Custodian charged for false application

A former high school custodian arrested for filing a false employment application maintains she thought her former criminal conviction was off her record.

The defendant, Patsy D. Fults, 39, waived her right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday and was bound to the grand jury on the charge of filing a false application. Her case will now go before the next session of the grand jury. The tribunal may then either find no crime was committed and exonerate Fults, or find a crime was likely committed and submit it to circuit court for a jury trial.

Fults was arrested recently after a background check revealed she had been convicted of theft in Alabama several years ago. However, her application with the school system maintained she had never been convicted of a crime. State law makes lying on such applications a crime, the law put into place to filter out potential child predators.

Fults worked for a few months as custodian at the high school before the background check came back. She has since been let go by the school system, with school officials noting they had no problems with her job performance, but instead that the termination came due to the alleged dishonesty.

While facing the charges, her defense maintains she did not realize the conviction was on her record and therefore did not intend to mislead the school system. Specifically, Fults said she thought convictions were removed from one’s record after seven years. She also maintained the 120-day probationary sentence was the result of a misdemeanor theft, not a felony as claimed in her arrest warrants. She further maintained she had applied and been granted a handgun permit, noting had she had a felony record, the state’s background check would have prevented her from receiving such a permit.

In light of Fults’ defense, prosecutors still reportedly demanded she serve jail time, thereby leading the sides to agree to have the case settled in the grand jury or later by the circuit court.