[Blitzgal]

Regarding criminal record checks, here's a secret from someone who runs them all day long. Record-keeping varies wildly from state to state and it's often related to how much budget is allocated to keeping these records centralized. If you get arrested in Wisconsin or Oklahoma (for example), anyone who runs your name in the state repository is going to find your criminal history because the local authorities in those states are very good at reporting everything to the state repository (although there are rumblings that our Governor is going to get rid of CCAP, our state repository, as a money saving measure). Get arrested in New York or Connecticut (again, just two examples), you've got a pretty good shot of not getting caught if you lie about it later. They have a lot of localities that are not reliably reporting to the state repository, because I've never gotten a hit on anyone in those states, even people who report a criminal history to us. If they say they did something we also contact the court and get it verified that way. But the statewide records systems are shit in those state. Not every state has a statewide repository, though. If we're contacting the city or county authorities we're also more likely to catch you in a lie.