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

Background Investigations in Indiana have failed the students

By Andy Gammill
Indianapolis Star

The 7-year-old tried to keep her teacher's hands off her.

She faked stomachaches, hoping to stay home from school.

When that failed, a prosecutor later said, the girl wore dresses so the teacher couldn't slip his hand down the back of her pants.

It was a battle she might have been spared in another state: Four years earlier, two different girls in different classes accused the same teacher, Jeffrey Baber, of the same thing. Nothing happened after police discounted those claims.

In Georgia, the accusations would have been enough to spark a review by state investigators.

In Ohio, the allegations would have been put on record for parents to check.

In Utah and other states, the complaints likely would have cost him his educator's license.

In Indiana, he kept teaching.

The case highlights flaws in the state's approach to protecting schoolchildren. The Indiana Department of Education's efforts are largely limited to conducting criminal background checks within Indiana and checking newspaper clippings for educators who have been arrested. That information helps the state revoke 10 to 20 licenses a year.

Other states go much further to find and remove teachers who could put children at risk.

Most do more extensive nationwide criminal checks. Some require police and district officials to notify state authorities when a teacher has been investigated, arrested or accused of misconduct.

Indiana relies mainly on local school systems to root out dangerous teachers, a method that doesn't always work. Districts sometimes bury records of embarrassing or thorny cases in their files, hiding information from the public and other schools looking to hire a teacher.

Indiana's problems are no surprise to legislators, superintendents, school boards or members of the state's Board of Education. They've known for years that schools may unknowingly hire teachers who pose a threat to students.

"It scares the hell out of me," said Todd Huston, Fishers, a member of the State Board of Education. "The problem now is that we don't really have sustained policies. It's on a district-by-district basis."

Attempts to strengthen the safeguards have stalled.

What's left is so ineffective that no one can say how many of the state's 62,000 licensed teachers have criminal records, or whether predators are making the rounds of Indiana schools.

An Indianapolis Star review of Marion County police reports found dozens of current teachers with arrests for crimes including battery on a police officer, domestic battery, repeated traffic violations, soliciting a prostitute and drunken driving -- some as many as two or three times. Although they may be alarming to parents, some of these offenses might not be grounds for revocation of a teaching license.

The Star's investigation also found four cases where state laws didn't keep teachers out of classrooms even after more serious problems arose.

The result? Children taught by a teacher arrested on a charge of cocaine dealing. A teacher who brought marijuana to school. One with a long history of intimidating students.

And Baber.

After a jury convicted him of molesting the 7-year-old in 2005, he pleaded guilty to molesting another girl.

And another one. He had been molesting Beech Grove schoolchildren for at least four years.

The district's insurers paid out $740,000 to three victims.

Baber finally lost his license to teach.

Background checks

Limited Indiana search lets Florida drug dealer in school

Michael Warner's references described him as an energetic, charming role model, and officials at Irvington Community School were excited to hire him.

The new science teacher passed a criminal history check by the charter school, and the state had stopped running checks on him because he held a lifetime teaching license.

Even if the Department of Education had screened him again, the checks run by the school and the state review only Indiana court records and would have missed his arrest in Florida on a charge of dealing cocaine.

Florida officials said Warner pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to sell and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years of probation.

More than 40 states require comprehensive background checks that turn up arrests across the country before teachers can be licensed to teach. Indiana does check a national database of teachers who have lost their licenses, but beyond that, state law requires a "limited criminal history" check that reviews Indiana court records.

With the limited statewide name-based check, old arrests without a disposition won't turn up, and some counties had spotty records on entering data into the system.

After a private investigator tipped off Irvington Community School in 2006, Warner resigned and the state took away his license.

"We've deepened our interview and reference checks," said Timothy Ehrgott, the school's president. "We learned our lesson."

Outside Indiana, that task often is handled by state officials rather than local schools. Utah and Maine require their state police agencies to keep names of educators in an electronic system that alerts officials when a teacher is arrested.

A coalition of state governments that maintains a national database of teacher misconduct also recommends more stringent checks.

