OSBI to check backgrounds of insurance commissioner applicants

Wednesday, October 13th 2004, 6:43 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Applicants for the state's vacant insurance commissioner's job will have to pass criminal background checks by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to be eligible.

Governor Brad Henry says his office has received about 20 applications for the job that has been empty since former Commissioner of Insurance Carroll Fisher resigned on September 24th _ three days before his impeachment trial was scheduled to begin in the state Senate.

Henry says he will ask the O-S-B-I to investigate the background of each applicant.

Henry did not identify the applicants and says his office is still accepting applications.

No cut off date has been set.

Henry says O-S-B-I background checks are sought for all applicants for high-level appointive state jobs. Fisher was elected insurance commissioner in 1998 and re-elected to a second four-year term in 2002.

Fisher has says he did nothing wrong. He says he decided to resign to devote more attention to criminal cases he faces. He has been charged with five felonies in two criminal cases in Oklahoma County.