Attention Law Enforcement Professionals!

Please note that you're always welcome to contact me directly at unsomnambulist at gmail dot com for any questions about this blog or the subject.

Fred Brito, er, "C. H. Patel" corrects the record on his time with National Hospitality Services and Staybridge Suites

Fargo area journalist Barry Amundson, who reported on Fred Brito's hiring and firing there, forwarded me an email signed by "a mere family friend of Fred Brito",  that claims to correct some details on Amundson's reported story. Signed "C.H. Patel", the email plays like a winning hand of Fred Brito bingo. Some bullet points from the letter:

• Lying on a resume is not a crime.
• The reason Brito has to lie about his resume is because otherwise nobody would hire an ex-felon.
• A "tell-all book" is coming soon.

(As for me, this isn't the first time someone who is "not Brito" has come to Brito's defense accusing me of crazy stuff. In 2007, when I first reported on Brito for the Metblog's flagship site blogging.la, an anonymous individual accused me of getting them drunk and stealing their watch. Now, Brito - er - Patel, claims I'm using a fake name and that I've tracked him by accessing his credit reports.)

The email also claims Brito was hired only after a "so-called exhaustive background check" and that he had been employed for 40 days before being fired... contrary to what his employer claimed to reporter Barry Amundson. 

Full letter after the break...

Fred Brito surfaces in Fargo, ND

Coincidence or CYA*-incidence?

Weeks ago, this blogger learned that Fred Brito was working for the Staybridge Suites Hotel in Fargo, ND. This blogger waited to gain some additional verification, and once it came in, we notified an employee with the management company late last week. Less than 24 hours after I contacted them, it appears Brito was fired.

We tipped off Fargo area reporter Barry Amundson on the story, and he writes about it here. He was able to confirm that, in fact, Brito, using the name Luca Gomez DeMaria, had been hired by a local hotel operator, and then let go in recent days. Alas, it sounds like the HR company is taking credit for discovering Brito's background before he was actually put to work:

Sarah Koustrup, executive vice president for a hospitality services company in Fargo that had hired him, quickly uncovered Brito’s scam.
Brito was in a training program when they discovered he had given the company a falsified resume, Koustrup said...
The company executive wanted to emphasize that her firm has a stringent hiring and resume checking system.
"We have a system of checks and balances and we caught it fast," she said. "We're very careful on who we hire."

So, if this is to be believed, Koustrup, Executive Vice President of National Hospitality Services, discovered Brito's false resume on the very same day I tipped off another executive with her company.

On December 29, I sent a message to Julie Brown, VP of Sales and Operations with National Hospitality Services, notifying her that her company was employing a conman. In her first response, she wrote back, "HR completes background checks before they hire."

The following Monday, she offered to put me in touch with someone with her Human Resources Department, to which I replied would be appreciated. Her next response was, "Thank you for letting me know. I cannot speak about employee related questions on behalf of our company for legal reasons. Based on that, I am unable to continue to respond to you."

To be clear, my goal isn't to be personally credited for this. The purpose of this site is to keep more people from being victims of a conman. But if an HR company is going to lie about their hiring practices instead of acknowledging an error and addressing steps to keep this from happening again, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

*CYA = Cover Your Ass.