The National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification urges states to use state and FBI checks for all new teachers, and every five years for all educators, director Roy Einreinhofer said.

Indiana does neither.

A few school districts feel so strongly that Indiana's system is too weak that they pay for national searches on their own.

"We don't think it goes deep enough into data," said John Ellis, director of the state superintendents' association. "The thing that frustrates school officials is there's too many holes in the system."

No one tells the state

School drug arrest details not shared, so teacher kept license

When police arrived at School 83 in Indianapolis one evening in May 2005, according to their report, a teacher told them he was high on marijuana.

They asked him whether he had drugs on him, the report said, and he said they were in his car. Officers searched the car, found marijuana and arrested the teacher, Eric J. Potthast, on charges of possession of marijuana and paraphernalia.

Potthast took a deal from the court, agreeing to pay a fee, admit his guilt and attend behavior-modification classes. After he did so, the charges were dropped.

Indiana, unlike other states, does not require schools and police to report most teacher misconduct to state officials.

So Indianapolis Public Schools did not. Potthast resigned a few months later.

Potthast disclosed the misdemeanor on his next application for a teaching license. But what he didn't say and what state officials don't appear to have known was that the incident happened at a school, an offense that cost at least one other Indiana teacher his license.

So Potthast's license was renewed, despite the drugs he brought to school. That left it up to a school district to decide whether to put him in a classroom.

He was rehired the next year by IPS, which struggles to find teachers and substitutes to fill classrooms when teachers quit. He was fired last month for failing to keep his teaching license up to date.

"Was it wise to hire him?" IPS spokeswoman Kim L. Hooper said. "On behalf of the district, I would say no. But I know we also struggle to find subs in this district."

Prosecutors and superintendents must tell the state about misbehaving teachers only if they are convicted of a short list of felonies: kidnapping, dealing drugs or sex crimes against children.

Even those cases can stay off the state's radar if there's no conviction or the teacher pleads guilty to lesser charges. If a teacher is arrested on a charge of murder, raping an adult, assault, possessing child pornography or most other crimes, no one is required to tell state education officials.

"Ideally we would want to be notified anytime anybody holding a teacher license gets arrested," said Kevin McDowell, general counsel for the Indiana Department of Education. "Some states do that."

Indiana teachers who are arrested for many crimes must report a conviction to their school district, but the districts have no obligation to tell anyone else.

In other states, teachers are required to report their own arrests to the state, and police must tell education officials when a teacher commits a crime. Some hire teams of investigators that do nothing but look into teacher misconduct.

The Indiana Department of Education relies on calls from parents reading newspaper articles and a service that reviews newspapers for arrests of teachers.

If there's no article, the state never knows.

Quiet resignations

School let teacher with past of intimidation quit, get another job

Lawrence Central High School history teacher Charles E. Stallworth's dispute with one boy turned ugly three years ago at a Northside movie theater where the boy worked.

The theater manager called police after the teen said his teacher had come in, threatened him and then made a phone call.

Worried for the boy's safety, the manager hid the boy in an office. On video, they watched as Stallworth met two men who arrived at the theater and handed them money, according to a probable cause affidavit. Those men asked other employees where they could find the boy and then staked out the employee entrance, the affidavit said.

When police arrived, they ordered the two men to leave and questioned Stallworth about the incident. Despite the video evidence, he said he made no phone calls at the theater and talked to no one while he was there, the court records said.

Stallworth pleaded guilty to lying to police about the incident, but a felony intimidation charge was dropped. He quietly retired.

It wasn't the first time he had been accused of intimidating students. He was suspended for two days in 2001 after the district substantiated a girl's claim that he hit her on the back so hard he left a red mark.

"Your behavior on November 3, 2000, is not acceptable and you are hereby reprimanded for your action," an administrator wrote to him. "In addition, this incident seems to be one in a long line of other incidents of an intimidating nature towards students."

In a statement this past week, Lawrence Township Schools said Stallworth had planned to fight efforts to fire him and that an agreement letting him retire got him out of the classroom and prevented him from suing the district or the student.

