Ruth, a frequent visitor to our website, wrote to us with an interesting dilemma. She’d recently hired a handyman to fix a few things at her place in Nevada, and was considering him for a much larger job. The man asked to be paid up front, in cash. While the initial work met with Ruth’s satisfaction, her gut told her that she shouldn’t place too much trust in this new handyman.
Ruth knew that the man had recently moved from Arizona and she did a criminal background check on him in that state. The search returned no results. Still, Ruth was suspicious. She’d seen the man snooping around in the bedrooms and his story about his time in Arizona felt shaky to her.
I suggested that she perform a criminal wants & warrants search on the man’s name in Nevada and also in his home state of Arizona. While he may not have convictions on his record, he could have active warrants. That could explain why he moved out of state.
I showed Ruth how to reach our Criminal Wants & Warrants page, which lists several nationwide links, like the one for the FBI Most Wanted and Department of Justice Most Wanted. There is even one for NCIS Most Wanted Fugitives. The real fugitives, not the ones that Mark Harmon tracks down on television.
Also on that directory page are the state categories for wants & warrants databases. Ruth visited the Nevada Wants & Warrants page, but there are only links for the “most wanted” fugitives in that state. Smaller profile fugitives are not listed.
Ruth then tried the Arizona Wants & Warrants page and went to the link for Maricopa County, AZ. They have a handy active warrant search page that allows you to search for warrants by name, or simply click on alphabetical letters to display all active warrants by last name. The letter M has 5249 active warrants alone!
Ruth was not surprised to find that her handyman did have an active warrant. She even used the “tip tool” feature on the Maricopa County database to send in details about the handyman, including his present whereabouts. As it turned out, he never showed up the following week for the big job. Perhaps he was picked up by local authorities and shipped back to Arizona to face the music? I told Ruth to check the active warrant site again in a week or so and see if his name had been removed.
Ruth is now looking for a more qualified handyman. If you can recommend one, let us know.