25 sex assaults showed up on wrong man's background check, suit says

NOW THIS IS one record nobody wants in their collection.

A Philadelphia man claims a Florida background-check company made him out to be a sex offender when it erroneously reported that he had 25 sex offenses on his criminal record even though he had none, according to court documents.

Ryan Davis sued First Advantage in federal court recently, claiming that the St. Petersburg-based background-check company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by providing false information about Davis to a prospective employer.

As a result of the information provided by First Advantage to Davis' prospective employer, Red Vision of Philadelphia, Davis was denied a position with that company last year, according to the suit.

Davis, 40, a former corrections officer who lives in Southwest Philadelphia, has one arrest on his criminal record - a 2000 aggravated-assault case that was eventually dismissed, his lawyer said.

A quick check of online records reveals that there is a Ryan Davis with the same birthday as Davis who has been convicted of sexual abuse of children in Philadelphia, but that man is from Illinois, according to court documents.

David Koller, Davis' attorney, said he obtained a background check on Davis from State Police that certifies that he has no criminal convictions.

Koller said he's not sure what biographical information First Advantage used to do its background check or how it came to attribute 25 sexual offenses to Davis, including sexual assault of a child and family-member assault.

"The inaccurate information portrays [Davis] as a serial criminal and sex offender, which he is not," Koller wrote in the suit. "There is perhaps no greater error that a consumer reporting agency can make."

First Advantage did not immediately return a request for comment.

Online: ph.ly/crime

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