A few weeks ago a court trial was started for a 42 year old school teacher in Burley, Idaho. He was accused of pretending to be a teenage boy in order to have online sexual conversations with a female teenager. Michael S. Brinkerhoff waived his preliminary hearing on charges of child enticement and sexual abuse without setting foot in the courtroom. I suppose the embarrassment of his actions was simply too much.
The prosecution for Cassia County, Idaho, Al Barrus was attempting to close the hearing to public scrutiny in an effort to protect the alleged victim from further humiliation and embarrassment. In a telephone interview with the Times News Barrus stated: “We did it because of the extremely sensitive nature of the case.”
This 42 year old, apparently depraved, individual allegedly took on the identity of a 15 year old nephew. This “nephew” developed a relationship with the girl and eventually started having sexually explicit conversations with her on the web. The story plot included the death of his online character in surgery, whereupon Brinkerhoff himself consoled the girl.
The victim’s mother provided the court with more than 1,000 pages of messages between the two, many of which were graphic or sexual in nature. Brinkerhoff was suspended with pay pending the resolution of the case.
Here’s the kicker of the whole case. In 2006 when he was hired, Brinkerhoff himself compiled a record of misdemeanor petty theft crimes out of Bonneville County, Idaho. HOWEVER, the pre employment background check did NOT turn anything up on such crimes.
This just goes to show what I have been saying all along. If you as an employee fail to utilize the correct employee background check service, or procedures, you will end up with a case such as this. Proceed to the employee background check service page for a general overview of the process and top service.
