NY Governor Orders Background Checks of His Staff

Gov. David Paterson has ordered background checks of all executive chamber employees after learning that such a check had not been done on his chief of staff, who came under fire for failing to pay taxes.

Sixty percent of executive chamber employees didn't have completed background checks and some of the material employees submitted for the checks is lost, Paterson said in a statement Wednesday night.

The background checks, which are not required by law, were started by Paterson's predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The checks were designed to discover and avoid any conflicts of interest. Potentially, an employee could lose his or her job if the check discovered a conflict or some other major problem, such as a felony conviction, that the employee hadn't reported to the governor.

A background check had not been completed on Paterson chief of staff Charles O'Byrne, who failed to pay nearly $300,000 in taxes from 2001-2005.