State business director quits

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's business recruitment director resigned under pressure Wednesday after acknowledging she had pleaded guilty to stealing money from a college sorority nearly a decade ago.

Randa A. Hayes, 33, submitted her resignation after being asked to do so by the director of Gov. Matt Blunt's Department of Economic Development.

Blunt, a Republican, said he was unaware of Hayes' criminal past until Democrats released court records Tuesday from Cook County, Ill., showing that Randa A. Ismail was charged in 1996 with several felony counts of forgery and theft. She pleaded guilty in December 1998 to a misdemeanor theft charge and was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay $36,649 in restitution.

In a resignation letter Wednesday, Hayes described her crime -- which occurred before she moved to Missouri and got married -- as "a youthful indiscretion."

"Nearly ten years ago while I was in school, I made a mistake," Hayes said in the letter detailing how she used sorority funds to cover personal expenses while she was the sorority treasurer. "Since then I've worked very hard, no matter what my position, to do the right thing."

Hayes said she has "never lied when asked about this incident." But she apparently had not volunteered information about her conviction.

Before hiring Hayes, the governor's office asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol to run a background check on her. As is its custom for non-Cabinet-level positions, the patrol checked only Missouri court records that would be open to the public -- not the FBI's national database or other states' criminal records, said patrol spokesman Capt. Chris Ricks. That search failed to turn up Hayes' record in Illinois.

Ricks said Wednesday that the patrol would review its background check procedures as a result of Hayes' case.

Blunt, however, did not fault the patrol, and declined to say whether he would have hired Hayes had he known of her guilty plea.

The governor said Hayes was asked to resign "for a number of reasons" but detailed only one.

"Obviously we want folks to be upfront and offer full disclosure," Blunt said at a news conference in which he signed several bills related to businesses.

Department director Greg Steinhoff said Tuesday evening that Hayes had been placed on administrative leave without pay pending the results of an internal investigation into the allegations, but the state Democratic Party said that wasn't enough.

"Randa Hayes today offered and I accepted her resignation after it came to my attention that she failed to disclose that she had been arrested for theft," Steinhoff said in a written statement Wednesday. "I felt that given the circumstances, a decision had to be made swiftly in the best interests of the Department of Economic Development."

But the state Democratic Party pushed Wednesday for more action. It called for an audit of two entities Hayes oversaw -- the state Division of Business Development and Trade and the Hawthorn Foundation, a nonprofit economic development group that pays for such things as business promotion activities by governors and receptions for visiting dignitaries.

"When you put someone with a criminal conviction of theft in charge of public funds, we need to go back and make sure those public funds weren't misused," said Democratic Party spokesman Jack Cardetti.

Blunt said there was no reason to believe that was necessary.

Hayes was named director of the state business development division in late March. Before that, she worked on President Bush's re-election campaign in Missouri.

Blunt said she was hired because she had "good credentials," adding that her work in Bush's campaign showed impressive organizational abilities.

Hayes did not have a government background in economic development. She has a political science degree from Northwestern University and a law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law, but does not have her law license. In announcing her hiring, the department said she also had taught business law at Maryville University and had been a faculty member in the aviation management and flight department at Southern Illinois University.

Hayes helped organize a 2003 fund-raiser that generated more than $50,000 for Blunt as he was gearing up for a gubernatorial bid. Her husband is St. Peters alderman David Hayes.

Democrats suggested her political connections helped get her the government job.

Michael Mills, the deputy director of the Economic Development Department, will be overseeing the duties of the business development division while the agency searches for a replacement, said department spokesman Paul Sloca.

---

On the Net:

Business Development: http://www.ded.mo.gov/default.aspx