Per coverage, the “first offender” plea complicates the case and explains why Cobb County School District, which employed Farrington from November 2013 until May 2016, didn’t know about the charge. The district has a policy of running background checks on all new employees. This policy includes multiple criminal screenings with state criminal checks and FBI fingerprint background checks. The district’s deputy superintendent confirmed that those checks were run on Farrington in 2013 and that they returned no signs of criminal history.
In addition to the actual background checks, reports note, the school has a zero-tolerance hiring policy for individuals with felony
Under that criteria, Farrington would not have been considered a hirable candidate by the district. However, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) was not permitted to disclose Farrington’s record to potential employers. As coverage explains, the GBI maintains the criminal record database that employers search when they run state criminal checks in Georgia. Before July 2004, first offenders could use Georgia’s first offender statute to expunge certain charges from their record. To discharge his
Georgia law has changed a bit in the years since Farrington’s arrest, reports
Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds told the Marietta Daily Journal that he wants a change. Reynolds believes that crimes against children and crimes that are sexual in nature should not be absolved under the first offender statute. For the first offender statute to change, the Georgia Legislature would have to change the law. There is currently no legislation pending that would bring about those revisions.
Per reports, Farrington was reportedly a model employee while working for the Cobb County School District. The district didn’t get any complaints from students or parents during his two and a half years as a bus driver. Farrington resigned from the bus driver position last spring, but did so voluntarily, not because of any incident or allegation.
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About Michael Klazema The author
Michael Klazema is the lead author and editor for Dallas-based backgroundchecks.com with a focus on human resource and employment screening developments
