‘Federal offenders’ Category

Fake Degree Precedes $1 Million Fraud

Not all bad hire days start with previously-convicted dishonest job seekers.

Morgan County, Utah apparently thought they were hiring a qualified public administration expert when they hired Garth Day as their council administrator. According to the Standard-Examiner, Day’s 2008 resume reflected that he had a Bachelor of Science degree in political science/public administration from Weber State University. He also displayed a 1998 bachelor of science in urban planning and a 2001 master’s of business administration in public administration , both from Rocheville University, in his office.

The problem is that Day never graduated from Weber State University (a real school) and Rocheville University is a diploma mill as defined by the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act:

DIPLOMA MILL- The term `diploma mill’ means an entity that–
(A)(i) offers, for a fee, degrees, diplomas, or certificates, that may be used to represent to the general public that the individual possessing such a degree, diploma, or certificate has completed a program of postsecondary education or training; and (ii) requires such individual to complete little or no education or coursework to obtain such degree, diploma, or certificate; and
(B) lacks accreditation by an accrediting agency or association that is recognized as an accrediting agency or association of institutions of higher education (as such term is defined in section 102) by–
(i) the Secretary pursuant to subpart 2 of part H of title IV; or (ii) a Federal agency, State government, or other organization or association that recognizes accrediting agencies or associations.

Unfortunately, Day’s education fraud was not identified until after he plead guilty to embezzling almost $1 million from the county and numerous banks. Had the county simply attempted to verify the claims on Day’s resume prior to placing him in a position where he could create lines of credit with local banks on behalf of the county, they would have identified him as a fraudster and avoided this particular bad hire day.

Some states, like Texas, make it illegal for a job seeker to use a degree from an identified diploma mill like Rocheville University (which is listed on Texas’ list of diploma mills). In Texas, this is a Class B misdemeanor.

Are any of these individuals who list Rocheville University as the source of their degree working for your company?

Two Employers, Two Victims, Two Convictions for Computer “Guru”

Stephen Robertson, a self-described computer “guru”, could be the poster boy for Bad Hire Days.

Robertson worked for Corgan Associates, a Dallas architecture and interior design firm, and was terminated on December 18, 1998 for “theft, dishonesty, and misuse of the company’s computer system to hack into other companies’ computers,” according to documents filed by prosecutors in Dallas County, Texas.

According to those documents, three days later, on December 21st, Robertson hacked into Corgan Associates’ computer network. His intrusion was detected and on December 29th, he signed an agreement not to access Corgan Associates computer network again.

One assumes that Corgan Associates felt that they had dodged a bullet and were glad to see the last of Stephen Robertson. Except that they weren’t – not by a long shot.

Less than two weeks later, on January 11, 1999, Robertson went to work for the movie theater chain Cinemark as a systems administrator.

On March 31, 2001, while still employed at Cinemark, court documents indicate that Robertson used a “back door” he had built into Corgan Associates network more than two years earlier.  Robertson had access to Corgan Associates’ network for one hour, twenty six minutes, and fifty two seconds, during which time he made changes to key network data. He also sent an anonymous email (or so he thought) to a former colleague at Corgan Associates, taunting him for the insecurity of his network. (See employer lesson #1 above.)

Local authorities were contacted and on August 30, 2001, Robertson (who still worked for Cinemark) was indicted in a Dallas County district court.

Six months later, on February 13, 2002, Robertson pleaded guilty to “breach of computer security,” a state jail felony. In the courts’ documents, he admits that he illegally accessed and damaged Corgan Associates’ network. As a part of his plea deal, he was given five years of deferred probation, which meant that if he managed to stay out of trouble for five years, the indictment against him would be dismissed. He was fined $1,500 and ordered to pay Corgan Associates restitution in the amount of $5,749.

The Dallas County district court’s documents clearly list his employer as Cinemark, which begs the question of whether they were made aware of Robertson’s legal problems by the court or his probation officer. It is hard to imagine that they were aware of the admissions in his plea agreement and continued to grant him access to their own network.

Certainly Robertson had learned his lesson from all of these troubles and straightened his life out to become a model citizen and employee, one might say. Well, not quite.

