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The consequences of being a victim of identity theft are difficult to comprehend. The result of losing private information can cause numerous problems and personal grief for months or even years to come. Monitoring your background check can prevent identity theft. Take precaution, be safe. Don't let identity theft happen to you. Visit http://www.mybackgroundcheck.com to learn more about monitoring your background check and preventing identity theft.

Accenture, one of the largest management consulting firms in the world, conducts background checks that discriminate against African Americans and Latinos, a class action lawsuit filed in New York federal court today alleges.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Roberto J. Arroyo, of Morristown, N.J., accuses Accenture of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by rejecting or firing qualified individuals who have criminal records even where the criminal history has no bearing on the individual's fitness or ability to perform the job.

According to the Complaint, "Such policies and practices are illegal because they adopt and perpetuate the racial disparities in the American criminal justice system ... For decades, the Supreme Court and the EEOC have recognized that overly broad restrictions on hiring individuals with criminal records are discriminatory and illegal.

"The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Arroyo worked as a contract technical support employee for Accenture for nearly a year and a half. "I worked long hours at Accenture and I did my job well," said Mr. Arroyo. In April 2007, the complaint alleges, Accenture offered him permanent employment subject only to the results of a background check. Accenture then withdrew its job offer and terminated Mr. Arroyo's employment as a contract worker after a background check revealed that he was convicted a decade earlier of vehicular homicide after driving while intoxicated.

Mr. Arroyo "deeply regrets the loss of life caused by his mistake, and he has succeeded in becoming a productive member of his community ever since then," the lawsuit states. Mr. Arroyo, who has a bachelor's degree in computer science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, has excelled in his career as an information technology professional. He previously served with distinction in the U.S. Navy during Operation Desert Storm.

Attorneys Adam T. Klein, Samuel R. Miller, Ossai Miazad of Outten & Golden LLP, of New York, and Audrey Wiggins and Sarah Crawford, of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, of Washington, D.C., represent Mr. Arroyo.

Samuel R. Miller said, "By all accounts, Mr. Arroyo was an excellent, well-liked worker during the 17 months he spent at Accenture as a contract employee. But rather than evaluating Mr. Arroyo on his individual merits, as a person who had made a mistake in the distant past and had moved on to build a solid career, the managers at Accenture stigmatized him as a criminal and fired him without notice. When companies act this way, they make it impossible for ex-offenders to rebuild their lives and contribute to their families and communities.

"Sarah Crawford said, "Accenture's policies and practices are illegal because they adopt and perpetuate the racial disparities and overrepresentation of people of color in the American criminal justice system. Federal civil rights laws are clear. Blanket criminal record policies cannot be used by employers unless the employer determines after analysis that the conviction is related to the job at issue and denial of the employment opportunity is consistent with business necessity."

Adam Klein said, "What's most striking about this case is that a company employing hundreds of thousands of workers does not have a policy in place to safeguard against unfair and discriminatory use of criminal background checks."In November 2007, Mr. Arroyo filed a Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). On Jan. 8, 2010, the EEOC issued a "right to sue" letter to Mr. Arroyo.

The lawsuit seeks to force changes in Accenture hiring and retention policies, practices and programs, restore Mr. Arroyo and Class members to their positions at the company, front and/or back pay and benefits, and litigation costs.

The case is "Roberto J. Arroyo, et al., v. Accenture LLP, et al.," Class Action Complaint No. 10-cv-03013 (JSR), in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

A biology professor charged in the killings of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was initially a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor and killed her brother in 1986 after firing a shotgun 3 times.

Amy Bishop Anderson and her husband, Jim, were questioned after a package containing two pipe bombs was sent to the Newton, Massachusetts, home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a Harvard professor and a doctor at Children's Hospital Boston, the Globe said, citing a law enforcement official. At the time, Anderson was working as a postdoctoral fellow in the hospital's human biochemistry lab.

Anderson is charged with capital murder in the Friday shooting deaths, making her eligible for the death penalty in Alabama. Authorities said she was attending a faculty meeting in a university building when she brandished a gun and shot six colleagues, killing three.

The mother of four was arrested as she was leaving the building, Huntsville Police Chief Henry Reyes said Saturday. A 9 mm handgun was recovered from the second floor of the building after the shootings Friday.

On Saturday, it was revealed that in 1986, Anderson, then 19, shot her brother to death in Braintree, Massachusetts. Authorities determined after an investigation that the shooting was accidental.

But Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier said Saturday, "It is a far different story, I believe, than what was reported back then. I cannot tell you what the thought process was behind our releasing her at the time."

Anderson's husband, Jim, told CNN on Monday that federal investigators had gathered a dozen subjects in the attempted bombing, but "there were never any suspects. Never anyone charged, never anyone arrested."

"Then five years later, we got a letter from the ATF saying, 'You are in the clear,' " he said, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Anderson at the time, told The Boston Globe on Sunday that Anderson had a dispute with Rosenberg shortly before the bomb incident.

Fluckiger told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston, "Police interviewed her, and she told me about it. I really wondered if she may have had, you know, some more knowledge, although I'm not accusing her of anything."

Rosenberg was opening a package delivered to his home while he was away on vacation, but he saw wires and a cylinder inside and called police, the Globe reported.

"She was the suspect early on," the law enforcement official, who the Globe said had knowledge of the case, told the newspaper of Anderson. She allegedly was concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg, the official said.

Jim Anderson told The New York Times the December 1986 death of his wife's brother, Seth, was accidental. He declined to comment when CNN asked him about the shooting Monday.

Frazier, however, said Saturday that an official involved in the case and still working for Braintree police told him that the teen had shot her brother during an argument. She fired a shot in her bedroom without hitting anyone, then argued with her brother and shot him, he said.

