A New York parole board freed Kwame Abdul-Haqq in 2004 after he served time for attempted murder, robbery, burglary and kidnapping. Just three years later, Abdul-Haqq was hired by the state of Indiana — as a prison guard.

The 52-year-old Anderson man was charged Wednesday in a federal indictment with defrauding the state of Indiana out of the $175,000 he was paid when he worked as an officer at the Pendleton Correctional Facility, a maximum security facility about 35 miles northeast of Indianapolis. The indictment alleges he lied about his criminal record.

Abdul-Haqq was employed with the Indiana Department of Correction from 2007 to 2015 after his criminal record flew under the radar, an indictment that charges him with wire fraud says.

The incident raises the question: How thorough are the background checks for corrections officers?

When Abdul-Haqq filled out an application to apply for the job, the indictment says, he checked a box that indicated he had never been convicted of a crime, even though he was sentenced in 1984 to seven to 21 years in prison for a slew of felonies.

Yet all job candidates are processed through a third-party provider that checks Indiana criminal records, driving records and the sex offender registry, said Doug Garrison, spokesman for the DOC. They also run a check through the Indiana Data and Communications System, or IDACS, which integrates information from national crime databases...