Recently, we have been working with two business owners regarding what they believed were sealed or expunged criminal records.

These cases had very different outcomes.

In the first scenario, a financial institution scrutinized a business owner when he applied for a significant loan. A background check was conducted as part of the evaluation process, and it revealed a felony record for dealing in stolen goods. The business owner, believing that his record had been expunged, was taken aback by this revelation and questioned the result.

In the second case, a man was selling his business and was subject to a background check as part of that process. The businessman believed that an old criminal case from his college days had been sealed, but he wanted to double-check. The client ran a TruthFinder search on himself and didn’t find the record. This was not terribly surprising, given our previous testing of TruthFinder. Not only did we find the criminal record, but we also found a second criminal case against him that he had completely forgotten about. Neither of the cases were sealed, and both were open to the public.

Neither of these situations was as straightforward as they seemed.

In the first scenario, the business owner had gone through the entire process of sealing and removing his record from the public realm. So, if anyone ever went to the court and searched the official records, the result would come back with no records.

However, we found the record in numerous investigative databases, and it turns out that the financial institution had also found the record in one of those databases. There is a dirty little secret in the world of public records: many of these local jurisdictions sell these records to various database aggregators, so once they are out in the wild, so to speak, it’s difficult to rein them back in. So, in this case, the record had been sealed many years after it was filed, so while it was removed from the official records, the record remained in the reports that could be obtained from dozens (if not hundreds) of various database providers that maintain these records.

The client is now going through the resource-intensive process of removing the record from these various database providers.

In the second scenario, the client was adamant that the case he was aware of was sealed. After all, he didn’t find it on TruthFinder. But as we have found before, TruthFinder’s criminal record repository can give you a false sense of security. So we dug our heels in, thinking that we were going to have to get creative about finding any record of the case, like by contacting the police or checking old police blotters.

So we were surprised when it came up in a few databases and even more surprised when a second case came up. The court where the offense took place also confirmed the records and sent us copies of the cases. Both of the cases were really old and, frankly, not particularly meaningful given that the client hadn’t been in any trouble for 20+ years, save for a few minor run-ins with the police in college. Nevertheless, they were pretty serious offenses, and their discovery could jeopardize the entire deal.

What are the takeaways from these two scenarios?

• If you are a businessperson and subject to potential scrutiny, you should conduct your own due diligence to ensure that any purportedly sealed or expunged records are not out there. Don’t just assume that nobody will be able to find these records once they’re sealed. Nothing could potentially kill a deal faster than lying on a background investigation questionnaire.

• Even in cases where a record is officially sealed with the court, it may exist in perpetuity in various other investigative databases because many counties and courts sell their information to third parties. Removing the records from the various databases is relatively straightforward, but it’s a time-consuming process. Intel Techniques’ Data Removal Guide is a good place to start.

• For any motivated party, there are still many other ways to find criminal offenses, including calls for service records through local law enforcement.

• The various online database “background check” providers can give you a false sense of security. If you’re seeking an affordable method to uncover some personal but incomplete information, TruthFinder might be a viable option. However, if your goal is to obtain reliable and comprehensive information more than half the time from reputable sources, it may be better to consult a professional.