Chicago area school food worker had child sex offender past

Batavia school administrators are considering ending their contract with food-services provider Sodexho after a child sex offender was found working in two school kitchens last week.

In response to this infraction, other area school districts also are re-examining their policies on background investigations for workers in their buildings.

"We are responsible for holding our vendors responsible -- there's no way around it," said Batavia School Superintendent Jack Barshinger. "It is our responsibility to make sure our vendors comply with all of our (policies)."

Gary Gasper, 41, of the 100 block of West Chicago Street, Elgin, has been charged with being on school property as a convicted and registered sex offender, a felony, Barshinger said.

Police arrested Gasper at Rotolo Middle School Monday after a school liaison officer conducted a background investigation that revealed he had been convicted of sexually assaulting a girl in Wisconsin 18 years ago.

Illinois law forbids convicted sex offenders from being within 500 feet of a school.

Gasper, a temporary worker who had been subcontracted by Sodexho, worked in Rotolo Middle School on Nov. 5, 6 and 11, and worked for a few hours in Batavia High School on Nov. 11, Barshinger said.

Sodexho is required to run background investigations on all employees who work in the district.

"It was most definitely a breach of their contract," Barshinger said.

A district investigation, tracing Gasper's whereabouts during those three days through staff interviews, is 90 percent complete, according to Barshinger. He said the final task is reviewing videotape from the high school.

So far, Barshinger said the district has not found any individual contact between Gasper and students.

In an attempt to rectify the situation, district administrators have been meeting with Sodexho representatives daily. Barshinger said the district is demanding the company send administrators paperwork on all employees whose criminal backgrounds have been checked.

The district has not yet made a recommendation on whether to continue Sodexho's service. Barshinger said a decision could be made at the next board meeting on Nov. 27.

After learning of the incident, administrators from the West Aurora School District contacted their food-service provider, Chartwells. Superintendent James Rydland said the district asked the company to review employees' background investigations and send the district the results.

The East Aurora School District -- which also uses Sodexho -- has an agreement with the company that background investigations will be performed, said district spokesman Clayton Muhammad.

"We definitely rely on Sodexho, and we have a strong relationship with them so far," Muhammad said.

Tyra Hearns defends the escalation of background investigations

Although large numbers of background investigations are being conducted, President Tyra Hearns of Miami based Pebi Services (www.pebiservices.com) emphatically states that the escalated use of background investigations in the private sector is working and working well. Already this year, 25 million Americans have had background investigations by the federal government, a number that's risen every year since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Amid the rise, a notable shift has occurred: More civilians are now checked each year than criminals. And background investigations on the vast majority come back clean, even as states allot more money for their growing screening operations.

And, in rare cases, predators still slip through the cracks. Take Timothy Stephen Keil, an Ohio church camp counselor recently convicted of molesting two young boys. Or Ralph Fiscale, a New Hampshire soccer coach, and Stephen Unger Jr., a Texas schoolteacher, both of whom committed similar offenses in the past year. "A background investigation cannot predict future events or actions, unless the background investigations are done annually or within a set and established employment marker area." says Hearns

All were either not run through a background investigation by their superiors, or they passed one.

Civil libertarians say the tradeoffs of such a system, built largely through state mandates enacted since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, have become too high.

State background investigation laws, applied to groups as varied as professional nursing home workers, reading tutors, bankers and even volunteer dog walkers _ are becoming so numerous as to be almost meaningless, said Christine Link, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio.

In Ohio, nearly 4 million background investigations have been conducted since 2001, for instance, a figure equivalent to nearly half the state's 8.7 million adult population.

"The sheer volume of them tells us that they're not working, because to be effective these background investigations have to be looked at very carefully," Link said. "I wouldn't be surprised if there's a terrorist or two in there, but you're not going to find them when you're doing so many." According to Pebi Services (www.pebiservices.com) President Tyra Hearns remarks made by Link are prima facia evidence of flawed thinking "The absurdity of saying that terrorists will evade detection due to a large volume of work is in a sense throwing your hands up in the air and giving up because the statistical minority is in play, as it always is when quoting numbers."

In a recent poll conducted by The Barna Group, a California-based marketing group helping churches, a quarter of pastors surveyed admitted they don't have adequate background investigation and reference checking in place.

Barna Group president David Kinnaman said most churches are very small, with perhaps 100 parishioners, and the background investigations aren't seen as an urgent need.

"In a lot of those places, they have a setting in which it's very, very hard to imagine any abuse taking place," Kinnaman said. "There can be an over-inflated sense of safety, a naivete of the changing issues churches are facing."

