By STEVE ANDREWS | News Channel 8
Published: November 11, 2011
TAMPA —
Hillsborough County commissioners say they are dismayed that the county has no uniform policy for how background checks on potential job candidates are conducted.
Each county department or agency conducts its own background checks in its own way, according to the county’s human resources department.
“That is shocking,” County Commissioner Victor Crist said.
“It just doesn’t make sense, why would you want to do that?” Commissioner Sandy Murman said.
Questions about job candidate background checks arose following an 8 On Your Side investigation that revealed Fire Rescue Chief Ron Rogers and Sharon Subadan, deputy county administrator, failed to look into a child abuse case involving Preston Cook before they hired him in June as the county’s director of emergency management.
“I feel as though we’ve been let down; I feel empty handed,” Commissioner Al Higginbotham said.
A 1993 Orange County Sheriff’s Office charging affidavit states Cook “took an electrical cord and whipped the child about the arms, stomach, back, knees, legs and ankles. The injuries consisted of numerous linear and loop marks, several of which had broken the skin.”
Cook was charged with felony aggravated child abuse by maliciously punishing a child. He eventually pleaded no contest to misdemeanor child abuse.
Higginbotham said he absolutely would’ve liked to have known about the crime before Cook was hired, but Subadan and Rogers failed to include the details because they hadn’t looked at them. They took a closer look after News Channel 8 started asking questions about Cook’s past.
On his job application, Cook admitted he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor in 1995.
Subadan and Rogers both say the information on Cook’s application matched a Florida Department of Law Enforcement criminal background history as well as records on file at the Orange County courthouse.
The county officials said they asked Cook about the incident during the interview process and he said he was arrested after he spanked his child.
Like Crist and Murman, Higginbotham said Rogers and Subadan sang Cook’s praises.
“They told me that he was very experienced; he was well respected within his ranks and his industry. They said he had an arrest and that they had done the appropriate research and that it had met their standards of satisfaction,” Higginbotham said.
Higginbotham said that hiring and firing is the responsibility of the county administration.
Both Crist and Murman say even if they had known details about the child abuse incident, given Cook’s experience and clean record since, they would have supported his hiring.
“He was just way qualified and it happened many, many years ago, nothing since. To me, the case is really closed and I overwhelmingly approved him,” Murman said.
Higginbotham agrees the incident took place many years ago, but says he’d have to consider many issues before committing one way or the other.
Higginbotham, Crist and Murman agree on the need for thorough and uniform background checks.
“There should be a uniform policy and I am certain after this incident and after Mr. [Mike] Merrill [county administrator] and I speak, there will be a policy in place to make sure that we don’t have a sensitive matter of this sort arise again,” Higginbotham said.
