In Texas, Michael John Nelson was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old neighbor while working for the Hardeman County Sheriff’s Office. The local district attorney told the AP he did not prosecute in exchange for Nelson relinquishing his law enforcement license, an agreement reached with the victim and her family. Yet by the time his decertification was final in 2011 — a year after he left the sheriff’s office — Nelson had already worked briefly as a reserve deputy in the town of Bayou Vista.
Nelson said he told his new boss when he learned he was under investigation and turned in his badge once charges were filed.
Paul Odin, who was not familiar with the case but replaced the Bayou Vista police chief who hired Nelson, said background checks often are limited by a department’s size and budget, and that “a lot of agencies, a lot of cities — to avoid lawsuits — won’t disclose anything negative.”
A National Decertification Index contains the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses for problems that include sex abuse. But contributing is voluntary, and only 39 states do so.
Former Georgia State Patrol officer Terry Payne wouldn’t be found in the index, because Georgia doesn’t contribute. That state had more than 2,000 decertifications in six years, and officials said it would be too labor-intensive. Payne was fired in 2008 — and lost his license two years later — for having sex on duty with a subordinate, the daughter of a fellow officer, according to his decertification records. He nevertheless landed three new police jobs in Arkansas; he was certified there before his Georgia license was stripped.