Similarly, a recent Associated Press search of state-by-state records found 2,570 incidents of sexual misconduct in public schools between 2001 and 2005, despite background investigations of teachers being required in many states.

Civilian background investigations now dominate the workload at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, costing taxpayers nearly $9 million a year. Since 1993, the number of annual background investigations performed by the bureau has grown from 38,000 to 650,000 on average.

Checking someone's criminal background is a common political response to each new social crisis. Ohio lawmakers, for instance, have introduced additional background investigation requirements recently for foster care parents, following a series of incidents against children, and for public school teachers, following revelations of sexual acts toward students going unreported.

Yet Ohio figures compiled for The Associated Press by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification found that the 90-percent-plus passage rate remains consistent, regardless of how many Ohioans are screened.

Steve Fischer, a spokesman for the FBI, said that pattern also holds true at the national level, where the number of background investigations being conducted has exploded since 9/11. It continues to grow at a pace of about 12 percent a year.

Fischer said 69 percent of criminals who are checked turn out to have their fingerprints already on file, compared to just 12 percent of civilians.

He said the federal program used to be heavily weighted toward checking criminals, but a shift toward civilians has occurred since 9/11.

"It used to be slightly higher on the criminal side," Fischer said. "But since 9/11, the majority of our checks are civilians _ people applying for jobs, licenses, things like that."

Most of the background investigations are required under laws emanating from state legislatures aiming to protect people from predators.

"It's mostly about protected populations: children and the elderly," Fischer said.

Yet crime statistics present mixed evidence as to whether the explosion in records checks is having an impact. On a national level, sex crimes and forcible rapes had already been declining steadily before the 2001 attacks. The Bureau of Justice Statistics attributes that reduction to a variety of societal factors, of which background investigations are only one.

Ohio figures show an unpredictable pattern, with arrests for forcible rapes and sex offenses sometimes rising and sometimes falling year by year. Overall, since 2001, arrests for the two types of crimes are down from 2,253 to 1,371, based on self-reported law enforcement data.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers have begun to contemplate what they have created.

According to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, 21 states enacted laws last year related to the regulation of offender information _ including proposals that limited public access to the data, lowered costs for the checks, reduced the number of years to be checked for certain positions, and expunged some offenses.

___

Background Investigations not done on many locksmiths

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When Consumer Connection viewer Ronald Ritch got locked out of his car, he "went back into the house and started looking in the Yellow Pages and saw big ads from this company," Ritch explained.

He called Reliable Locksmith. The locksmith came, opened the car, then, "I was ready to pay him the amount of money they told me on the telephone that it would be, he comes out and he wants almost twice as much," said Ritch.

Stories like Ronald's and reports of damaged property are the main allegations against a group of locksmiths operating across the country and now here. Our investigation found two locksmiths with a string of complaints operating in Charlotte illegally.

First, my investigative producer and I took on Reliable Locksmith.

Their locksmith called to our lockout did not have a license. I confronted him about that. "Why don't you have a North Carolina license?"

His name is Eli Ivgy. This was his answer: "I just moved here from California as you can see.”

Anna: "You are required to have a license in North Carolina. Why don't you have one?”

Eli: “I don't have a license..I..I, my company have a license but I did not know that I have to have a license. But if I have to I will change it from Washington to North Carolina."

We checked with Washington State and California and Eli doesn't have a license there either, even though it's required in those states, too.

The company Eli works for, Reliable, does not have a locksmith license.

Not only is a company license required by state law, the license number should be visible in every ad -- that's the law.

The law also requires each individual working as a locksmith to take an exam and undergo a criminal background check looking for convictions that range from sex offense to kidnapping.

The North Carolina Locksmith Licensing board says they told Reliable's owner Reuven Gigi back in June that his company needs a license along with any employees doing locksmith work. According to the board, the owner asked to take the required test in a foreign language, a request they denied.

You have to take the test in English. The board made it clear to me that they believe Reuven Gigi and Reliable Locksmith are well aware that they are continuing to operate here illegally.

Tom Bartholomy of the Better Business Bureau says, "Just because someone has a big ad in the Yellow Pages doesn't mean they are a good business to do business with."

Reliable isn't the only one advertising without its license number. Another -- One Hour Emergency Locksmith, also known as Dependable -- has prompted a nationwide warning from the Better Business Bureau.

So we put Dependable to the test, too.

The locksmith tells our investigative producer his name is Stephan Ivanoff.

You guessed it -- he's not licensed and neither is Dependable.

