Child porn suspect was formerly peeping Tom
TTC driver Darren Padilla somehow managed to pass two background checks
Exactly how a notorious outhouse peeping Tom passed two background checks and wound up working for the TTC remains a mystery to transit officials.
Darren Padilla, 47, is wanted on child pornography charges and has been on the run from Toronto police since Thursday. Police consider him “armed and dangerous” and are asking anyone who sees him to call 911 immediately.
Two decades ago, he pleaded guilty to two counts of mischief in a case that was widely reported in “news of the weird” section of newspapers across North America.
He was charged “after two women reported seeing a man peering up at them from the tank of an outdoor toilet at the Warsaw Caves conservation area east of Peterborough,” the Peterborough Examiner reported in 1995. “Police arrested a man, reeking of excrement, at the scene. They said he probably squeezed down through the toilet seat in the wooden stall,” the report said.
Padilla, whose name was Darren Laite at the time, was sentenced to three months probation after pleading guilty to charges stemming from the incident.
He was later hired by the TTC, passing two police background checks — a criminal record check and the more stringent check that’s required for anyone who works with children and other vulnerable people — TTC spokesman Brad Ross said.
Ross wouldn’t disclose when Padil- la was hired, but said it was after the 1995 outhouse peeping incident and before changing his name.
“We would not have hired him if we had that information through the processes available to us and employers in general,” said Ross. “It is possible, of course, that he sought and received a pardon for his conviction, but no employer doing such checks, including the TTC, would be privy to that information.”
“TTC customers need to know that the TTC does everything it can to ensure it hires quality men and women, through background checks, but also reference checks, employment history checks and excellent training and coaching,” said Ross.
“The TTC is working with police and assisting them in any way it can to bring a swift and peaceful resolution to this very serious matter.”