Any truth to this besides superstition, perspective, and cognitive bias? To me it's one of those things we tell ourselves to delude people into thinking the world makes sense. Also a great thing for a terrible person who's succeeding to say.
What about all those people who get away with being assholes who we don't realize are assholes because they're so successful? What about the good people fucked over by bad luck who we never hear about?
Basically your comment just reinforces what I was saying. You're using the situations you're aware of to explain the way the world works in a way that makes you happy.
Due diligence is a good idea, but for the first asshole I dealt with, there were stories, but the person who introduced me to him didn't tell me because of "ethical concerns". Even though he knew the stories were true and that this guy was problematic. He is also very secretive, so any due diligence I might have done probably wouldn't have turned up much (i.e. any lawsuits would have been hard to uncover). I picked up clues though and didn't put together a full picture of this guy's character till it was too late because I was too focused on the work. My take on the whole thing was everyone in the past that had been ripped off by this guy chalked it up to "life" and so nothing ever stuck to him well enough. Typical shady businessman...
As for the second full blown psychopath I've dealt with... he had a reputation, I thought it was all more gossip / sour grapes, and I didn't look hard enough because I trusted the people who were giving him a pass (though my intuition was complaining). Never again. We all got screwed over and I had to spend £4k to defend myself against this idiot's bogus threats of lawsuits (my fault for being manipulated...)
So if I ever do business with anyone else again, the only answer is A) trust no one and B) be a psychopath for defensive purposes. Capitalism these days practically demands that you think like a psychopath because the majority of people you deal with are going to do the same. That goes for management as well - employers are not your friends. They merely may be idiots, but you are only a resource to be exploited by them.
The conclusion of all this stress over the past 7 years is that character truly does matter, in all areas of life and to focus on that first off when evaluating a person.
I certainly have, but the harm seems to have little to do with whether the allegations are actually true.
But that was a lucky catch in a relatively small town.
How did you decide not to move forward with a candidate? Are you sure you didn't make a decision based on uncorroborated data? (EG: One can say whatever one wants about someone online, and when you google their name it may come up, even though the source has an axe to grind.)