Antoine Flowers was hired by the City of Dallas as an IT manager. His resume was certainly impressive for any IT professional, much less a 26 year old. According to the Dallas Morning News, Flowers’ resume included claims that he had:

  • served as a lieutenant in the US Army (being promoted to lieutenant after only two years of service),
  • been a systems administrator for NASA,
  • been employed as the Director of Education for Centura College in Newport News, Virginia.
  • earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and was actively pursuing a masters degree from Southern Methodist University.

Promising candidate… if any of it were true. Apparently, the City of Dallas is very trusting.

The Dallas Morning News began research into Flowers’ background after he was arrested on February 14, 2013 on charges that he stole 12 city-owned iPads and sold them to local pawnshops. Their report indicates that all of the resume claims above were false.

According to the Morning News, Flowers was hired as “manager of the city’s desktop computer systems, a position that gave him access to critical computer systems, including those used by the Dallas Police Department.”

The City’s investigation into Flowers’ hiring and theft is ongoing, however, it is clear that someone failed to do the basic due diligence one would expect when hiring a new employee, especially one with access to sensitive computer systems.

 

Employer Lesson:

Imperative always recommends that employers verify applicants’ education and experience claims – even when those claims are not directly connected to items in the job description. The employment application is the least expensive integrity test an employer can administer to an applicant. If they will lie to you coming into the door, what more can you expect when they are inside your organization?