Screening Logic Obtains New Court Records

At Screening Logic (SL), we do our due diligence when it comes to all aspects of the background investigation. We are determined to do the right thing, always. This is particularly true in our criminal research. The Pointer File New York™ (PF NY) database is an essential diligence tool that allows us to view a history of booking records. When contracted for additional services, we then research these findings to determine whether the arrests resulted in passable convictions.

The only passable offenses we provide are misdemeanor and felony convictions. We developed PF NY, in conjunction with the NYS law enforcement, as an alternative method to obtaining criminal information in New York State. By digging down to the level of booking data, Pointer File New York™ overcomes the fundamental and systemic flaws associated with the NYS OCA search.

In this case study we will take a look at an individual who had court records that were pending, and one so recent that the New York State Office of Court Administration (NYS OCA) did not provide it. We will be exploring how Pointer File New York™ (PF NY) was useful. We had previously run this individual for one of our clients back in April of 2017. This particular client runs new background investigations every time their employees are up for a promotion. Our client’s package includes the PF NY, a Sex Offender Registry search, and an Origin Search. For this particular individual, our client requested a NYS OCA as well. We ran the PF NY search first, see figure 1 for the PF NY.

Figure 1 – Pointer File New York Booking Records

We have a specific protocol involving the research of PF NY “hits,” when contracted for additional services. The common practice for the majority of our clients is to open up a Developed Criminal Record. Wherein we call on each individual booking record, and locate the court in which we need to reach out to in order to obtain the final disposition. We then ran the NYS OCA as the client requested, which came back with no records. See Figure 2 ¹ for NYS OCA results.

Figure 2 - New York State Office of Court Administration Statewide Results

¹ Names have been changed to protect their identities.

When contracted for additional services, every instance where Screening Logic receives PF NY hits that are not obtained by the NYS OCA search, we recommend that further research is performed. After receiving no results from the NYS OCA search, we reached out to our liaison at the New York State Office of Court Administration, requesting information on all booking records for this individual. Our liaison told us that she did not have any records relating to our subject. We reached out to the arresting agency and discovered that the case had gone to Volney Town Court. Our researcher then reached out to the court to obtain the case information.

When the NYS OCA Liaison does not offer satisfactory information regarding all booking records in question, we will reach out to the jails to obtain the court information. We will then follow up with said courts in order to obtain the final disposition information for each charge. Not every booking record results in a corresponding passable conviction and there are often dead ends.

We did reach out to the Wayne County Jail as well as the Oswego County Jail in order to obtain the court information for the remaining two booking records. Per the records department of the Oswego County Jail, the booking record dated 04/11/2016, was in relation to the case out of Volney Town Court. The subject was held in that jail for a continuance of sentencing. The Wayne County Jail had similar records in regard to the 05/08/2016 booking record. The subject was then transferred from the Oswego county jail to the Wayne County jail, in order to complete the 180 day jail sentence. These particular booking records are prime examples of when a booking record does not necessarily equate to a conviction.

As a result of thorough research and due diligence, we came to the rightful conclusion that a registered sex offender did not have results come back on the New York State Office of Court Administration search.

Extensive research and follow up did reveal that two convictions were indeed passable to our client. The first is the Sexual Abuse case for which the subject was a level one registered Sex Offender. See Figure 3 for the New York State Sex Offender Registry results.

Figure 3 - New York State Sex Offender Registry Results

Figure 4 displays the completed results provided by the court. The case was completed; the NYS OCA did not have any results in relation to this case other than an incident date and the court information. Furthermore, that information was only provided to Screening Logic after contact was made regarding their reporting of no records.

Figure 4 - Developed Criminal Record Results

The second case we were able to provide to the client was a pending Forgery case. This is a second case that the NYS OCA did not have any other information on besides the court control number, and the incident date, after originally reporting no records. Figure 5 are the final results sent to the client for the forgery case.

Figure 5 - Developed Criminal Record Results

End Results

This evidence is in favor of the Pointer File New York inquiry. If used in conjunction with the New York Office of Court Administration, the results are the most accurate and compliant with FCRA guidelines. However, cases of this nature should not be missed by the NYS OCA or any company providing a background investigation. PF NY was on the client’s side in properly locating and identifying a convicted sex offender. Due diligence and thorough research by our staff did not accept the NYS OCA’s lack of results, and thus, delivered a complete criminal history for the subject.

Additional Information

New York State Office Of Court Administration Has Its Limitations

The New York State Office of Court Administration (NYS OCA) is a fantastic entity for obtaining various convictions for individuals with a criminal history.

However, it is a severely flawed system. There are quite a few restrictions to the cases that are provided by the NYS OCA, one being they do not report a misdemeanor conviction after ten years if it is the sole conviction.

This is part of the New York Misdemeanor Redemption Policy. In addition, they do not provide vehicular misdemeanors unless it is an Operating Motor Vehicle under the Influence conviction. The most alarming, is the extreme number of cases missing from the results.

The NYS OCA has yielded zero results, even for convicted criminals, some of which have multiple convictions. The NYS OCA will only provide fingerprinting convictions based on the exact name, and exact date of birth submitted. They do not search for additional spellings, aliases, or suffixes, of any name. Each submission to the NYS OCA is exactly what is searched. One practice that can be problematic is if the subject has a suffix reported on one conviction and does not have the suffix reported on another. In this case, you will not get both convictions back in your search results. The same follows for any alias or changes in spelling for any given name, as well as date of birth variations.

Pointer File New York™ (PF NY) pulls the booking records for individuals all over the State of New York. When contracted for additional services, Screening Logic uses this information to research each record and determine if it resulted in a passable conviction, which we then provide to our clients. There are times when courts are unwilling to assist in providing additional information and we have to utilize the New York State Office of Court Administration. More frequently than not, the NYS OCA provides only a fraction of what PF NY discovers.

At Screening Logic, we do our due diligence when it comes to all aspects of the background investigation. We are determined to do the right thing, always. This is particularly true in our criminal research. The Pointer File New York™ (PF NY) database is an essential diligence tool that allows us to view a history of booking records. When contracted for additional services, we then research these findings to determine whether the arrests resulted in passable convictions. The only passable offenses we provide are misdemeanor and felony convictions. We developed PF NY in conjunction with the NYS Sheriffs’ Association, as an alternative method to obtaining criminal information in New York State. By digging down to the level of booking data, Pointer File New York™ overcomes the fundamental and systemic flaws associated with the NYS OCA search.