and they stay on the Internet forever, and they’re forever changing the history of Vietnam with their fairytales,” Schantag said.

If convicted, White could spend up to two years in prison and be fined up to $200,000.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Agency assisted in the case.

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Can trying to land a job actually land you in jail?  Apparently so!  Well, in Silvester Colonna’s case anyway.  Mr. Colonna attempted to dupe his employer by forging letters from law enforcement officials which stated he had no criminal record after a background check conducted by his employer revealed that he did.  Unfortunately, Mr. Colonna’s grammar and spelling weren’t up to par and his deception was revealed.  He is now being charged with five counts of criminal impersonation and forgery.  I wonder how he’ll explain these blemishes on his record to his next potential employer…

Stafford man charged with forging letters from cops to hide criminal convictions

By Joshua Burd, www.app.com – October 8, 2008

An Ocean County man was charged with forging letters from law-enforcement officials, including the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, to convince a new employer he had a clean record, Union County authorities said.

Silvester Colonna, 53, of the Manahawkin section of Stafford, is accused of trying to hide his past from a Hillside-based company that hired him earlier this year but discovered through background checks that he had several previous criminal convictions.

Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said Colonna denied having a criminal background and forged several letters to prove otherwise. One of the letters purportedly came from Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan and indicated that the Silvester Colonna the company had hired was different from the one with the criminal history, Romankow said.

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