Stallworth moved to Alaska and got a teaching job in Anchorage.

Like the other teachers highlighted here, Stallworth could not be reached or did not return messages left at phone numbers listed in court documents or public directories.

State officials said Lawrence Township Schools officials recommended against revoking Stallworth's license because the misdemeanor was "unrelated" to his teaching responsibilities. That and his retirement allowed him to keep his license.

That doesn't seem right to Marcia Riley, whose son Stallworth threatened. She wishes the district had fired him and the state taken away his teaching license. The whole situation was "swept under the rug," she said.

Riley, whose son is now a Marine serving in Iraq, said the incident at the movie theater shattered her trust in teachers.

"They're supposed to protect your children," she said. "In fact, he was putting my child in harm's way intentionally."

When school districts let teachers resign, it prevents the public from seeing records of their misconduct, which must be released if they are fired. And it becomes easier to get another teaching job if the teacher doesn't have to disclose a dismissal.

Such outcomes happen in cases more serious than Stallworth's, too. Bob James, an Indianapolis attorney, said he has handled three or four cases where school districts paid settlements to children victimized by teachers but no charges were filed, no licensing action was taken and teachers quietly quit.

He could not reveal names of teachers or districts, he said, because the settlement agreements included confidentiality clauses.

That kind of secrecy is why districts shouldn't have the last word in deciding to let teachers resign when they face termination, said Edward Eiler, a state Board of Education member and superintendent of Lafayette Schools. Eiler suggests that Indiana districts be required to report such cases for further investigation, as required in other states.

Even the risk of costly legal bills or unseemly public disputes should not prevent districts from firing teachers whose conduct merits dismissal, said Martha McCarthy, an Indiana University professor who specializes in education law.

"A lot of school leaders will take the path of least resistance," she said, "and the path of least resistance is to counsel the employee to resign."

Prospects for changes

Many support stronger system, but past reform tries didn't work

Bills have been introduced in the state legislature the past several years to make changes to the teacher licensing system, but none has been successful.

Those bills, which proposed requiring FBI background checks or ordering courts to tell state education officials about criminal teachers, appear to have become ensnared in other issues or bogged down.

The state's top educator thinks Indiana does a good job overall protecting children, but she said she'd like to see changes to the law to allow her department to issue formal public reprimands and to require courts or police to report when teachers break any law.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Suellen Reed said the state opted not to do FBI checks years ago because of the expense and difficulty of getting usable fingerprints they require.

"The overall system is protecting our children," she said. "The people that get in trouble haven't been in trouble before usually when we find them. It screens out the obvious people. That's what we want."

The state's teachers union backs strengthening background checks, adding more crimes to the list of those reported to the state and requiring school districts to fire teachers who have hurt children. The organizations representing superintendents and school boards largely agree.

"The system could be improved if the initial background check included the national databases and sex offender registries," said Dan Clark, deputy director of the Indiana State Teachers Association.

But even the groups that support strengthening Indiana's ability to screen out problem teachers want to include limits to protect teachers' rights or want to preserve local school boards' abilities to make their own decisions.

Richard Wood, the Democratic candidate for state superintendent of public instruction and a former superintendent, argues that it's largely an issue for local school boards.

"You just have to deal with those situations on a case-by-case basis," he said. "I'm not advocating any change. I would not initiate anything to make the process more lenient or anything to make it more stringent. The law we have in place is working at present."

State Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, disagrees. His constituents, he said, would blame him just as much as the School Board if a felon ended up in a classroom.

Behning, the ranking Republican on the House Education Committee, said he was interested in proposing a bill this legislative session that would require FBI background checks for educators.

"The state definitely should have a role in it," he said. "I'm not an advocate of big government, but I believe it is the responsibility of this state. . . . I do believe that we've tried to do what was right, but I don't believe we've gone far enough."


Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Police say background investigation was complete on arrested California 911 operator

Lissa Marie Domanic, 42, of Yorba Linda, seen in booking photo after her arrest, is a civilian employee of the Orange County Sheriff's Department who has been indicted on two felony charges. She has been placed on administrative leave pending a disciplinary review.

