Carmelo Kercado, the federal government’s inspector at the New Bedford factory that was raided last month by immigration agents, has a habitual-offender driving record that includes multiple accidents, arrests and convictions for drunken driving, speeding, leaving the scene of accidents and other infractions dating back more than two decades.

Kercado, who has worked as a Department of Defense inspector since 1985, spent 30 days in jail in 2004 for a criminal misdemeanor drunken-driving conviction. His driver’s license has been revoked until 2008. It is his third license suspension since 1994.

A Defense Department spokesman said Kercado was placed at the Michael Bianco Inc. plant in New Bedford after his release from jail “partly because he didn’t have his license, and could execute his duties by public transportation.”

Kercado, who has a federal security clearance, is responsible for ensuring that work at seven manufacturing plants in the Fall River-New Bedford area meets federal standards.

At the Michael Bianco plant, where the raid took place March 6, Kercado monitors work on combined $171-million contracts (since 2001) for rucksacks, ammunition pouches and protective vests headed for soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition to his lengthy record of traffic violations, Kercado was charged in 2001 with assault and battery on his son, who was 18 at the time. The charges were dismissed after he paid a $50 fine.

Kercado has also struggled with financial problems, filing for bankruptcy in 1999. The case was resolved in 2003. A bank moved to foreclose on one of his many properties in 1999, but the foreclosure petition was later canceled.

The drunken-driving conviction that landed Kercado in jail followed a New Bedford accident in which he hit two cars, one of which hit a third, injuring one person. The police report said Kercado fled and then, when stopped, refused a sobriety test.

Assistant District Attorney Colin Webb, through a spokesman, said he sought a 60-day sentence based on Kercado’s lengthy record, but the judge imposed the 30-day term.

Kercado’s record and financial problems raises questions about how he maintained his security clearance over the past several years.

John Enright, former head of the Secret Service branch in Rhode Island, has conducted hundreds of government security clearances for both the Secret Service and the Treasury Department, and supervised nearly an equal number. He said the process gives equal weight to four major areas: personal history, criminal history, credit history and work history.

“A poor credit history indicating bankruptcies and foreclosures would cause as much concern as for an arrest for a criminal charge,” said Enright, because that could leave an employee “susceptible to corruption … to gain money illegally through bribery or corruption.”

“… If you’re clean in any one of those areas, let’s say your record is clean for personal, work or criminal history, but you come up with a horrible credit history,” Enright said, “that should raise red flags.”

Applicants for national security clearance normally fill out a questionnaire that forms the basis for the background investigation, which determines whether they “are reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character and loyal to the United States.”

It seeks information on where the person has lived, gone to school and worked. It also asks about such matters as firings from a job, criminal-history record, use of illegal drugs, and abuse of alcohol, and a person’s financial history, including whether the applicant has ever filed for bankruptcy or been more than 180 days delinquent on any debts.

The questionnaire says security clearance also considers “a person’s adherence to security requirements, honesty and integrity, vulnerability to exploitation or coercion, falsification, misrepresentation, and any other behavior, activities or associations that tend to show the person is not reliable, trustworthy or loyal.”

Enright, who now is a corporate security consultant, said the government generally repeats the vetting process every five years, but the onus is on the employee to report alcohol or drug-related incidents, bankruptcies, liens or other financial issues, criminal convictions and even criminal or civil charges that were later dismissed.

“It’s part of the federal employees’ rules of conduct that applies to every federal employee,” Enright said.

“If you have an inspector in a plant to make sure things are up to snuff, that person needs to be morally upstanding. That person needs to have nothing in his background to make him susceptible to being bribed, coerced or influenced to let things go ... I would say whatever his position was, he was there to be the government’s eyes and ears so that the contract was performed properly.”

Kercado, 52, who lists a New Bedford address, declined comment and referred a reporter to Richard M. Cole, spokesman for the Defense Contract Management Agency within the DOD, the agency that hired Kercado.

Cole said that a criminal misdemeanor conviction — such as Kercado’s conviction for drunken driving — “does not necessarily disqualify employees from maintaining a security clearance.”

“It has to be reported,” Cole said, “but it doesn’t necessarily mean a person loses their clearance.” The new information is immediately assessed “to determine whether it is sufficient to take away the individual’s clearance.”

