Sure, people can change, but can people change after doing something truly despicable, truly morally bankrupt?
A company I have invested in/partner in wants to hire a female employee as a sales rep. She has a ton of connections in the industry and just left a similar industry where she was making between $150K-$200K per year. She worked for that company for four years, and by all accounts, was not only a top producer (top sales rep in their company across the country) but also a solid and loyal employee.
So what's the issue with hiring her? A background check showed she did something truly vile.
About eight years ago, her brother was diagnosed with a stage IV cancer. Serious, serious shit. It obviously put a toll on her family, and remarkably, her brother has survived to this point.
About six years ago, this girl, a single-mother of one daughter, made an awful decision. For reasons unknown (I haven't sat down to talk to her about it yet), she claimed to have had a serious form of cancer. It was completely bogus.
At the time, she was a fairly recent college grad who was working at a restaurant. Of course, when a young, attractive, single-mother gets cancer, a community rallied around her. The owner/co-workers at the restaurant took the bull by its horns and set up a day/night where all proceeds from their regular sales would go to help her with her bills, as she claimed she couldn't work while having treatment. Even the waiters gave every single penny of their earnings that night to her fund. In other words, she was allowing her friends and co-workers to work for free, give her all of their money, and do it under the guise of having cancer.
Somebody set up a GoFund Me account which raised tens of thousands of dollars. A local news station asked her to do a segment where she sat down and was interviewed, which she obliged to do. She forged documents (almost as good as Murox the Moron) from her brother's cancer paperwork to make them appear official. She lied to her family and kept them worried about it all. Her undoing came when she forgot to change the year on one of her brother's old medical documents, in turn, tipping off a careful reader.
She obviously and rightfully was hit hard by the court. She was convicted of two felonies, had to make full financial restitution (which she has accomplished), spent a year incarcerated (a significant portion which was spent in a work-release program), had to do a ton of community service hours, and lost custody of her only child (though she has split custody now).
Clearly, she was punished for it severely and will continue to be, as she is now a convicted felon, has no chance at many jobs, has that as a reputation which is easy to find, etc. Her background isn't a struggle - her parents are divorced, but they mutually own thousands upon thousands of land as farmers. All of her siblings are college grads and have stable jobs and families. On paper, her parents are loaded (due to the value of their land, animals, property, etc.), but she claims they are very simple people. They think she is too "wordly" and think she should simply strive for living in the house she owns on her parents property and finding the right guy. So I could see her being in need of financial help and her parents not willing to help.
I could understand her making a lie in order to miss a week of work ("I have to miss work this week, I have some serious medical appointments which require me to have tests"), then somebody at work catching wind of it and doing the fundraiser/GoFund Me/going to the media about it. Then, to not be exposed as a liar, she may have kept digging her hole deeper after it got out of control.
I don't know the why - but before sitting down with her, does it even matter? For a person to do that, is there any hope they are a totally different person six years later? I am cool with second chances, but that is a severe, severe incident. Has she paid enough of a punishment, been a great employee at another company for four years, and earned these opportunities?