Two and half years after his guilty plea in Dallas County, Robertson committed a new computer offense – this time against Cinemark.

In mid-2004, Cinemark moved Robertson to “contractor status” and told him that his services would no longer be needed after that November. On November 19, 2004, Robertson illegally accessed Cinemark’s network and, according to his later admission in federal court, “removed some of my personal files, accessed a SQL server and stopped the service for financial applications… deleted a 60 GB PeopleSoft database, and stopped the automatic routines for the Cinemark server.”

The US Secret Service investigated this offense and Robertson was indicted in federal court for computer sabotage.

On December 12, 2006, Robertson’s Dallas County probation was discharged unsatisfactorily with a note that he was now in federal custody. (See employer lesson #3 above.)

On January 11, 2007, Robertson entered into a plea agreement with the federal prosecutor. He pleaded guilty to computer sabotage and was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison followed by three years of probation. He was also ordered to pay Cinemark $106,300 in restitution. He was released from the Federal Bureau of Prisons on September 29, 2009 (less than 41 months most likely because of time served awaiting trial and good time received) and will likely be on probation until 2012.

Now here’s the kicker - while his criminal history would dissuade almost any employer from hiring him in any capacity that dealt with computers, Robertson has formed his own consulting practice according to his LinkedIn profile and professional website. Clients listed since his release include The City of Dallas and Parkland Health and Hospital System (Dallas’ public hospital system).

Sex offender assigned to Alzheimer’s care facility

Michael Gilbert is a registered sex offender convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child (12 year old female) and was released from parole in August 2005. (He was also on federal parole for issuing “false distress signals” – he was apparently trying to fake his own death at sea in an attempt to escape his sex offender status.)

Two months later, Gilbert was hired by Comfort Keepers as a non-medical caregiver, a “sitter”, in an Alzheimer’s care unit on October 23, 2005. Comfort Keepers ran a “national” criminal background check from CBCInnovis that failed to disclose his criminal history or his sex offender registration.

On November 7, 2005, two weeks after Gilbert was hired, a 77-year-old resident identified him as the man who raped her.  He faced no criminal charges in this case, apparently due to the Alzheimer patient’s unreliability as a witness.

The family did sue Comfort Keepers and the Alzheimer’s care facility, and CBCInnovis. The civil case resulting from these allegations was settled April 8, 2009 – terms not disclosed.

The following is an excerpt from the plaintiff’s petition in this case:

It is hard to explain how so many people and businesses, who are charged with the responsibility of protecting and safeguarding our elderly, could all fail to do their jobs in such a negligent and grossly negligent manner that a known sexual predator such as Michael Henderson a/k/a Michael Anthony Gilbert could be allowed to molest and abuse a poor, defenseless 77 year old grandmother like Colleen Stagner, but that is what happened in this case. Not only were Defendants being paid to care for and protect innocent, foreseeable victims like Colleen from being sexually assaulted, they actually interviewed, hired, and placed a registered sex offender in a position to enable him to carry out these outrageous acts of physical and sexual abuse.

According to court documents, which include a copy of Gilbert’s employment application, Gilbert responded to the criminal history question on the application with “will discuss in interview.”

I always advise employers to respond “No, we won’t” and move on to the next applicant when an applicant fails to fully respond to questions on the employment application. In this case, however, Comfort Keepers interviewed Gilbert and made the following notation on the application: “Michael discussed that this was something minor that happened over 12 years ago – not on criminal record.”

Obviously Gilbert lied and the “national” criminal background check failed to catch the lie.

The fact is that there is no such thing as a “national” or “nationwide” criminal records database that has any level of reliability. The only way to obtain a criminal history on an individual that approaches reliable is to search the county, state, and federal records in each jurisdiction where the person has lived, worked, or attended school. The “national” database (Imperative Information Group prefers to call it a multi-jurisdictional criminal records database) should be used only as a source of possible records – not relied upon as the primary source of records.

UPDATE:

In April 2011, authorities say Gilbert attempted to avoid arrest in another sexual assault by again faking his own death. He is accused of fatally shooting a homeless man, putting the body in his car’s trunk and setting the car ablaze, hoping police would think that the body was his. He is currently being prosecuted. Hopefully, he won’t see daylight for a long, long time.