TRUFANT, Mich. — A Montcalm County man recently missed his honeymoon after another person’s felonies appeared on his background check.
“I was just more in awe at that point,” said Dominic James Black, who lives in Trufant. “I didn't really… because they're TSA agents, you can't like argue with them and everything, so you got to stay, [as] professional the best you can. Just kind of hold it together.”
In an interview with FOX 17, Black explained that in March, he and his wife went on their honeymoon to Cancun.
However, when they finally made it to Cancun, Mexico’s customs agency would not allow Black to enter the country and put him back on a plane to Michigan.
He says agents would not directly tell him why, but hinted at an issue with his criminal record. So, when Black returned home, he ran a search through iChat.
“Lo and behold, there was [sic] items showing up on the record that didn't belong to me,” said Black.
Black found a list of arrests for another man on his background check.
Their first and last names matched, but the middle ones differed. According to a copy of the record, the person faced charges that ranged from felony sexual assault to obstructing justice.
“I imagine that's part of the reason why it was not allowed in the Mexico because, I mean, they’re not going to take somebody like that down there,” said Black.
FOX 17 contacted all of the law enforcement agencies listed on Black’s background check and learned the error happened because of a clerical issue.
In a statement, Montcalm County Sheriff Michael Williams said that last August, a booking officer at the jail mistakenly entered incorrect information during an outage of a link between its management records and fingerprint scan systems.
Wiliams noted paperwork provided to them often contains names close to suspect names, and he believes the employee used the wrong one as they manually processed the booking.
“In August of 2022, we experience an outage of a link between our jail management records system and the livescan fingerprint system,” wrote Williams. “The booking officer was required to manually enter the inmate’s information into the live scan system. The booking officer mistakenly entered incorrect information into the livescan system. We learned of the error in May of 2023. As soon as our jail staff became aware of the booking error, it was corrected with the State of Michigan.”
Williams added that MCSO has since taken measures to prevent similar errors.
He went on to write, “We have conducted refresher training sessions with all staff members involved in the booking process with an emphasis on the significance of accurate data entry and highlighting the potential consequences of errors. We remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of performance. Unfortunately, in this instance, we failed to meet that standard. Again, we sincerely apologize to Dominic James Black and assure him, as well as the community at large, that we are striving to increase accuracy, so such errors are prevented from happening again.”
Black’s record was cleared earlier this month after he filed an appeal with Michigan State Police’s Criminal Justice Information Center.
To correct a record that does not belong to an individual whose name was searched, MSP says the following steps must be taken.
- Individuals should go to the nearest law enforcement agency and request to be fingerprinted on a state applicant fingerprint card for the purposes of “record challenge”; call ahead to verify feeds and/or service hours. There is no charge for fingerprinting if it is at a MSP post.
- The card should be mailed to the Criminal Justice Information Center with a copy of the record and a letter requesting the CJIC verify the enclosed criminal record does not belong to him/her. The address is:
- Michigan State Police — CJIC
ATTN: Record Challenge
P.O. Box 30634
Lansing, MI 48909
- Michigan State Police — CJIC
