Sunday, March 14, 2004

Dale G. Young / The Detroit News "We're at the mercy of the reporting agencies," says Tim Bolles, director of the State Police felony checking system. If the crimes aren't reported, the checking system fails.

Key tool leaves false sense of security

Database is slow, excludes convictions from other states

By Fred Girard / The Detroit News

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If Steven Crawford, a former girls and boys track coach at Southlake High in St. Clair Shores, applied today for a similar position, school officials would follow their usual practice for coaches who are non-teachers and run a criminal background check on him through the Michigan State Police.

The Detroit News ran Crawford’s name through the state database just last week, and it came back clean.

The felony check missed Crawford’s 2003 conviction for using the Internet to commit a crime — trying to set up a sexual liaison with a 13-year-old girl. Actually, Crawford had been chatting with Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies in a sting that also has caught other youth coaches.

“That’s really scary,” Wayne Youth League President Debbie Zimmerman said of the missing records.

Two former coaches in Zimmerman’s league, Matt Tapping and Matt Cipriani, also were convicted of sexual offenses involving minors, and their records came back clean as well.

Tim Bolles, director of the state’s felony checking system, said officials are at the mercy of those reporting the information.

Police agencies have to report arrests, prosecutors report warrants and courts report convictions before a record is generated.

Missing records are only one problem with I-CHAT — the Internet Criminal History Access Tool, used to check 50,000 youth sports coaches in Michigan. Other records are added too slowly to be useful, and no active warrants or convictions from other states are listed.

Problems revealed during The News investigation include:

* Active warrants are not listed. The system recently returned a clean record for a youth hockey coach in a Metro Detroit community who fled the country after prosecutors charged him with first-degree criminal sexual conduct for allegedly raping one of his players.

* Records can disappear. When Scott Harris, until recently a South Lyon High football coach, was hired as a teacher in 1996, his FBI and state record check came back clean. Last October, however, Harris, 33, was stopped by police at 5 on a Saturday morning for drunken driving, with small amounts of cocaine and marijuana. His record was run again, and this time turned up two felony and three misdemeanor convictions missed by both State Police and the FBI the first time.

“That’s the problem with the I-CHAT system,” said Richard Robell, a Dearborn Heights soccer coach who is also a police officer. “A lot of these things can fall through the cracks.”

You can reach Fred Girard at (313) 222-2165 or fgirard@detnews.com.