A 58-year-old Milwaukee woman was recently fired from her job at Wells Fargo after a background check revealed she was convicted of shoplifting more than 40 years ago.

Is that fair?

Yolanda Quesada was fired from her job at the mortgage unit of Wells Fargo after it came to light she’d been arrested twice for shoplifting clothes from a department store in 1972. She was reportedly fined $50 for the first offense and put on one year of probation for the second.

“I think there’s more important things in life than something I did 40 years ago,” Quesada said. “I did do the crime and, you know, I had just come out of high school.”

Quesada said she’s been a model employee at Wells Fargo for the past five years, and she wants her job back. “I think I should get it back because it’s something I did 40 years ago,” she said. “I paid for it. I’ve changed my life.”

But Wells Fargo said it was legally obligated to let Quesada go. “We are bound by federal law that generally prohibits us from hiring or continuing the employment of any person who we know has a criminal record involving dishonesty or breach of trust,” said a spokesman for the bank.

 

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