Carlos Tapia went to jail for being a heroin dealer. After being released, two months later without any criminal check, the convicted herion dealer was hired to work at a New York charter school with kids. Read more below.
He went from the big house to schoolhouse in just over two months.
A charter school hired a convicted heroin dealer — and put him to work with kids — without a background check that would have quickly turned up his criminal past.
Carlos Tapia, 31, was hired in May at Innovate Charter School, where he supervised kids in the cafeteria. He expected to be fingerprinted so his past could be checked, but the school didn’t bother, he said.
“I could have been a person who was dangerous,” said Tapia, who was a public school teacher’s aide before he served a year and half for heroin distribution.
The high-profile school, then sharing Tweed Courthouse space with the Department of Education itself, did fire Tapia after three months — but he still can’t believe that he was even hired by a charter school in such a prime location.
“It’s just crazy. What if I was someone who really couldn’t be trusted?” Tapia said. “What if I had anger-management issues?
“I even took the elevator with the chancellor (Dennis Walcott) all the time,” he added.
A charter school official said that background checks were “always done,” claiming that Tapia’s had been completed by an employee no longer with the school.
Head of school Gayla Thompson declined to further comment, saying that Tapia “is no longer an employee here.” She then hung up on a reporter.
A source familiar with the inner workings of the school said officials were entirely in the dark about Tapia’s past until contacted by the Daily News.
The school is now reviewing all personnel records, the source said.
Absent the heroin arrest, Tapia’s résumé suggested that he was qualified for the charter job. Before turning to crime, he made $10 per hour as a public school teacher’s aide.