By Stuart Pfeifer
Los Angeles Times

A civilian employee of the Orange County Sheriff's Department who allegedly has ties to a white supremacist gang has been indicted on charges of soliciting someone to commit a violent crime and providing confidential police records to unauthorized people, officials said Thursday.

Lissa Marie Domanic, 42, was working as an office specialist and 911 dispatcher when she allegedly asked someone to assault an Orange County jail inmate, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.


She also allegedly used department computers to access confidential records that she forwarded to unauthorized people, Amormino said.

A grand jury indicted Domanic on the felony charges earlier this week, and she is awaiting arraignment in Orange County Superior Court.

Domanic, who has worked for the Sheriff's Department for about 19 months, has been placed on administrative leave pending a disciplinary review, Amormino said.


"We do a thorough background investigation, and nothing came up in her background," he said. "Sometimes people are able to conceal things they are involved in."

Sheriff's investigators began looking at Domanic in May after receiving a tip about her from another law enforcement agency, Amormino said.

Among the things she is accused of doing is asking one inmate to assault another inmate and using department records to identify the housing location of the intended victim, Amormino said. The assault did not occur, he said.

When sheriff's investigators arrested Domanic at her Yorba Linda home earlier this week, she allegedly was under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of methamphetamine, Amormino said.


Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Florida's state report concerning mortgage brokers shows that background investigation results ignored or not accounted for

BY Matthew Haggman AND Rob Barry
As Florida grapples with the worst home loan fraud crisis in the country, state mortgage industry regulators failed to order federal criminal background checks of mortgage brokers and, in some cases, never alerted police agencies to crooked mortgage operations, according to a state investigation of the lead agency that oversees Florida's troubled loan industry.
A report released Tuesday to Gov. Charlie Crist and Cabinet members blasts the Office of Financial Regulation for licensing people with serious criminal histories as mortgage brokers even as the state mortgage fraud rate was soaring to the highest level in the nation.

The six-week investigation by Florida's top inspectors general was prompted by a Miami Herald series, Borrowers Betrayed, which showed state oversight of the mortgage industry broke down at every level -- from the licensing of people with criminal pasts to the disciplining of crooked brokers.

''In some instances, the office was not complying with existing governing directives,'' the state report says.

The Herald's series led to the forced resignation of Commissioner Don Saxon, who oversaw the agency since 2003.

The 23-page report, which was obtained Monday by The Herald, concluded the state's regulatory system was ``insufficient to protect the people of the state of Florida.''

Investigators said the agency functioned without any clear guidelines, making up rules as it went along and operating on the wrong interpretations of the law.

All the while, mortgage fraud skyrocketed during the most explosive housing boom in state history. Today, a quarter of all reported fraudulent loans across the country are for Florida properties.

The Miami Herald's series revealed that more than 10,000 people with criminal histories -- including money launderers, racketeers and cocaine traffickers -- were able to peddle home loans across the state this decade.

Crist and the Cabinet -- meeting Tuesday as the state Financial Services Commission -- passed emergency measures last month in response to The Herald's investigation, including rules that automatically ban felons of financial crimes from peddling homes.

In its report, the state auditors found that from October 2006 until March 2008, the OFR issued mortgage broker licenses but did not conduct federal criminal background checks of the applicants as required by state law.

The auditors wrote that Saxon told them he was ''not aware of the strict language'' of the law and ''did not believe'' the Legislature meant for him to immediately implement the federal background investigations required by a change in the law in 2006.

Intead, fingerprint cards meant to be submitted for federal crimes checks were kept in the OFR's files, the report stated.

The Miami Herald found 88 former federal criminals were licensed by regulators this decade, including former bank robbers.

The state probe also found the state did not issue any written guidelines explaining why applicants with criminal histories should be allowed to work in the mortgage industry. The investigation discovered that agency decisions were made on ''experience'' rather than any clearly understood criteria.

The auditors took issue with the fact that broad benchmarks like ''moral turpitude'' or ''dishonest dealings'' were applied to applicants on a case-by-case basis without clear lines of decision-making.