"You are pretty much at their mercy and that's what they like to take advantage of," Bartholomy said.

The BBB calls Dependable particularly disreputable and says the company operates under a dozen different names.

As for Ronald - he's filed complaints with the state board and the attorney general's office.

"I wasn't the only one, not near the only one," Ritch said.

He says getting the word out is critical.

Neither Reliable nor Dependable returned our calls for comment.

Complaints against locksmiths shot up 75 percent between 2005 and 2006. So how can you avoid being the next person with a bad experience? Don't wait for an emergency to choose a locksmith.

Search for a locksmith now -- check their record with the BBB. Talk to them about prices and have their number on speed dial for when you have a lock out.

Airport managers claim background investigations are hurting them

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A security policy that mandates government background investigations of new airport hires, including sales clerks, waiters and custodians, is drawing protests from some airports that say they can't hire workers because clearances take so long.
Two leading airport associations asked the Transportation Security Administration to rescind or revise the policy that took effect Oct. 1 in a TSA effort to improve scrutiny of airport workers.

"The new process is not working," Airports Council International President Greg Principato said in a letter Thursday to TSA chief Kip Hawley. "Businesses are contemplating shutting down because of the inability to bring on new employees."

TSA spokesman Ellen Howe said the agency is working with the council and the American Association of Airport Executives to end the delays. She said they are caused by technical difficulties sending job applicants' personal information to the TSA through the airport association's computer network.

"When you start something new, it's going to take a little time to work it out," Howe said. "But we aren't going to back down on vetting people."

Flights and other critical airport operations have not been slowed, but airport officials warn that could happen.

"We've had two and a half weeks of turmoil," said Randy Walker, director of Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, which is waiting for the TSA to approve about 500 people who have been offered jobs at the airport. "This exacerbates the whole problem of not having enough staff to process passengers or check people out at stores."

At Miami International Airport, some of the 720 people who have not been cleared by the TSA are taking jobs elsewhere, airport security director Lauren Stover said. Shops and restaurants at the airport are "incurring a lot of overtime to augment the people who should be working," Stover said.

The TSA's new policy bars airports from issuing an employee ID card that gives access to secured areas until the TSA verifies that a potential worker is in the country legally and does not have terrorist ties.

Before Oct. 1, the TSA ran its background investigations after someone started working at an airport. It would order ID cards revoked for those found to be problematic.

"It improves security to do the background investigations ahead of time because these individuals are going to have unescorted access to our nation's airports," Howe said.

Airports want the TSA to shelve its new policy until background investigations can be done quickly. "We're not asking for anything that would cause less security," said Wendy Reiter, security chief at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. "We're just saying, let's go back to what you were doing until you fix the problem."

Tyra Hearns explains what a trained background investigator can determine in a background investigation

Many people wonder what a trained background investigator can determine in a background investigation. The first thing that any applicant must realize is that the background investigator is trained and qualified to find the instances in your past that you are trying to conceal. Outstanding debt, work history, employment verification, social security claims, workers compensation cases filed, vehicle driving history, documented drug and alcohol usage are just a few of the things that can be discovered. Honesty is always the best approach. The background investigator would rather hear your account or reasoning rather than the static data from a computer data base or a manipulative or vengeful past employer.

All too many times applicants forget that the background investigator is human too. He or she may have shared experiences or seen similar items in the past of previous applicants. The human element and the person to person connect should not be ignored for a dossier of words on a sheet of paper. Talk and interact with the background investigator and leave opportunity for follow up conversation or explanation when necessary. The background investigation process is a necessary component to being hired, but you should not fear the background investigation. Remember once you are hired you will be happy to know that the co worker next to you also went through the background investigation process. My background investigation firm Pebi Services ( www.Pebiservices.com) strives to blend the human element with the derived results.

President of Pebi Services explains the necessity of hiring a trained background investigations firm

As the President of Pebi Services I am often asked to explain why it is so necessary to hire the services of a trained background investigation company. There are numerous legal considerations that should be taken into account when implementing background investigation employment screening as part of your hiring policies. The Federal Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), state statutes, reporting guidelines and applicant disclosures all must be adhered to as part of the process. It's critical to follow these procedures as you don’t want to find yourself in legal troubles.

The FCRA sets forth the guidelines for background investigation companies also known as Consumer Reporting Agencies. Essentially it protects the consumers' right to privacy and fairness when preparing consumer reports on individuals.

State statutes: States often set their own rules pertaining to the use and dissemination of consumer information. What may be allowed as a reportable offense in one state may not be legal in another.

