Blog
By Ed Burnett, Brand Ambassador for Cloudastructure and retired VP for Security and Global Fraud Investigations at UPS. During his tenure, he led the largest joint UPS and law enforcement investigation in the company’s history involving 17 police jurisdictions. He went on to win California’s Investigation of the Year Award in 2019. Previously, he served as a Military Investigator for the U.S. Army in Wiesbaden, Germany. Featured in U.S. News & World Report article: What To Do If Your Package Is Stolen
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The case of Jason Billingsley, a repeat violent offender whose actions led to the tragic death of Baltimore tech CEO Pava LaPere and the brutal assault of two residents at a Baltimore apartment community, serves as a chilling wake-up call for property managers and business owners.
The reason this happened? Billingsley never had a background check before he was hired as a maintenance worker. Had the property management company conducted even a routine background check, they would’ve discovered he was a registered sex offender who had been sentenced to 16 years in 2013 for sexual assault.
This wasn't just a failure of the justice system. This was also a failure of vendor and employee screening. Billingsley had been allowed to live on-site and perform maintenance tasks at an apartment building despite his history.
In 2025, a juries awarded the survivors a combined total of roughly $48–$50 million in civil judgments, holding management and ownership liable for "negligent hiring practices." And more lawsuits are still under way.
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The Billingsley case has proven employee and vendor background checks are no longer a “nice to have” for property management companies—they are a core risk management requirement. Property managers routinely grant staff and third-party vendors access to homes, keys, sensitive resident information, and shared spaces. The case proves a single bad hire or unscreened contractor can expose residents to harm and the company to crippling legal, financial, and reputational damage. Courts and insurers now expect documented, consistent screening practices as part of a property manager’s duty of care, especially in light of recent negligent hiring cases and rising nuclear verdicts.
To be effective, background checks must be standardized, thorough, and applied equally to both employees and vendors. Just as important is documenting the process—who was screened, when, and under what criteria—so decisions are defensible if questioned later. When combined with clear access controls and security oversight, background checks help protect residents, reduce liability exposure, and demonstrate that safety is being managed proactively, not reactively.
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In the Billingsley case, there were clear "observable behaviors" that could have served as red flags:
With a real-time intelligent surveillance system and remote monitoring, Billingsley’s behaviors could’ve potentially been flagged for review.
Even long-term, trusted employees and vendors are not risk-free. Circumstances change—financial stress, substance abuse, personal crises, or exposure to new influences can all impact behavior over time. That’s why screening cannot stop at the point of hire. Without visibility into day-to-day activity, warning signs often go unnoticed until after a serious incident occurs. In many high-profile liability cases, the issue wasn’t a lack of policies on paper, but a lack of ongoing oversight once access had already been granted.
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Traditional cameras only record the past; Cloudastructure uses AI to secure the future. Here’s how their solution would have impacted a case like this:
Security is not just a background check at the start of a job—it is the continuous, intelligent monitoring of everyone who has access to your business.
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Exclusive Webinar for Property Management Professionals
Featuring: Melinda McBeth, Esq. of Offit Kurman and Megan Davidson, Vice President, Alliant Insurance Services
Thursday, March 5, 2026. 12PM ET / 9AM PT
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