Sex Offender Hired As A BP Cleanup Subcontractor Now Accused Of Rape

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Sex Offender Hired As A BP Cleanup Subcontractor Now Accused Of Rape

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/14/sex-offender-hired-as-a-b_n_681719.html



In Pascagoula, Mississippi, a county sheriff alleges that an incident involving an oil spill cleanup supervisor accused of raping a colleague could have been prevented if basic background checks had been used in hiring the workers, CNN reports.

Rundy Charles Robertson faces charges of sexual battery and failure to register as a sex offender in Jackson County, Mississippi. Robertson was hired to supervise oil spill cleanup workers responding to BP's Gulf spill, including the alleged victim, who says Robertson offered her a ride home when she wasn't feeling well one day in June. According to her, after arriving at her motel, Robertson asked to use the bathroom, and then raped her, CNN reports.

Robertson was put on the national sex offender registry in 1996 for a conviction of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and had been on probation after a 2003 conviction for cruelty to children.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd told CNN that the alleged crime could have been prevented, as weeks before it took place he had offered his department's services in providing background checks to BP's head of security, though they declined. He was shocked when told that cleanup workers were only being screened for drug use.

According to CNN, BP hired Miller Environmental Group for the cleanup operation who then hired Aerotek to seek out employees.

BP spokesman Robert Wine told CNN, "The requirement on sub-contractors to BP's contractors is one further step beyond BP's scope of control," and Aerotek representative Jeff Reichart said, "We are not liable for anything that happens," claiming Miller Environmental Group did not require them to conduct background checks. Miller Environmental Group did not immediately respond to CNN.

The alleged victim has since been laid off and is unemployed. She told CNN, "I feel angry, I feel dirty. I don't understand what gave him the right to take something -- or felt he could do what he wanted. ... I'm scared. I'm real scared."

WATCH: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/14/sex-offender-hired-as-a-b_n_681719.html

[sakabatou]

1. What did BP think would happen?

[ThomCat]

2. WTF! They laid HER off as punishment?

:wtf:

So she gets raped because that company failed to do background checks, and they put HER out of her job to make the problem go away?

That is doubly horrible! :grr:

So now she has to deal with the recovery, and has no job too.

I can understand why she might not want to go to the same job after that. But if the company had any damned compassion at all they would have kept her employed and transferred her to someplace where else safe. Someplace where they HAD quickly run background checks on everyone to make sure there were no more predators around.

:nuke:

[ixion]

3. Oh Well, at least they're keeping out the pot smokers...

:sarcasm:

[exboyfil]

4. Obviously the guy should not have been in a supervisory position

but what do we do with sex offenders once they have paid their debt to society? That could apply to all felons. I don't think we want a country of Jean Valjeans whose criminality banishes the individual from ever contributing to society again.

The past crimes listed do not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he should not work with adults. Children yes - he should never be around children.

Is it now an obligation for all employers to do a background check on all employees? When the background check comes back - what should be used for deciding whether someone should be employed? This is particularly relevant for African Americans who have higher incarceration rates. I don't want their only choice for them to be going back into crime. On the other hand what is an employer's obligation for protecting their other employees and the public at large. We have decided to have strict enforcement of laws for those working around children because they are particularly vulnerable.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. Human nature means the debt is often never fully paid in the court of public opinion

The book below really taught me a lot about life and the fairness / unfairness of it all. It was written by an American who lived and wrote in Japan, with unprecedented access for a "gaijin" to the top Yakuza bosses.

In Japan, the GRADE SCHOOL parents are able to get their kid into can determine the rest of their lives.

So yes, paying one's debt to society should mean something. In reality, it does...just not to everyone in equal measure.

Yakuza Diary: Doing Time in the Japanese Underworld

http://www.amazon.com/Yakuza-Diary-Doing-Japanese-Underworld/dp/087113604X/



Based on taped conversations and journal entries made during three months in 1993 when Seymour, an American freelance journalist, interviewed Japanese gangsters, this report makes no claim to objectivity or exhaustiveness. But it is a revealing glimpse of mob influence on Japanese society. Although their operations are not dissimilar to those of the mafia elsewhere, local legend has it that the yakusa are several times as large as their American counterparts, vastly wealthy and powerful in politics, the stock market, drugs, gambling, prostitution and other legitimate and illegitimate businesses. In one interview, a yakusa boss describes how his gang dispossessed the tenants of buildings that some real estate developers wanted to replace with parking lots. Other interviewees discuss mob hierarchies, their clients and their views on violence. Seymour gives a colorful account of his informers and their molls, many of them foreign women, and of the more ordinary life and ambience of Tokyo. He is amusing about his troubles as a long-haired foreigner whose business card lacked the requisite company connection, which in Japan establishes one's status and legitimacy.