In fact, one OFR official called the moral turpitude standard a ''moving target'' that required guidance from the legal staff because the kinds of crimes under that category vary so widely.

Yet, a senior attorney at the agency told auditors he was never asked to provide written guidance and -- if asked -- likely would not have done so because the law is not clear.

The report also stated that Saxon's agency could have required brokers to submit background information -- such as updated criminal history -- when trying to renew their licenses. But the agency didn't initiate any such practice.

Separately, the report found that loan originators ''perform essentially the same function as mortgage brokers'' but aren't licensed. Saxon told auditors that licensing loan originators would be next to impossible because of the ``influence of the industry.''

But industry leaders in Florida told The Herald that they had pressed Saxon's office in 2002 and again in 2006 to license loan originators -- but regulators refused.

In addition, agency e-mails obtained by The Herald showed that top leaders of Saxon's staff opposed the licensing of loan originators, and in one case, even removed a provision in a legal draft to bring them under state licensing.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Background Investigation of Missouri police applicant uncovers child pornography

Leonard J. Cook, Jr. pleaded guilty to on federal charges of possession of child pornography, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway, Phelps County Prosecuting Attorney Courtney George and Rolla Police Chief Mark Kearse has said.

“People who collect child pornography create a demand for these images,” said Hanaway. “This office, with the help of Prosecuting Attorney George and Chief Kearse, will continue to find and prosecute people who victimize children.”

Chief Kearse stated that this investigation began when Cook applied for a police officers position with his department and during the background investigation the RPD discovered the possible child pornography issues.

“We then asked for assistance with the MSHP and (all the other agencies that got involved). I’m very happy with all the cooperation between the agencies that were involved to get to a guilty plea,” Kearse said.


“It would have been very unfortunate to law enforcement if he would have made it through the process and became an officer. Also a special thanks to U. S. Attorney Hanaway for following up and prosecuting this case,” he said.

“This kind of behavior is not tolerated in our community and it absolutely will not be tolerated by law enforcement officers sworn to serve and protect our citizens,” George said.

On Sept. 24, 2007, Cook allowed law enforcement officers to seize his home laptop computer and hard drive. A forensic examination found child pornography stored within the computer hard drive, including within the Dell laptop computer. Some of these images depicted minors under the age of 12 engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and some involved material that portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence.


Cook, 31, of Rolla, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one felony count of possession of child pornography. He appeared Thursday before United States District Judge Carol E. Jackson. Cook now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and/or fines up to $250,000, when he is sentenced on Aug. 29.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood.

In February, 2006, the Department of Justice launched Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/.

Posted by Pebi Services President Tyra Hearns

Background Investigation never done on DCF executive arrested on child pornography charges

A Department of Children and Families spokesman was arrested on child pornography charges Friday for allegedly offering at least two teenagers money in exchange for photographing them in sexual acts.

Al Zimmerman, 40, was charged with eight felony counts of using a child in a sexual performance, but Tampa police said Saturday more charges could be filed in the next week. He was released from the Hillsborough County jail on Saturday afternoon after posting $120,000 bond.

At least one of the teenagers involved had ties to the child protection agency, DCF Secretary Bob Butterworth said. Officials said they could not release any information on the link, citing an ongoing investigation.

The incidences occurred as recently as Friday and date to December 2005, according to an arrest report.

The teens were 16 and 17 at the time of at least one of the incidences, and at least one is from Orange County, the report said.

Zimmerman, who worked at the department's Tallahassee headquarters, was put on paid administrative leave Thursday afternoon when Butterworth learned of the law enforcement investigation. He was immediately fired Friday after his arrest.

"Here is an agency that is really trying hard to regain a very good image. Unfortunately, this particular activity hurts the image,'' Butterworth said. ''All of us feel like he absolutely betrayed us." Tyra Hearns the President of background investigation firm Pebi Services added "My views are completely in line with Mr. Butterworth's it is a betrayal to everyone."

Zimmerman, who lives in Tallahassee, could not be reached for comment.

