Even Santa Claus Needs a Proper Background Check
When parents take their children to get pictures taken with Santa Clause they never imagine that Santa could have prior sex convictions. Think again. A man working as a Santa Claus at Memorial Mall in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, was recently fired after his superiors learned of his prior convictions which did not turn up on his initial background check.
According to the Sheboygan Press, 33-year-old Hal Specht had changed his name from Hal Barts in October 2008. He claimed on his application that he had no felony convictions and the background check by a third-party company reaffirmed that. Since Specht’s sex-related offenses were misdemeanors he was not required to register as a sex offender.
“Obviously I would not have hired him if I had known this,” said franchise owner Ted Kauffmann. “We did everything properly, and obviously the company that we use for background checks didn’t come up with what they should have.”
It’s hard to believe that a company running a proper background check could have failed to look into several gaps of an employees history. There are a variety of reasons why a background check would fail to catch offenses but it’s up to the employment screening company to consider every piece of the puzzle before putting someone in the clear.
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