Ohio Police Chief upset over allegations concerning background investigation

By Dave Greber
Dayton Daily News

Westchester Township Police Chief John Bruce is demanding trustees here apologize for comments they made in response to an internal investigation that suggested he instructed his nephew to lie on an application.

A letter was sent Tuesday from Bruce's attorney, Mark Mezibov, to township attorney Donald Crain, that said "...Trustees have publicly impugned Col. Bruce and stigmatized his professional reputation by imputing to him acts of dishonesty and unprofessional conduct."

In the letter, Mezibov states: "Col. Bruce demands that the trustees issue a prompt public apology and correction at the next meeting of the Board of Trustees."

But at least one trustee has said a public apology isn't warranted.

"I don't believe the board has taken any action for which they should apologize to anybody," said Trustee Catherine Stoker.

As of this afternoon, trustees George Lang and Lee Wong, declined to comment.

Mezibov said his client's professional career could be negatively impacted by comments trustees made in response to the internal investigation that appeared in the Oct. 25 edition of the Journal-News.

Said Wong Oct. 25: "I have lost total confidence and trust in him as a police chief. He's not allowed to make any major command decisions. This is short of him being relieved of his command."

The attorney said Bruce should at least have an opportunity to clear his name in a public hearing if an apology is denied.

The investigation, launched late last month, concluded Donald Gatliff, 27, of West Chester Twp., was not forthcoming to investigators about his background, and that Bruce advised him to do so.

Gatliff applied with the township in March after hearing about an open position in the police department. But a subsequent background check showed he provided false or misleading information on his application, during initial interviews and again during the internal investigation.

The internal investigation showed Bruce advised Gatliff to omit his history of drug use and not to disclose on the application that he was related to Bruce and Bruce's wife, Denise, who is the director of the township's communications and information technology department.

The township's nepotism policy prohibits department heads from hiring immediate family members or people who live under the same roof, neither of which applied to Gatliff's hiring.

Gatliff has never been convicted on a drug charge, although he admitted to investigators he has used various illegal drugs as recently as 2002, according to the background investigation, but he was convicted for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and operating a vehicle without a license as a juvenile.

Gatliff was nearing the end of completing his ninth week of the 18-week training program at the Ohio State Highway Academy.

Bruce also said he was trying to protect Gatliff's information from becoming public.

Bruce, chief since 2000, is not likely to face disciplinary action. Township records show Bruce has been responsible for hiring 58 people during his tenure. He said that none of his previous hires — or attempts to hire — led to an internal investigation.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Stratford Connecticut Police Captain demoted over leaked background information

By Richard Weizel
Connecticut Post

Police Union President Joseph McNeil was demoted from the rank of captain to sergeant Tuesday and suspended without pay three months for his alleged role in the illegal leak earlier this year of personal background on former police applicant Christian Miron, the brother of Mayor James R. Miron.

The mayor said Tuesday he recused himself from "the entire disciplinary process" because the investigation was related to his brother's personnel file.

"The discipline imposed is due to the severity of this offense," Chief Administrative Officer Suzanne McCauley, who was the hearing officer in the McNeil case and made the final decision, said in a statement Tuesday.

McCauley said she strongly considered firing McNeil, a 17-year-veteran of the local Police Department.

"As the hearing officer in this matter I made the decision," McCauley said. "The town of Stratford has no further comments, as it is a personnel matter."

But the local police union had plenty to say, issuing an immediate statement blasting the town's action as a violation of its collective-bargaining agreement, and arguing that the decision is based on "political pressures." It vowed an immediate appeal of the ruling.

"The Stratford Police Local 407, Council 15, AFSCME does not agree with the conclusions of the town of Stratford in this matter," according to the statement. "By its own admission the town's conclusions are derived wholly from circumstantial evidence.

"The union will immediately grieve this matter because the town has not sustained the evidentiary burden necessary to sustain the just cause requirement found in the collective bargaining agreement," the statement says. The union "is confident that when these facts are reviewed by an impartial panel, free of political pressure, Joe McNeil will be vindicated, reinstated to the rank of captain and made whole for salary lost as a result of the suspension."

