Background Checks in the News in 2009

The year 2009 found background checks in the news for a variety of reasons, mostly good ones. However, as they become more common – the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimates 80 percent of employers perform some type of pre-employment background check on prospective employees – background checks will be even more publicized as they become a part of everyday life. Here are five of the more interesting stories about background checks in the news in 2009.

• August 2009: In a tragic story that proves the real need for pre-employment background checks, the producers of a “Reality” TV show admitted to TMZ.com that they did not run a full background check on a Reaity TV show contestant who allegedly murdered his wife after her mutilated body was discovered stuffed inside a suitcase thrown into a dumpster. According to TMZ.com, the production company said it didn't know that Ryan Alexander Jenkins – a 32-year-old millionaire Canadian real estate developer and two-time reality TV show contestant – had a criminal past, even though they ran background checks on all of the contestants.  According to TMZ.com, Jenkins pleaded guilty to a 2005 assault charge and was sentenced in 2007 to 15 months probation, ordered to undergo counseling for domestic violence and sex addiction, and told to stay away from the victim – information that should have been revealed in a background check. A week after the body of his wife – 28-year-old swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore – was found in Southern California, Jenkins was found hanged in a motel room in British Columbia in an apparent suicide.
• August 2009: In a case that gained national attention, a background check helped crack a “cold case” of a girl missing since 1991. As reported by CNN, Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 29, who was kidnapped from a bus stop in front of her house in South Lake Tahoe, California when she was eleven years old, was found alive and her alleged kidnapper – 58-year-old Phillip Garrido, a paroled sex offender – was in custody. CNN reported that during her eighteen years in captivity, Dugard gave birth to two daughters fathered by Garrido, and that she and her children were kept in an isolated backyard compound behind Garrido’s home. The investigation went years without progress, but a break in the case came when, according to CNN, Garrido appeared at the University of California at Berkeley campus with his two daughters. Two alert female Campus Police officers thought the interaction between the older Garrido and the two young females looked suspicious, so they ran a background check on him that revealed Garrido was on federal parole for a 1971 conviction for rape and kidnapping. The two women passed on the information from the background check to Garrido's parole officer, which led to Garrido’s arrest.
• October 2009: An article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution tells the story of a man who asked an Atlanta, Georgia-area police department to perform a criminal background check on him for a job application and ended up being arrested as a suspect in the killing of a Missouri woman back in 1976. According to the AJC, Johnny Wright, 63, was arrested for the 33-year-old murder of former University of Missouri student Rebecca Doisy, then 23, after paying Lawrenceville, GA police $15 to have a background check done for a prospective employer that turned up an arrest warrant dating back to 1985. When Wright returned to the police station to retrieve the background check results, police arrested him, the AJC reported.
• November 2009: A blog on CBSNews.com contended that while it is not unusual for employers to conduct criminal background checks during the hiring process, the University of Akron (Ohio) went a step further by becoming the first employer in the nation to reserve the right to require prospective employees to submit a DNA sample during a background check. According to the policy on the University of Akron website outlining criminal background checks for employees, “any applicant may be asked to submit fingerprints or DNA sample for purpose of a federal criminal background check.” An update from CBSNews.com reported that the University of Akron has since backed away from the controversial new background check policy.
• November 2009: An article on FoxNews.com told how a “social climbing couple” apparently crashed a White House state dinner party without an invitation, and possibly without a background check that all White House guests must undergo. While exactly how the uninvited pair – Michaele and Tareq Salahi – gained access to the White House is under investigation. According to the article, guests invited to the White House usually reply to the invitation by phoning or mailing the following information: name, date of birth, Social Security number, race, and sex. The information is then turned over to the Secret Service and they run a criminal background check on every guest who has accepted the invitation, FoxNews.com reported. However, according to FoxNews.com, if a person arrives at the White House but is not on the guest list – like the Salahis – that person’s information must be verified and the Secret Service would require the person to wait while a computer criminal background check is performed.

These are just some of the many stories about background checks appearing in the news in the past year. All show that employers – from Reality TV shows to the White House – need to background check employees (and all others who have access) in order to maintain the safety and security of their workplaces.

Pre-Employ.com – a nationally recognized background check and employment services provider – offers background check solutions for businesses in all types of industries and was recently ranked in HRO Today’s “Baker’s Dozen” of Top Employment Screening Services. For more information, visit www.pre-employ.com, email info@pre-employ.com, or call 800-300-1821. Follow Pre-Employ.com on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PreEmploy.

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