Cole added that Kercado’s supervisors did know some of his driver and financial history — including that he had no license — but was unclear about what else Kercado may have told them.

Asked whether Kercado was required to report potential violations of labor or safety laws at the plant, Cole said, “All DCMA employees are required to report violations of state or federal regulations they notice…. In fact, if it were determined there was wrongdoing and it was proven that he was aware and failed to report it, he could get fired,” Cole said.

“We expect our employees to do their jobs and serve the government. Our employees all know that. There are ethical standards they are required to live by. They’re expected to obey the law and maintain the public trust.”

DURING THE RAID at the Michael Bianco plant, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 361 employees on charges of being in the country illegally.

They also arrested company owner Francesco Insolia and three of his top managers. All face federal felony charges of knowingly and actively hiring illegal workers.

A fourth person, Luis Torres — an employee of Aries Record shop across the street from the Bianco factory — was charged with selling phony identification cards.

After the raid, workers described abusive treatment at the Bianco plant that echoed allegations by U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and detailed in a federal affidavit.

Those include that workers were docked $25 for infractions such as arriving a minute late to work, wiping their hands on toilet paper, “lingering” in the restrooms more than two minutes, and being fired for repeat infractions.

Workers told reporters there was little or no heat in winter, no cooling in summer, and a locked back exit.

They also said they were required to work without getting paid overtime, working day shifts for the Bianco company and night shifts for a company called Front Line Defense. They said they performed their same jobs at their same work stations, but punched into different time clocks and received separate paychecks.

A federal affidavit states that the two companies operated within the same plant, and that Front Line Defense — listed in the name of Insolia’s wife, Suzanne Thompson — appeared to exist “solely for internal accounting purposes at MBI (Michael Bianco Inc.).”

As the primary government quality assurance inspector, Kercado kept an office next to Insolia’s and was there on average three days a week, Cole said. Two other inspectors fill in for Kercado when he is at another plant or otherwise not available. His other work sites are: Duro Industries, American Power Source, and US Packing in Fall River; and Brittany Dyeing and Printing Corp., Schuster Corp., and Revere Copper in New Bedford.

Insolia, in a public statement, referenced Kercado’s presence as partial proof that allegations against Insolia and his managers were “lies.”

“A Department of Defense quality-control inspector has been present and on site up to four days a week at our current factory since 2004,” Insolia said, “and has freely and frequently walked the premises and interacted with our workers without incident or complaint.”

AFTER A JOURNAL reporter began asking questions last month about Kercado’s government work and personal history, Cole, spokesman for the DOD agency that hired Kercado, said he presented those questions to Kercado in a phone interview.

Kercado told Cole that he did inquire about the work force at least once, “out of curiosity,” Cole said.

Cole said Kercado told him that after he saw the work force expand from roughly 85 people to more than 500 as the Bianco company’s government contracts expanded, “he raised the issue of the Hispanic employees … he being Hispanic and speaking Spanish, realized, of course, very quickly that much of the work force … were Guatemalan Indians or from El Salvador.”

Kercado said “he was told they were provided by employment agencies. He had every reason to believe at that point that the workers were all legit,” according to Cole.

Cole said he asked Kercado about allegations of “sweatshop” conditions. He said Kercado told him that he “was out on the floor fairly regularly,” but “did not observe any of that stuff going on at the plant.”

Cole said Kercado did not respond when asked about his driving record and financial history.

“Such matters would ultimately be between Kercado and his boss” in Boston, Cole said.

As fallout from the Bianco raid continues, Kenneth D. Ernst, acting director of the Defense Contract Mangement Agency — the agency for which Kercado works — is scheduled to testify at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday on the defense department’s management of Iraq-related contract costs.

Others scheduled to testify include Claude M. Bolton Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, and William H. Reed, head of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

Whether the Bianco contracts will be discussed is unknown. However, senior committee member Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., has been among the most vocal government officials to question how ICE handled the Bianco raid and how the Bianco company got its multimillion-dollar government contracts.

Meanwhile, as the federal investigation into the Bianco company continues and a legal team pushes a case on behalf of detainees, the Bianco plant remains in operation.

Cole said Friday that Kercado was still on the job.

With research assistance from Journal librarian Linda Henderson