McNeil, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, said prior to the disciplinary hearing that he "feared the worst." However, he strongly denied he had any involvement with the release of a personnel background check on Christian Miron, 29, who was issued a conditional offer of employment as a police officer earlier this year. However, a detailed, nine-page background investigation raised questions about whether Miron is fit for police work.

All of the vacant police jobs have subsequently been filled.

The information leaked from Miron's personnel file shows he scored well on the written and oral exams, as well as the recommendation by a psychologist who interviewed him and recommend he be hired, although expressing "strong reservations.''

McNeil's suspension and two-rank demotion, considered "very unusual," according to McCauley, comes a few weeks after more than 70 police officers converged on Town Hall to show support for the president as he went behind closed doors for the disciplinary hearing.

McNeil was accused by town officials and police brass of having a role in leaking Miron's background information to the press and Town Council members, or that he knew who did.

Some union members, including McNeil's brother, police Detective David McNeil, said previously they believe the union president was "railroaded" and "made a scapegoat" in the investigation.

David McNeil claimed that top police officials threatened to fire his brother.

"They have even tried to get him to implicate the former union president and a council member in the leak, and threatened his job if he didn't cooperate," said David McNeil, a 19-year department veteran. "My brother doesn't know who leaked the file, and they are trying to get him to lie."

Joseph McNeil took over in May for former Union President Shawn Farmer after he resigned from the department. A statement released by the union at that time said, in part, that in his capacity as union president, McNeil was the target of a "witch hunt" after he "quickly discovered irregular and highly improper conduct involving senior members of the Town of Stratford Police Department. Since McNeil began questioning those improper activities, a deliberate campaign has been orchestrated against him, the union said.

"With respect to the background investigation regarding the mayor's brother, Christian Miron, Capt. McNeil emphatically denies he released said report to any member within the Police Department, to any member of the media, or any member of the general public," the union states.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Revealing background Investigations on Alabama college workers conducted despite objections from the Alabama Education Association

The reults of background checks on employees of the two-year college system prove the state Board of Education was right to ignore Alabama Education Association objections.

The AEA did everything it could to keep college officials from finding out whether any of their teachers or staff members had felony criminal records. The teachers' organization lobbied against the proposed background checks, and when that failed it dragged the two-year system into court.

The lawsuit resulted in the system telling employees that providing Social Security numbers –– which would have made the checks more accurate –– was optional.

Even so, after checking the background of more than 9,300 employees, officials identified 73 who had been convicted of felony charges, including sexual assault and murder.

The system appears to be handling the revelations in an appropriate manner. Those people whose convictions were 20 or so years ago, and who have lived exemplary lives since then, were allowed to stay on the job. Eight others were terminated, four left voluntarily, and six found their contracts not renewed. The fate of 32 others is still being decided.

Granted, more than 100 employees were flagged as possibly having a criminal record when they didn't have one. The AEA is understandably hot about that.

Nevertheless, AEA's criticism of Chancellor Bradley Byrne and the school board for wrongly accusing the innocent employees seems disingenuous. The mistakes are understandable, and no one was fired because of a false accusation.

The bottom line is that at least 18 people who should never have been working for the system will no longer be in a position to harm students or compromise the colleges in any way, and that proves the background checks were good policy.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

New Jersey job applicant falsifies law enforcement letters that enabled his employment

A 53-year-old Ocean County man has been charged with forging letters from law enforcement officials, authorities said yesterday.

Silvester Colonna of Manahawkin was arrested on Friday and charged with two counts of criminal impersonation and three counts of forgery, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said. Bail for Colonna was set at $40,000.

Investigators in the prosecutor's office said Colonna was hired by a Hillside company that specializes in international trade. The company performed a background check on Colonna before he was hired, which revealed several criminal convictions. Colonna denied he had a criminal background and, in an attempt to hide his past, forged several letters, authorities said. One letter was ostensibly from the Middlesex County prosecutor stat ing that the Silvester Colonna employed by the company was not the same Silvester Colonna with the criminal convictions, authorities said.

