[WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.

[Florence Devouard]

Christiano Moreschi wrote:
> Actually, there's not necessarily any informant at all, though the Register have got their facts completely correct (as far as I can make out, this pretty much all tallies with my own data). Virtually all the data for confirmation of the facts is available online for free, though actually finding this data would either require a tip-off or a very impressive dirt-digging operation. 
> 
> Really, I don't think anyone's accusing Doran of stealing money from WMF (yet), much as she seems to have stolen from others.

Two issues here - the dazzling incompetence displayed by the WMF 
people/Board in not doing a criminal records check

(over here, in the UK, you can't even breathe without getting Criminal 
Records Bureau clearance, I'm sure fellow UK-based WikiMedians

can back me up here) - and if, and to what extent, people at WMF have 
lied to us and to the media.
> 
> Fuckups can be forgiven and forgotten. Nobody ever trusts someone caught out in lying again, though.
> 
> CM

Hello

You relate your own experience in UK. I can relate my experience in 
France. Background checks of criminal past are extremely unusual. What 
is usual is to contact former employers (which is something I did when 
we hired Sue and Mike for example).

It does not seem to be very common practice in the USA to check criminal 
background. Originally, Carolyn was hired through a company. This 
company did not do any check on her either, even though they were 
providing bookkeepers.
When Carolyn was hired by Brad through this company, we had only 3 staff 
members.

One thing I will be absolutely insistent upon is that I have always told 
the truth.  And to the best of my knowledge, other board members told 
the truth as well. When she was hired, we had no idea she had a criminal 
background, or it is pretty obvious we would not have hired her. You may 
choose to believe us or not on this, but if you are going to call us 
liars, I will ask you to provide proofs that we lied.

Also, we have been asked not to comment on personnel issues from our 
legal counsel and I hope you would not advice us generally to not follow 
the recommandation of WMF legal advisor.

Florence