Agency explains rapist’s hiring

The employment agency that placed a convicted rapist in a large East Los Angeles county health clinic said Monday that the X-ray technologist’s criminal background check came back clear and that he “did not answer truthfully” several questions on his application.

Woodland Hills-based Mediscan Staffing Services said it terminated Gariner Beasley, 48, soon after learning of his criminal history. Until last week, Beasley had been working for about a month at the Edward R. Roybal Comprehensive Health Center despite being fired last August by county officials from a similar position.

“Mediscan conducts a thorough screening of all applicants, which includes a seven-year criminal and sex offender check, fraud/OIG check, license, education and employment screenings, in addition to checks on the national terrorist database. In Mr. Beasley’s case, all required checks came back clear,” said Val Serebryany, president of Mediscan, in a statement released to The Times.

Serebryany said the company had “followed all policies and procedures” required by its county contract.

Beasley was convicted in 1992 of raping two women under color of authority while working as an on-duty Los Angeles police officer.

He was paroled in 1994 and hired four years later as an X-ray technologist at County-USC Medical Center in Boyle Heights, despite disclosing his rape convictions in his job application. He was later transferred to what was then called Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Willowbrook.

County policy bars managers from hiring workers whose criminal histories conflict with a job, which county officials said Beasley’s clearly did when he was fired last August.

Another facility where Beasley worked as an X-Ray technologist, Northridge Hospital Medical Center, has also said a background check it ran when he worked there from 2000 to 2001 came back clear.

Beasley’s first name was misspelled in some court records as “Garnier,” The Times found during an examination of criminal and civil cases.

Marvin Mathis, an attorney representing Beasley in his appeal of his termination from his county job, could not be reached for comment. He has said that Beasley was a “go-to guy” during his tenure and that he believed his client had been unfairly targeted.

--

garrett.therolf@latimes.com