It wasn't a fire.

It wasn't a flood.

It wasn't vandalism.

The records were destroyed deliberately and with court approval.

It happens every day. It's called expungement. It could even result in a sex offender getting a job at a daycare center.

WTAE Team 4 investigative reporter Jim Parsons reports that court rulings have made expundements in Pennsylvania almost automatic. And defendants are taking advantage of it; check out the numbers.

Since 1996, the number of expungements statewide has jumped from 14,000 a year to more than 25,000 last year; an increase of 82 percent.

Who is eligible for an expungement? Anyone accused of a crime, but not convicted. That means that someone who gets a plea pargain for a sex offense could end up working in a daycare center and no one would know what really happened, Parsons said.

A jail guard. A high school teacher. Each has a clean criminal records in Pennsylvania. But it wasn't always that way.

Brenda Juris is a former Allegheny County Jail Guard. She resigned two years ago. Her direct supervisor was Sgt. Frank Slaughter. But Juris remembers him from the late 1980s as Frank Alexander Boyd. That was before he legally changed his name and legally erased his criminal record.

"Can you imagine being a corrections officer and locking up an inmate and a couple of years down the line you're taking orders from this man?" said Juris.

Parsons asked Slaughter: "What did you spend time for in the county jail?"

Slaughter said: "What did I spend time for in the county jail? I don't think I should answer that question if my charges were expunged, what do you think?"

Parsons reported that Slaughter eventually did answer the question, admitting that he applied for and received two criminal expungements. One for an assault that was dismissed, another for an assault that was reduced to harrassment. He wanted a clean slate for one reason.

"Because society uses past faults and failures as a tool and a weapon to keep men from rehabilitating," said Slaughter.

Slaughter gets agreement on that opinion from the state's highest judges. The Supreme Court has established Pennsylvania as a national leader in giving defendants the right to wipe their records clean.

"Many states do require the defendant bear the burden of showing why he or she needs to have the record expunged, as opposed to the reverse in Pennsylvania where the Commonwealth needs to show a compelling justification to retain the record," said John Peck, Westmoreland County District Attorney.

Peck has seen a 1,000-percent increase in expungements in the past 10 years.

"I think that law enforcement should be entitled to maintain these records," said Peck. "These records are important information in finding suspects in many cases."

There's no record on this local woman - she's a former high school teacher who agreed to probation in 1997. Police accused her of having an ongoing sexual relationship with an underaged retarded student.

Team 4 found her living in a new home in Natrona Heights -- the only reminder of her criminal history is a permanent revocation of her Pennsylvania teaching certificate. But with no record, she could get a job tomorrow at a daycare center.

At this time next month, after completing probation, Hempfield Township tax collector Susan Creighton will be eligible to get an expungement. There will be no record of her theft arrest. Creighton says she made a bookkeeping error when she deposited $21,000 in tax receipts into a personal checking account.

In a system where expungements have become almost routine, there is opportunity for abuse. And that's exactly the allegation against a former employee here at the Allegheny County Clerk of Courts.

Beverly King will stand trial next month. She's accused of forging expungements for 20 defendants between 1996 and 2000 by using a rubberstamp signature of Common Pleas Judge David Cercone.

Team 4 interviewed the ex-wife of a city employee who says she witnessed King expunge two assault convictions from her ex-husband's record.

"He wanted them off his record and he wanted to get a gun permit," said the witness.

"And if someone were to look up his name in the court's computer now? It's clear, totally clear. Not a thing. Pillar of society."