Found felony record… not sure if I should say something
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I should preface this by saying that my husband and I are heading to Boston late next month, and our normal babysitter started grad school this month and is unavailable, so we’ve been racking our brains for other options. We do not normally creep on people.
Anyway, I had the idea that “MB,” our 10 year old’s hitting coach, might be a possibility. She knows both of our kids, is a nurse, and is young/unmarried/no kids of her own. My daughter has been going to her weekly for about a year, and I would consider our relationship very friendly, but not friends. My husband use to work in background checks, so he is quite the sleuth, and always likes to check up on individuals who might be caring for our kiddos.
Anyway, he discovered that MB’s boyfriend of almost 4 years had two felony assaults on his record from 2010 and 2014, and also a child with the 2014 victim who was adopted by her now husband. It looks like the assault charges involved his two previous serious girlfriends. It seems possible that MB would have no idea about these since even the one in 2014 took place several months before they started dating. I’m now obviously very worried about MB, but don’t know if it’s my place to say something. All I can think of is a possibly anonymous letter or something (lame, I know). MB and the boyfriend live together, and have been actively house hunting (I believe they are buying the house together, but MB is covering most of the financing).
I have no idea if this is relevant, but both MB and her boyfriend are a couple of years younger than us, but definitely in our “peer” group. MB is 27, and her boyfriend is 30.
It is weird to me youd assume this woman would want to babysit for you to begin with. That being said, no don’t let your child be around but otherwise keep your mouth shut. This is in no way your business and you have no idea if she knows, cares, etc.
you are asking if it’s your place to tell your daughters coach that you were doing a background check without her permission on her and her boyfriend. With the initial intention because you wanted to have her and her boyfriend who you dont know watch your kids over several nights. They have been together for 4 years if he was assaulting her it would have been happening already. Are you around her enough to notice bruising, long sleeves in the wrong climate, or awkward movements if not I would not tell her directly.
Make a copy of the assault charges, and mail them to her at her work address to ensure he is not opening the mail, preferably from a post office not in your end of town (postmark might give you away). If you pay her by check have your husband address the envelope or print a label, and no return address.
If you tell her or let her know you were “sleuthing” or what the rest of the world would define as invading their privacy, because she would most likely turn you down to watch your kids overnight. Coaches and other adults you don’t know well don’t do that that is how they end up on the news or in jail. Either way if she finds out you are losing her as a coach and if you husband does this for a living you are risking his job.
You can also create a dummy email account and send it to her from a public internet cafe or library or VPN if you subscribe to a service. But I’m sure that if she knows about the charges, he’s given her his side and she’s decided to stay.
But more importantly, don’t put this person on your list of possible child care providers. Whether or not she’s currently being abused, you would never forgive yourself if something happened.
Find someone else to babysit. You are not going to feel comfortable with her no matter what. Hopefully, she already knows and there have been no problems. If you see signs of abuse be there as a friend and try and get her to open up. You do not want your husband losing his job on this.
I agree there isn’t any good way to tell someone you’ve been googling people in their life and you’ve uncovered a criminal history.
I suppose you could leave old newspaper clippings in a blank envelope but that makes you come off as even more like stalkers. Just kidding. I really don’t think it’s odd to do a casual search on someone who coaches your children. But the point of such a search is for your own personal comfort. It isn’t to do an in depth background search of people who are in their private life.
I’m assuming you’ve decided against asking her to babysit but you want to make sure she understands she may be at risk for domestic violence, correct? It would be different, I think, if he were a registered sex offender. But otherwise, I would assume she already knows. I’m sure it has affected his employment opportunities and perhaps his ability to register to vote.
Just don’t ask her to babysit. If you absolutely can’t stop yourself, at least ask her if she does private babysitting and then ask her if it would be okay to do a thorough check on her beforehand. Though it does seem kind of cruel if you aren’t actually willing to hire her to sit. Probably, you shouldn’t say anything unless you remain anonymous, and even then, be prepared to lose her as a coach if she finds out if was you.
I’m kind of torn, but in the end, this information is available online for her to find, and it really isn’t your place to know it or tell her.
But I don’t think it would be absolutely terrible to anonymously mail it to her either, without commentary. It’s a serious invasion of her privacy, and likely wouldn’t change anything, but you could feel like you did what you could to prevent abuse.
No babysitting though.
She’s been with this guy for four years, chances are if he is an abuser he’s already been abusing her, so letting her know now probably isn’t going to do much besides piss her off. I would not ask her to watch you kid though.
We are obviously no longer considering asking MB to watch our kiddos while we’re out of town. And this was NOT a background check… you need fingerprints and an ID to run a formal background check, and you’d need signed consent. This was all information available via public records through our county courthouse’s website.
My concern at this point was whether I should anonymously say something to MB with the thought that she might not be aware of the assault felonies.
Personally, I know that I would always want to know, whether it was this, or my spouse cheating, etc, although I recognize that many people don’t feel that way, which is why I was reaching out for feedback.
Agreed you need to find a different babysitter, but unsure if you should send an anonymous letter or email. I’m not convinced she does or would know because from what you wrote, it sounds like your husband had to get kind of in the weeds with his searching? I’m also not convinced she doesn’t/wouldn’t know. (Truly, I just don’t know what the likelihood is that she’d know this information. Part of thinks that nobody would knowingly enter into a relationship with a man with felony assault charges from TWO previous girlfriends, but, also, I’m a regular reader of this site.) I Google my dates, but don’t know how advanced you need to be at sleuthing to uncover convictions. Anyway, if I received any kind of anonymous correspondence (letter, email, text – whatever) that seemed to know personal information about me and my SO, it’d make me uncomfortable even if it was well intentioned or trying to warn me. I’d feel like someone was watching me.
I would want to know current information that could affect my decision-making. Unless he moved quickly afterwards and completely started over somewhere, it is likely this is old news. It is uncomfortable to think about, but there are many people who are willing to overlook past domestic violence in a romantic partner.
If you feel this strongly about being pro-active, there is nothing illegal about anonymously forwarding court records to her. But my opinion is that there are many, many abusers with no criminal history who look perfectly respectable and people with extensive criminal histories who have to start over. Not everyone makes the same life choices with the same information.
@Copa, it’s not hard to find if you’re on the county records database, but I’m not sure it would come up in a generic google search. My husband was really just checking to make sure there were no major driving offenses (excessive speed, etc), and then these two felony assault records popped up on the same records link, along with a couple of misdemeanor DUIs. I haven’t dated anyone new since early 2005, so I’m not sure what kind of sleuthing is standard now with new dates.
@JD, I was certainly not assuming MB would want to watch our kiddos, but I had been thinking of asking since she knows them both and is wonderful with kids. Obviously, given that we are going to be out of town for four nights, this is not the typical “babysitting” gig where we’d find a late high school/early college student. We need someone a little bit older and more responsible.
