05/18/2010 // West Palm Beach , FL, USA // Tara Monks // Tara Monks
Pennsauken, PA – A Pennsylvania man was arrested on charges of false representation and impersonating a public official after a woman recognized the sex offender on May 4, 2010, while he was conducting a Census questionnaire, as reported by The Philadelphia Enquirer.
As of Monday, May 17, 2010, 47-year-old Frank J. Kuni was being held at the Camden County Jail.
The arrest happened after a woman was visited by someone she initially thought was a typical, government-employed census worker. A man identifying himself as Jamie showed up on her front porch carrying a bag with the Census logo and wearing a badge. The man asked the woman a few questions: her name, birthdate and whether she and her husband rented or owned.
The woman thought he looked familiar, and near the end of the interview, realized she had seen his face on the sex offender registry for the state. She remembered he had aliases, and that the pseudonym Jamie Shepard was one of them.
After the man left, the woman checked the registry, found his information and called authorities. The following day, Frank J. Kuni was arrested. He had used the alias Jamie Shepard to get a job as a census worker, according to Pennsauken police.
A census official told reporters someone named Jamie Shepard was hired in the Camden area, but dismissed on May 5, after a failed fingerprint check.
The official would not release why Shepard failed the background check.
The state sex offender registry states Kuni served approximately four years in prison for endangering the welfare of a child in 1996, burglary and other crimes. He reportedly assaulted someone and had inappropriate contact with two victims he knew.
Fernando E. Armstrong, director of the Philadelphia region of the census, explained to reporters that workers are fingerprinted at the start of the four-day training. If prints are flagged, census workers are terminated.
The prints are sent to an Indiana census center, where background checks are conducted. If a person is flagged, regional offices get an electronic message that someone should be removed from their position. The messages do not state details on the matter.
The census hired approximately 600,000 workers to conduct house visits at the end of April. The home visits began May 1, 2010.
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