He was arrested Friday afternoon in Lakeland, where his parents live. A call to their residence was not returned.

Zimmerman was hired by DCF in March 2005 to be a public information officer for the department's field office in Wildwood. He was transferred in August 2006 to Tallahassee, where he was responsible for answering questions from the media, drafting press releases and putting together a newsletter, said Erin Geraghty, DCF communications director and Zimmerman's former boss. He had no direct access to children, Geraghty said.

As spokesman, Zimmerman earned $75,686 a year.

DCF chief Butterworth said the agency did not conduct an extensive background investigation on Zimmerman at the time he was hired, and he was not fingerprinted. "That is a galring and obviously huge mistake on DCF's part,"said Hearns

Although it was not the department's policy to do criminal background investigations for Zimmerman's job classification, it was customary at the time, Butterworth said.

Had they done the background investigation, DCF officials would have found three items that may have put up red flags, Butterworth said.

State records show that Zimmerman was arrested in 2003 on misdemeanor charges for writing a worthless check. The charges were eventually dropped. "As this saga unfolds it is appalling that DCf allowed this to happen," said Tyra Hearns

He was arrested for driving under the influence about 15 years ago in Georgia, and he may have an outstanding warrant for grand theft in Texas, Butterworth said. The theft was for less than $500.

"If we would have had these three, he may or may not have been hired," Butterworth said. But Butterworth said there was "no indicator that he would have been involved in what he is involved in now."

DCF officials plan to review the agency's background investigation policy. The department began enforcing a more extensive policy in August 2006, Butterworth said.

"I want to make sure that it's being done and it's being done systemwide," he said. "I want to go back and make sure that all of our employees have undergone the appropriate background investigation and screening."

Before being hired by the agency, Zimmerman worked for Bay News 9, a 24-hour local cable news station in the Tampa Bay area. He also has worked for television stations in Georgia and Texas and is a graduate of Syracuse University.

Gov. Charlie Crist was among five references listed on Zimmerman's résumé when he applied for the DCF job. Crist, who was the state's attorney general at the time, was not one of the references DCF officials called.

A spokeswoman for the governor said Crist knew Zimmerman through his reporting job in Tampa Bay but does not remember being asked to be one of his references.

If convicted, Zimmerman faces up to 120 years in prison.

Agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the attorney general's office continue to look for other possible victims. DCF is cooperating with the investigation.

"Every photograph, every image, every lasting impression of a child's sexual abuse perpetuates this horrible crime over and over again," Attorney General Bill McCollum said in a statement. "CyberCrime knows no boundaries, targets all demographics, and should never fail to galvanize us into action to protect our children from these predators."

Zimmerman's arrest is another black eye for DCF, which has faced criticism since 2002, when it was discovered that a Miami investigator had lied about visiting the foster parents of 4-year-old Rilya Wilson. The girl had been missing for a year and has never been found.

More recently, former Secretary Lucy Hadi resigned after being found in contempt of court for not moving inmates to state hospitals if they were incompetent to stand trial. Before that, Jerry Regier left the position after an investigation showed he accepted favors from contractors. Regier had replaced Kathleen Kearney, who resigned after Wilson disappeared.

Last year, a child protection task force criticized DCF officials because a 2-year-old foster girl was missing for four months before DCF notified police to begin searching for her.

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.”

Parents wonder why background investigation didn't reveal pedophile school bus driver

More than 800 children attend classes in the Altar Valley School District of Tucson Arizona. With news that one of the district’s bus drivers is accused of child molestation, parents are now questioning how the district conducts background investigations.

“I’m shocked,” one parent admits.

Malissa, the grandparent of an Alter Valley student adds, “I know from the Internet, there are several people that are convicted sex offenders that live out here.” It has become an all too familiar and
common responses after receiving word that 63-year-old Altar Valley School bus driver Harry Edward Wroten is in jail for allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl. He has spent the past year as a driver for the school district.

“If they knew he had this kind of history in his background investigation, he should not be permitted to be around children,” Malissa reveals.

