The criminal complaint alleges he came into contact with more than one dozen children. “We were a little surprised. We thought the haunted house would do their own background checks on people and this one may have slipped through,” said Slinger Police Department Chief Dean Schmidt. The nonprofit group Hartford Jaycees runs the Dwelling of Despair and Forest of Fear.
Slinger police arrested Hawthorne after an off-duty officer went to the house with his children and recognised Hawthorne’s face when he took off a monster mask. The detective then called the Wisconsin Department of Corrections who confirmed Hawthorne’s previous conviction of child sexual assault. “I think without the officer he would still be volunteering down there and no one would know the difference,” Schmidt said.
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The criminal complaint shows that he never crossed the line with any of the children but will still face three new felony charges simply because he was there. Schmidt said this incident should encourage all employers and nonprofits to conduct thorough background checks on its applicants and that sex offenders aren’t the only red flags. “If there’s a domestic abuse problem, a violence problem you may not want the person involved in what’s going on,” he said. If convicted, Hawthorne faces up to 12 years in prison.
2 comments:
Here's the thing however. In the UK at least such background checks, DBS, cost money and as such non-profit or low profit organizations may feel they can't afford them. Certainly registered charities working with children get them free, but not all non-profit organizations are charities.
Is the situation similar in the US?
Gareth- In the US, each state has a "Sex Offender Registry" that can be accessed for free on the state's website. It contains their name, age, address and where they work.
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