Sex offender with Census job is nabbed by NJ mom who recognized him from state registry site

Astute NJ mom outs Census worker as sex offender

CAMDEN, N.J. — A New Jersey mother who recognized the face of a Census worker from the state’s online database of sex offenders called police, leading to charges that the man used a fake name and Social Security number to get the government job.

Amy Schmalbach told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she usually doesn’t open the door when she’s at her Pennsauken home alone with her toddler son, but she did for the Census worker on May 4 because he was a government official.

Schmalbach said she spoke with the man, who identified himself as “Jamie,” on her porch and remembered seeing a similar looking man on the state’s website of registered sex offenders. The face stood out because the man had 16 aliases, including “Phanton Flam” and “Toot Flynn,” she said.

She called Pennsauken police. They arrested him the day after he visited Schmalbach’s home, and he has been in custody since.

Federal prosecutors charged him Wednesday with using a fake Social Security number in the application he filled out in March to get the Census job.

Authorities said the man’s name is Frank Kuni but that he used the alias Jamie Shepard to get the Census job. Kuni, 47, was convicted in 1996 for sexually assaulting one girl and having inappropriate contact with another. It’s unclear if he’s hired an attorney since his arrest.

“If I had not recognized who this person was, none of my neighbors would have, and I believe he would have continued to go door to door,” Schmalbach said.

A sex offense conviction would prevent a person from working for the Census bureau, which trained workers in late April and began sending them door-to-door on May 1.

Census officials told the newspaper that he was fired in early May because he failed a fingerprint check that is given to all new Census takers.