see how they turn out. this morning, there is a new outrage over how bp has handled the gulf oil disaster. a man who supervised oil cleanup workers in mississippi is in jail charged with raping another employee. a cnn investigation uncovers his criminal history and raises questions whether this incident could have been prevented by just doing a simple background check. special investigations unit correspondent abbie boudreau is looking for answers from bp and the company who hired this guy. reporter: one of thousands of cleanup workers who descend order the gulf coast was this man, robertson. he was in charge of numerous work others this now deserted mississippi beach. the problem was all of these people who coming to town were strangers and residents here had no idea who they were or where they were coming from. apparently they had good reason to be concerned. robertson was convicted of a sex offender. and he was breaking the law by not telling local law
all. reporter: you actually recommended that they get criminal background checks on their employees? yes, we did. i told them that we would do that for them. we would do the background checks for them. and they said no. reporter: robertson worked for a company called aerotech that hired workers to remove oil from the beaches. you don t want to talk to us? give me a couple of minutes. reporter: we waited. but they only slipped us a note through the door referring us to the corporate headquarters. did you realize you were hiring people that were registered sex offenders? this is when the blame game began. first, we spoke with the general counsel for aerotech by phone who said aerotech was not the one that decided not to do background checks. quite, we are not liable for anything that happens. once we deliver the people to be supervised by our clients, we don t have anything to do with them anymore.
miller. i find it unbelievable because bp and their subcontractors had relationships with all of local law enforce many. they had the opportunity and ability to clearly check all of the people that they were hiring and bringing in to ensure the safety of the public. reporter: if anyone checked roberts robertson s background they would have found a lengthy criminal history and he was still on probation for a felony. instead he was made a supervisor. we are in mississippi to talk to a local sheriff. several weeks before this incident, sheriff mike byrd said he met with bp s local head of security about why bp was not doing background checks on beach cleanup workers. i asked them directly, i said are you all doing criminal histories and background checks on these people. his answer reply was no, we are not. i said you are kidding me? he said month. there are so many of them, we were told to do drug screenings and that was it. i said, well, that s not good at
the israeli national accused of roaming three states, stabbing 18 people and killing five of them. apparently elias abuelazam has been caught twice before but set free to only stab again. it was when he tried to board a plight in atlanta that he was nabbed. he s due to appear at a hearing in just a couple of hours for extradition to michigan on murder charges. homeland security corn den jeanne meserve live in washington with more. what are you hearing now? reporter: he s an israeli citizen. as you mentioned he was nabbed as he tried to board a flight to go d back to his home country. authorities believed that this man is responsible for stabbings in michigan, ohio, and virginia, five of them fatal. elias abuelazam, a 33-year-old israeli citizen, living legally in the u.s., was arrested wednesday night as he was about to board a delta flight to tel aviv. the suspect was located at the boarding gate. atlanta s hartsfield airport and
enforcement where he was living. i don t understand how they can hire a man like that as our supervisor. reporter: do you think what happened to you could have been prevented? yeah, i do. yes, i do. that s what makes me so angry. reporter: a woman came to this town because she was looking for work and wanted to help clean up the beaches and need ad job. she has four young children and it was important for her to get hired right away. that s exactly what happened. robertson was her supervisor and told us time and time again i trusted him because he was my boss. i respected him. he was the person who was put in charge of me. you just weren t feeling well that day and he offered to drive you home. yes. we thought he was a nice enough person to make this offer, i guess. yeah. he s the boss. i thought it was all right. reporter: she says robertson asked to use her bathroom. and when he came out, she says he raped her. she is repped by attorney adam