Noticing several inconsistencies and grammatical mistakes in the letters, company officials contacted the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, which denied knowledge of the letters and referred the case to Union County.

Colonna was arrested after a two-month investigation.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Further response to Indiana's lax background investigations on teachers

The overwhelming majority of Indiana's 62,000 teachers are remarkable people who do their best to teach and protect our children. But there have been repeated reports from districts around the state of teachers who have threatened children, physically assaulted them, or have criminal records. Any of those behaviors would have gotten a teacher fired - or prevented them from being hired - in most other states.

Not in Indiana, according to the Indianapolis Star investigation. Here, background checks for teachers are limited to looking at newspaper clippings that report arrests within the state. Little is done to expand that check nationwide, as most other states do. "That is beyond appalling and utterly negligent." said Tyra Hearns of Pebi Sevices a re known background investigation firm

States like Georgia, Ohio and Utah have state police conduct background investigations, and some states go as far as to conduct FBI background checks before allowing anyone to teach in a public school.

And it's not as if the problem is unknown. Indiana's teachers unions and the state school board association advocate stronger background checks and adding more crimes to the list of those reported to the state that could lead to firing teachers. But there is disagreement about where the responsibility on those checks should be.

Instead of a state-led effort, say through the state police, there are some who want that power to remain with local school districts. And that is the problem. Too many local school districts try to bury their mistakes by allowing teachers to resign rather than fire them. If a teacher is fired, the public can ask to see the reason why. If a teacher resigns, that information is kept confidential and that teacher is free to move on to another district.

That is precisely the kind of thing that needs to end. Reports of children being abused or intimidated by their teachers need to stop and one way that can happen is to make sure school districts aren't hiring people with a checkered past.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Guards at Seattle area detention center hired without background investigations

By Gene Johnson
The Seattle Times

Federal authorities are taking a second look at security guards at the Northwest Detention Center, a privately run immigration lockup in Tacoma, after finding that some were hired without preliminary background checks

"Clearly this is a cause for concern," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We take great pride in the safety and the security at our facilities, and we need to make sure the people responsible for the safety and security of our facilities are themselves beyond reproach."

Authorities released few details, citing an ongoing investigation, but a federal charge was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, accusing Sylvia Wong, a human relations specialist with GEO Group Inc., the private contractor that runs the center, of lying to ICE internal investigators when she claimed in April she did not falsely generate documents.

The Northwest Detention Center opened in 2004 and holds about 1,000 people accused of immigration violations, mainly detainees from Alaska, Oregon and Washington. This summer, a report by an immigrant rights advocacy group alleged mistreatment of detainees there, including excessive strip searches and overcrowding. ICE officials dismissed it as a "work of fiction."

Guards hired at the center are supposed to go through a preliminary background investigation, after which an "entry on duty" memorandum allows them to begin work pending the completion of a full background check, which can take several months to more than a year, Kice said.

Wong is accused of fabricating the documents, allowing guards to begin work without the preliminary background check. Kice said she couldn't discuss why that allegedly was done, how long it might have been going on or in how many instances guards began working without background checks.

"If someone was brought on board who had a prior criminal history ... that's one of the issues we're examining closely," she said, adding that in such a case "we'll take follow up action."

Wong is still on the job, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Brown said.

Wong's lawyer was out of the office Tuesday, and Wong did not return a message left on her work voice mail. GEO Group, based in Boca Renton, Fla., did not return e-mails seeking comment.

The study on conditions at the lockup was released by Seattle-based OneAmerica, an immigrant rights advocacy group, and the International Human Rights Clinic at Seattle University Law School. They based it largely on interviews with detainees, family members and immigration lawyers.

"This really just points to what we had in our report, that there's no oversight over these detention centers, and contractors can get away with all kinds of things," Pramila Jayapal, executive director of OneAmerica, said Tuesday.

"We'd like to know what kind of checks were done ... to make sure they don't have guards that might be prone to be abusive," Jayapal added.

The report came out soon after ICE announced an increase of nearly 40 percent in deportations out of Washington, Oregon and Alaska over the first nine months of the fiscal year. More than 7,300 people were deported from the region in that period.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns