A payroll worker is the second employee the hospice hired in recent years despite a criminal record.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
Published June 26, 2003
LARGO - The Eckerd Corp. entrusted Karen D. Langan with a company credit card to use for work purchases.
Langan used it for far more than that. She charged $7,791 for personal items before getting caught.
After pleading guilty to felony grand theft in 2001 and being sentenced to five years of probation, Langan was looking for a new job.
Hospice of the Florida Suncoast gave her one, even after learning of her criminal history. Langan now works in the hospice's payroll department.
Langan, 35, is the second employee the hospice hired in recent years despite a criminal record.
Another employee, Susan A. Wynn, pleaded guilty in Georgia to embezzlement in 1996 after admitting that she stole $370,000 from a public agency. Wynn, who served prison time and is on probation, works as an administrative assistant to the hospice's vice president of finance.
Hiring employees with recent criminal histories is a practice that many nonprofits avoid, according to the American Institute of Philanthropy. For example, Hernando-Pasco Community Hospice won't consider anyone with a felony record.
"We do our best to maintain a good public image, and part of that is being careful with who represents us," said the hospice's spokeswoman, Robin Cocher.
Mike Bell, a spokesman for Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, said Wynn and Langan are excellent workers who have never been accused of wrongdoing with the organization. Neither woman, he said, has any access to cash, checks or financial accounts.
Bell said the hospice will give someone a second chance if it thinks he or she is rehabilitated.
"We don't automatically disqualify someone because of something in their past," he said.
The hospice has enough checks and balances, Bell said, to ensure that funds are not misused.
In reviewing Langan's case Wednesday, Bell said the hospice learned that supervisors in the payroll department didn't know about her criminal record, though others outside payroll did.
"That raises some questions," Bell said, though he wouldn't say whether he thought it posed a problem.
Langan refused to comment.
Bell said the hospice recently began a review of its background checks. He said the review is unrelated to the recent disclosures.
Bell said the hospice thinks the revelations about Wynn and Langan are related to lawsuits filed against it this year by Tampa attorney Jonathan Alpert and are part of an effort to discredit it. Those suits' allegations include a charge that the hospice improperly diverted donations.
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.