She fled the home after the shooting and was arrested after pointing a weapon at a vehicle near the house in an unsuccessful attempt to get the driver to stop. During the booking process, then-Chief John Polio called and told the officers to release her, Frazier said. He added her mother was then a member of the Braintree Personnel Board.

Reached by CNN, Polio, now 87 and retired, denied calling in that order, saying detectives told him the shooting appeared accidental and it was determined Anderson should be released to her mother. He said any link between Anderson's release and her mother's position on the board was "laughable."

Anderson's mother, Judith, did not answer her door Monday. Reached by telephone, she told CNN, "We're very distraught," and declined further comment.

A December 8, 1986, article in The Boston Globe said Anderson asked her mother how to unload a round from a 12-gauge shotgun and accidentally shot her brother while she was handling the weapon. The article cited Polio as the source.

The state police report on the incident, released Sunday by the office of Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Massachusetts, is similar to the Globe's account. Delahunt was district attorney at the time; staffers said he was in the Middle East on Sunday and unable to comment on the case.

The 1986 report said Braintree police told state police investigators "indications were that Amy Bishop had been attempting to manipulate the shotgun and had subsequently brought the gun downstairs in an attempt to gain assistance from her mother in disarming the weapon" when it went off, shooting her brother in the chest.

In a December 17, 1986, interview, Anderson told authorities she "thought it would be a good idea if she learned how to load the shotgun in the house," according to the state police report. The young woman told police she was concerned for her own safety after the family home was broken into, although she previously had been afraid of the gun.

She said she got the gun and loaded shells into it, but was unable to get them out. Anderson said that while she was attempting to unload the weapon on her bed, it went off. She then took it downstairs to ask for help in unloading it, where the shooting occurred.

The police report said both Anderson and her mother said the shooting was accidental. Her mother told police she did not hear the earlier shot in her daughter's bedroom and "believed the house was relatively well soundproofed and that such a discharge would not necessarily be heard on another floor of the house."

Frazier said police records of the incident are missing. But Polio said, "There was no cover-up. Absolutely no cover-up and no missing records. The records were all there when I left. Where they went in the last 22 years and two police chiefs subsequent, I don't know."

Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan said Sunday that a review will commence to locate all materials associated with the shooting.

Anderson, who is known to students as Dr. Bishop, had been working at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2003 and was up for tenure, according to spokesman Ray Garner. However, authorities wouldn't discuss possible motives or whether the issue of tenure may have played a role in the shooting.

Garner said the university gives teachers six years to get tenure. Those who do not get it are terminated, he said.

Jim Anderson told CNN on Monday that his wife had been denied tenure and had appealed that decision and won, but she was still fighting to be granted tenure. She was frustrated with "the process," he said.

He told CNN earlier his wife had an attorney but would not say who it was, and he described her as a good teacher. He said Monday his wife wrote three novels, "medical thrillers." The couple does not own a gun, he said.

He said he last saw his wife briefly on Friday morning before she left for class. He said she was "loving, got along with everybody."

The family, he said, is devastated, and in "shock, bewilderment, wondering why."

He told the Times the pipe bomb incident is "one thing from the past I hoped would not be dredged up."

Partial court document below this blog

LOS ANGELES -- Prosecutors say ESPN reporter Erin Andrews' peephole stalker ran background checks on other female sports reporters.

Although no other celebrities were secretly filmed by Michael Barrett, about 16 other women were "victimized ... in almost precisely the same way that he victimized" Andrews, according to a sentencing memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

The names of those who were allegedly the targets of Barrett's "long-term obsession," other than Andrews, were not revealed in court papers, but prosecutors described them as "female sports reporters, as well as other television personalities."

The memo also includes a list of the titles Barrett gave to his hotel peephole videos of Andrews -- "Erin Andrews Spectacular Butt," "Erin Andrews in a Pink Thong" and "Erin go WOW!!"

The court filing notes that Andrews wants Barrett to pay her about $335,000 in restitution.

The stalking has had a "devastating impact on ... Andrews' emotional state, and the emotional distress caused to her and her family cannot be overstated. She has lived in fear for her physical safety," the prosecution's filing document states.

Barrett, 48, of the Chicago area, has pleaded guilty to one federal count of interstate stalking and is scheduled to be sentenced March 8.

In his plea agreement, Barrett admitted surreptitiously shooting videos of Andrews in the nude through peepholes in hotel rooms in Nashville, Tenn.; Columbus, Ohio; and Milwaukee, and posting the footage on the Internet after trying to sell it to the Los Angeles-based entertainment news site TMZ.com.

At the guilty plea hearing in December, Andrews said that ever since the footage became public, "I am subject to crude comments. I walk into stadiums and fans make crude comments to me. I have nightmares about this sexual predator."

She added, "I hope he never sees the light of day again so nobody else has to go through this."

Barrett was arrested Oct. 2 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

After the allegations came to light, investigators discovered the peephole had been altered in the door to a Nashville hotel room where Andrews stayed in September 2008, according to prosecutors.

Barrett had specifically requested and stayed in the hotel room adjacent to Andrews, prosecutors said. He had also registered at hotels in Columbus and Milwaukee where Andrews stayed in July and September 2008, according to a court filing.

TMZ.com was offered the videos of the victim for an undisclosed amount via e-mail messages that later were linked back to Barrett, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

Barrett's attorney, David K. Willingham, has said his client had lost his insurance job and may lose his home as a result of the case.

Until he is sentenced next month, Barrett remains free on $100,000 bond under conditions that include house arrest, electronic monitoring and restrictions on his use of the telephone and the Internet.