Another parent of an Alter Valley student, Liz, admits, “I would believe that they would do better background investigations, being that this person deals with our kids on a daily basis.”
The district says Wroten drove about 100 students on his route on a daily basis, but Alter Valley District Superintendent Doug Roe says bus drivers do go through careful background investigations.

“Bus drivers receive even more scrutiny than even teachers as far as getting approved to become an employee of the district,” Superintendent Roe explains. “They go under a thorough background investigation by the department of public safety and the school district before they’re allowed to drive a bus.”

Roe says that a background investigation showed no prior history of sexual molestation, yet now Wroten sits behind bars after detectives say he had several sexual encounters with the 9-year-old girl. This situation leaves parents with an unsettling feeling about who they leave their kids with throughout the course of the school day.

“You’ve got to be careful with your children these days. You just don’t know,” Malissa admits.

Wroten is currently in the Pima County Adult Detention Center on a $50,000 bond.

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Background Investigation never done on arrested 911 Operator

MOULTRIE — The recent arrest of an emergency 911 operator revealed that a background investigation was never completed prior to her employment. The sensitivity of her job description mandates that a pre employment background investigation be conducted prior to hiring. The agency may be in violation of federal laws if they knowingly omitted a background investigation of all their employees.Colquitt County E-911 Director Teresa Warburg described Amanda Nicole Brooks as an “excellent dispatcher,” one of her best, until about six months ago when she was thought to become involved with Jason Baird, a suspect in a recent burglary spree spanning four counties.

Brooks, 20, of 1522 Funston-Sale City Road, was charged in Colquitt County Saturday with the false report of a crime and filing a false police report. She also faces attempted burglary charges in Worth County after she admitted to being present at the burglary in which her silver Toyota Corolla was used, Colquitt County Sheriff Al Whittington said. Brooks’ live-in boyfriend Baird is on the run. He could be driving a stolen tan Chevrolet dually truck.
Baird and his brother, Stephen, allegedly led lawmen on a high-speed chase Friday through Mitchell and Dougherty counties, wrecked and fled on foot. Stephen Baird later was apprehended and jailed.

Brooks filed a report Saturday that her Corolla was stolen after she allegedly learned of the crash, Whittington said.
Warburg said she has learned that Brooks, now fired, was afraid of Baird and said that Brooks had showed up for work with some scratches, bruising and dark circles around her eyes. Brooks turned down help offered her and remained in a relationship with Baird, she said.

“She had talked with several here, and they tried to counsel her and to help her, but she didn’t heed any of their help,” she said.

Calls from her boyfriend allegedly came in to Brooks while she was on shift, Whittington and Warburg said. Baird allegedly asked her to return his call on another line within the building, an unrecorded line in a conference room, they said, and she did when she had the opportunity. It’s unclear at this point what was discussed, Whittington said.
That line has since been removed, Warburg said. Also, Warburg implemented a policy of no cell phones allowed in the secured dispatch room. Only authorized personnel are allowed access into the dispatch room.

Warburg implemented background checks on all new employees after she became director nearly two years ago. However, Brooks had already been employed as a dispatcher for a short time, so she did not have to undergo a background check.
Warburg said she wants more thorough investigation of would-be dispatchers, and the sheriff agrees.
“We need to beef up background checks. That’s what I asked Teresa and the commissioners. We’ve got to start looking more closely, because this is our lifeline, and I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” Whittington said.

“Things like this unfortunately happen from time to time,” the sheriff said. “Some of them will fall through the cracks. Regretfully, it does give the law enforcement community as a whole a black eye. What we need to do is be more careful on backgrounds as we possibly can, but when we have someone in a position such as this that violates the law, I think that certainly they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The E-911 department is under the control of the county administrator and the Board of Commissioners. Whittington serves on an advisory panel to E-911 made up of law enforcement agency and emergency services representatives.

Commissioner Billy Herndon is the only commissioner on the liaison committee to the E-911 department.
“If there’s nothing against her in the background, then what can you do?” Herndon said, noting that the county administrator is responsible for hiring and firing employees.