BRB's Public Records Blog

Urban Myths Continued. Courts Destroy Criminal Records That Have Been Set Aside or Expunged

Posted with permission from ESR Newsletter and Legal Update, a newsletter by Lester S. Rosen Esq. and Employment Screening Resources (ESR), www.esr.com

An Urban Myth that can surprise job applicants is that after a judge vacates, expunges, sets aside, defers the adjudication or otherwise judicially erases a criminal record in some fashion, the records disappear and can never be found.

With limited exceptions, the general rule is that the government does not destroy records.  In the typical scenario, even if the judge orders a set aside, the consumer’s name can still be found by searching the court indexes and the case can still be viewed as a public record.  As a general rule, the only way that a background firm knows that there has been a judicial set aside is to examine the court file where all court orders should be noted.

Of course, each state is different but as a general rule, unless an applicant has been advised by an attorney that the criminal case will be sealed and physically not available anywhere, applicants need to understand that even a criminal case that they thought was erased may still show up.

Even in those situations where the court has ordered the case sealed, the damage may already be done since the record of the case may already reside in a commercial database.  If a background firm locates the case in a commercial database, then the background firm has certain obligations under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and similar state laws.  A background screening firm is required to either notify the applicant that a criminal record is being provided, or must pull and examine the actual court file to ensure accuracy.  For employers that want to avoid finding out about criminal records that have been judicially set aside, the best practice it make sure you are working with a screening firm such as Employment Screening Resources that automatically pulls the court file whenever there is a database match to make sure the criminal record is complete, accurate, up to date, applies to your applicant and is reportable.   

Kroll Awarded Federal Contract

Kroll has announced it was awarded the Background Investigation Contract by the Department of Homeland Security, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).The contract runs through Aug 31, 2008 with 4 additional 1 year options.  The potential value is $30 million dollars.  View Press Release.

Onieda County NY Property Records Update

Onieda County NY pulled their property records offline last January due to a small number of records containing SSN's.  The county clerk recently indicated the website will be active on or about 01/01/08 but will be an index only and not contain actual records.  The index will have names, types of records and dates filed.

Watch Lists From the U.S. Commerce Department

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), at www.bis.doc.gov, provides lists relevant to import or export transactions.

The purpose of the Denied Persons List (www.bis.doc.gov/dpl/Default.shtm) is to prevent the illegal export of dual-use items before they occur and to investigate and assist in the prosecution of violators of the Export Administration Regulations.

The Unverified List is a list of parties whom BIS has been unable to verify the end use in prior transactions. The Unverified List includes names and countries of foreign persons who in the past were parties to a transaction with respect to which BIS could not conduct a pre-license check (PLC) or a post-shipment verification (PSV) for reasons outside of the U.S. Government's control. Go to: www.bis.doc.gov/Enforcement/UnverifiedList/unverified_parties.html

The Entity List (www.bis.doc.gov/Entities/Default.htm), available in PDF or ASCII text format, is a list of parties whose presence in a transaction can trigger a license requirement under the Export Administration Regulations. The list specifies the license requirements that apply to each listed party.

Copyrighted excerpt from a new book, Business Background Investigations, by Cynthia Hetherington.

Researching Political Activities and Donations

A fast way to locate information about the political donations by corporate executives is to go to the Federal Election Commission's Web site at www.fec.gov. Under the Campaign Finance Reports and Data tab, use the Disclosure Database search features.

Two excellent private Web sites to find political donations at the state level are:

www.followthemoney.organd www.opensecrets.org.

Professional, albeit expensive, services like www.capitaliq.com from Standard & Poor's and www.boardex.com by Management Diagnostics Limited are phenomenal in their coverage of people and companies. Their analysts actually offer summarized data in their reports, much like investigators do, and biographies online.

Another service is Corporate Board Member magazine (www.boardmember.com). They maintain an extensive, proprietary database that can be used to not only search the information on the directors and officers, but also to illustrate relationships among directors and boards.

A great source for free searching is www.zoominfo.com. Keep in mind, though, that this information is being generated from other Web sites and needs to be verified.

Copyrighted excerpt from a new book, Business Background Investigations, by Cynthia Hetherington.

Wisconsin Bill Limiting Online Access to Court Records Expected to Stall in Committee

WI Assembly Bill 418 would limit access to court records at the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website.  The author of the bill indicated it is misused to discriminate against those with criminal records.  The bill would allow access to court officials, ‘legitimate journalists” and individuals approved by the state.  Opposition is strong and the bill is not expected to pass out of committee.  View Bill Folder

Researching Foreign Entities

With data on over 70 countries and two million companies, www.Kompass.com offers a very reasonably priced collection of information to obtain addresses, corporate structures, names of key figures, company turnover information, company descriptions, product names and services, trade and brand names, and location of branches. Kompass offers free searches by geographic region, company name or product, executive name, and supplies NAICS, SIC and other government-related codes.

SkyMinder, an affiliate of CRIBIS S.p.A., based in Bologna, Italy, is an incredible aggregator of other corporate business and credit reports. A complete source list for Skyminder can be located at www.skyminder.com/basic/info_sources.asp.  The source list includes a note on how often the data is updated for each of the 46 sources.

When researching a foreign company, do not neglect contacting a business-affairs correspondent in the country of the company being investigated. Prepare to have a lot of patience and time when waiting for the information to be delivered. A list of U.S. embassy locations abroad is found at http://usembassy.state.gov. 

Publicly-owned companies may be traded on foreign stock exchanges. Each exchange and country provides information on listed companies and will have its own oversight group. Two resources to find a list of foreign exchanges are:

www.tdd.lt/slnews/Stock_Exchanges/Stock.Exchanges.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_exchanges

Copyrighted excerpt from a new book, Business Background Investigations, by Cynthia Hetherington.