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Tyson: County official cleared
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
By DAN MURTAUGH
Staff Reporter
Mobile County Administrator John Pafenbach did nothing wrong in allowing an illegal immigrant to stay on the county payroll after that employee's status was discovered, Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. said.

When federal agents told Pafenbach that Roberto Manalang Concepcion, an accountant for the county government, had overstayed his tourist visa and altered federal documents to get a Social Security card, they also asked him not to fire Concepcion or talk to Concepcion about it because it would disrupt a federal investigation, Tyson said.

When the government finished its investigation, culminating in a guilty plea from Concepcion in January and a sentence of three years' probation in May, no one told Pafenbach, Tyson said.

"Pafenbach found out about it like everybody else -- he read it in the newspaper," Tyson said. "I don't think that's Pafenbach's fault."

County Commission President Juan Chastang demanded Pafenbach's resignation three weeks ago, saying the administrator should have fired Concepcion as soon as he learned of the investigation.

Chastang and the other two commissioners had already asked Tyson's office to look into the matter before Chastang made his unsuccessful demand. Commissioners Mike Dean and Stephen Nodine have said they were waiting on Tyson's report before deciding what to do.

The all-Republican commission went through a contentious few weeks after Chastang's demand. Dean and Nodine both said Chastang was premature in trying to fire a 25-year veteran of county government without discussing it in an open meeting. Chastang countered that his fellow commissioners had become complacent and accused them of taking part in a cover-up surrounding Concepcion.

On Monday, Nodine said Tyson's report cleared Pafenbach of any wrongdoing. Dean said he wanted to wait until Thursday to comment on the report.

Chastang said he wanted to wait to discuss the report.

When asked for a copy of the written report, Tyson told the Press-Register to get it from county officials. County Attorney Jay Ross, however, said he would not provide a copy of the report to the newspaper until this morning, after he had a chance to review it.

Tyson said another finding he highlighted in his report was that the Mobile County Personnel Board no longer conducts background checks on employees. The Personnel Board is in charge of hiring for the county government and all the city governments and police departments in Mobile County.

Nodine said the Personnel Board needs to start doing background checks as soon as possible. It will cost money, he said, and the county could look for homeland security grants to pay for part of it.

"That needs to be looked at immediately, particularly for sensitive jobs in government," he said. "That's a safeguard we have to have in today's world."