[AlexB138]

I had the same questions. Apparently discovery of the prior conviction is what lead to them being fired:

> When the company discovered Sohaib Akhter’s felony conviction, it terminated both brothers’ employment during an online remote meeting on Feb. 18, 2025

from https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-jury-convicts-virgina... which is a better source on this.

That prompts the question of why background checks are so lax that they were hired before this was discovered.

[charonn0]

The company involved here is apparently based in Washington, DC, which has a "Ban the Box" ordinance that limits employment background checks for most kinds of jobs. And apparently DC's version of the law is particularly strict.

[calgarymicro]

The prevents them from asking before extending an offer, but it seems they could (and should) have checked after.[0]

> However, an employer may ask about criminal conviction(s) after extending a conditional offer of employment (the employer can never ask about arrests or criminal acusations that aren't pending). An employer who properly asks about a criminal conviction can only withdraw the offer or take adverse action against the applicant for a legitimate business reason that is reasonable under the six factors* listed in the Act.

One of the six factors is "Fitness or ability of the person to perform one or more job duties or responsibilities given the offense"[1], which they probably could have invoked after asking (though they never checked or didn't check thoroughly enough, so I guess it's moot).

[0]https://ohr.dc.gov/page/returning-citizens-and-employment

[1]https://ohr.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ohr/publicat...

[giantg2]

Shouldn't this force companies that need to pass a SOC2 out of the district? Doesn't SOC2 require background investigation of personnel with access to sensitive systems?