Question for legal dopers: Possible wanted man?

Okay, dopers, here’s the situation…

Due to my own stupidity, I took someone into my business who conned me. No, I didn’t ask for a background check when I took him on and I’m not sure if I could get one now. He is out of the picture at this point, but I have reason to believe he may be a wanted man.

Here are the details… he came here (the U.S.) from Quebec. He left Quebec very suddenly with his entire family, supposedly leaving a lot behind and drove immediately to the Florida Keys. Then, inexplicably, drove back north again to Indiana where I am.

He has proven himself over and over again to be a liar, he has made comments to make me believe he has a criminal past (he told me he used to break into houses!) and I am worried now that a wanted criminal is walking the streets of my town and my giving him the job helped him along the way.

I don’t want to get an innocent man arrested, however, despite my personal dislike of him. His con to me couldn’t truly be called illegal, so I couldn’t report him just for that… but I do want to make sure he is not a criminal and make sure that he is not wanted in Canada, Florida or anywhere else.

I have already searched all over the internet for his name, but turned up nothing and I don’t want to pay a huge amount of money to one of those background check companies because I don’t know how reliable they are… I can’t even be 100% certain he is using his real name, but I will accept that he is for the time being.

Anyway, does anyone know how I could find out whether or not I should report this man to the police? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Report him for what? Send his picture to Quebec’s police and say he admitted breaking into houses. He’s probably just a pathological liar. Sorry you got burned.

If I had a photo of him, I probably would. As for what to report him for… it’s a simple matter of my being worried that a wanted felon is walking the streets. Let’s say for the sake of argument that I had reason to believe he might be wanted for murder or for rape… I would want to be able to report him… but I have no hard evidence and I don’t want to accuse an innocent man.

If you have any reason to even suspect that this man has been involved in anything remotely resembling murder or rape, RUN, DO NOT WALK, TO THE NEAREST POLICE STATION!!! :eek:

Your desire to be fair is lovely, but if you screw this up, you had better screw up on the side of caution, 'CAUSE IF YOU SCREW UP THE OTHER WAY, SOME POOR SOD IS GONNA WIND UP DEA*D DEAD!!!

And, hell yes, I’m shouting!

If you think that this person may be dangerous, & may be wanted by the police, & definately is a liar & has a bad character; then your desire to be “fair” is merely foolish & irresponsible. Somebody could get hurt! Or killed!!
GO TO THE COPS! NOW!

Is suspicion really enough to go to the police? I’m going to go to them and they’ll say “what evidence do you have?” and I’ll say “none, I just have some suspicions based on a few things he’s said.” Could they really do anything based on that?

The underlined sections of your own statement , plus your personal misgivings are ample reason to ask the police to look into this man’s past.

Stop acting slow-witted, & start using your survival instincts!

You aren’t accusing this man of anything, you are explaining your concerns to the proper authorities. You are asking them to contact the police in his prior place of residence, so they can check his record. There is nothing unethical in that!

Contacting the police to do a background check on the man is not the same as filing charges against him.
And I notice that you didn’t deny that your actual, rather than theoretical, reservations about the man involve crimes of violence.

Don’t wait. Call.

And, do that background check anyway. You can afford it. You probably already know what it will tell you. And that’s something you can give to the cops.

Act now. Tomorrow may be too late.

Well, I would certainly think that if you went into the office and gave them the name of this guy, they could run it through their police bulletins or Interpol or whatever they run it through and check if there’s anything outstading against his name or if there are any aliases associated with that name. In any event, it won’t hurt you, and it’s not like they arrest the guy and then check to see if he’s done anything wrong. If there’s nothing on his records, they’ll leave him alone, and that’s that. Just go, explain why you feel/think the way you do, and ask them if they can run any checks. And who knows, maybe how he conned you is illegal, and you may have some course for gaining restitution.

All right, I suppose you all have a point. Thanks for the advice.