Consumer notification: Each applicant must be provided a disclosure (prior to initiating a background investigation) notifying them of their rights including the ability to dispute information.

Pre-adverse action: Prior to making an adverse decision, an applicant must receive a disclosure that outlines "A summary of rights under the fair credit reporting act" and a copy of their consumer report must be provided.

Adverse action: Once a decision has been made to take an adverse action, the applicant must be provided the following:

The name, address and phone number of the consumer reporting agency. A notice of the individual's right to dispute any information they believe to be invalid and his or her right to obtain an additional free copy of the report within 60 days.

Before choosing an outside vendor to conduct your background investigation employment screening, make sure they provide compliance services and adhere to your state statutes otherwise you will be required to apply federal and state law to each and every report that you receive. By hiring a professional background investigation firm such as Pebi Services ( www.pebiservices.com) you can save yourself a lot of headaches!

Background Investigation reveals teacher's crimes; results never revealed

A criminal background investigation revealed an Arkansas teacher aide should of never been hired but the information from the background investigation was never revealed. When teacher’s aide Robert N. Richards was arrested earlier this month on child pornography charges, school officials immediately removed him from the classroom.

But his bosses at Leverett Elementary School didn’t know at the time that Richards, 53, already had been in trouble with the law in Fayetteville.

He’d been convicted of seven misdemeanors since 1986 — four of which occurred after he began working with children in 1998.

Administrators weren’t aware of the convictions since there is no mechanism for them to be notified of new arrests and because the results of criminal background investigations aren’t shared with school districts.

State law requires non-licensed school employees such as teacher’s aides to undergo criminal background investigations only once before they are hired. If the background investigation shows convictions, only certain crimes automatically disqualify a person from working in the state’s public schools, leaving school administrators and parents in the dark about the other cases. "This is clearly a major if not potentially dangerous flaw in the policy." says Tyra Hearns, President of Pebi Services a background investigation firm.

Richards’ record includes non-violent offenses such as public intoxication, shoplifting and violating the state’s hot check laws — crimes that don’t rise to the level of barring him from employment. "These are definate disqualifiers in any other forum." says Hearns

But some parents said administrators should be privy to that information.

“All of those speak to a level of irresponsibility that I think a principal has every right to be aware of,” said Becky Purcell, a parent and new Fayetteville School Board member. “It would be good to have it automatically in front of them.”

Richards faces five felony counts of possession of child pornography stemming from his Sept. 6 arrest.

An investigation in Florida led to Richards, who is accused of downloading images of young boys engaged in sexual acts.

He had worked as a teacher’s aide at several Fayetteville schools, most recently working with special education students.

Richards is on paid leave while school officials conduct an internal inquiry.

More frequent background investigations for school employees and a mandatory notification process between law enforcement agencies and school districts would help protect children, said Susan Heil, a Fayetteville School Board member.

Prior arrests — even if they are misdemeanors — can be revealing about a person’s character, she said.

“Since we have the safety of students in mind, we do have more of a right to know those things and get updates on those things,” she said.

Fayetteville police spokesman Cpl. Craig Stout said officers make an effort to inform school administrators if a student or employee is arrested. But there is no policy mandating it.

“In this particular instance, the officer may have chosen not to notify the school system as it was a misdemeanor crime with no violence, drugs or weapons involved,” he said. “Plus, there is always the consideration that someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

Arkansas implemented mandatory background investigations for school employees in 1997. Teachers undergo checks each time their licenses are up for renewal, which is typically every five years.

Non-licensed employees such as aides and janitors, however, are only checked when they first apply or if they change school districts.

There are 28 crimes that disqualify a person from employment, including murder, rape, kidnapping, battery, aggravated assault, felony drug charges and sex crimes against children. Even then, employers can request a waiver if they believe the applicant doesn’t pose a threat to the health or safety of school children or personnel.

If a school employee is convicted of a violent crime, the individual school district is supposed to notify the state board so that person’s license can be revoked.

Julie Johnson Thompson, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said it’s unlikely a school employee’s arrest or conviction of lesser crimes would go unnoticed.

“It’s hard for a teacher to get [arrested ] in a lot of communities without it getting back to the school district,” she said.

In recent months, the department has been asking school districts to inform the department of any arrests of school teachers, so the department can begin working on potential license revocation, she said.

Still, the department doesn’t put arrest or conviction information in a registry or any other kind of database so school districts or the public can easily find out about former or current employees’ troubles with the law. “Fortunately, it really hasn’t been a problem,” said Fayetteville district spokesman Alan Wilbourn. “We deal with these types of situations very rarely.”