This recently happened to me when I decided to go back to work after a 3 year hiatus. I was hired by the first company I applied with and at the training session, the trainer pulled me aside and said I had to leave because when she checked my background, she discovered I was "convicted of elder abuse". She refused to even listen to my protests. I was dumbfounded, and after several months of misery, decided to do whatever is needed to clear up this nightmare. I don't know where to start, I can't even discover who or what agency is reporting this falsehood.
1) Try the police first.
2) Go back to see the trainer and ask her for more details. My maiden name was Lobb, and Margaret Lobb’s were rare. Margaret McKenzie’s are surprisingly common! She might have made an honest mistake.
3) Find out if she told anyone else about your ‘conviction’. If she did, it’s defamatory (if she just said it to you, it’s not defamation). I would guess that she told the company that hired you. Then get a lawyer’s letter written to her to say that defamation proceedings will be issued unless she provides full details. Work out your damages for loss of wages and reputation. You can do this even if it was ‘an honest mistake’. She should have taken more care, and provided you with details.
4) Go back to your previous employer and ask them for an explanation. If it wasn’t a ‘conviction’, just bad mouthing, go them for defamation as well. They may be quite prepared to do it again. You should NOT put up with it.
If you were accused of criminal behavior, ie. an accusation that would lead you to be tried in a court of law, you would have been arrested, arraigned, brought before a judge, had to enter a plea, released or remanded (depending on circumstances) before any trial. You would have been informed of your rights (Miranda) and given the opportunity to defend yourself. In other words, if this was a criminal accusation, then there is no way you could be "accused and found guilty" without your knowledge. The Constitution guarantees this. So, no, there can't be a criminal conviction of you without your knowledge.
That said, if a complaint was made against you to your former employer, one that didn't rise to the level of criminality, and that is where this HR/trainer got this information, then I would suppose that it would be possible that your former employer never told you about the accusation(s), as unfair as that might be, as it didn't give you a chance to refute the accusation(s). I imagine, depending on the nature of the accusation(s), it might be enough to keep this new company from employing you.
You might want to contact your previous employer's HR department and ask them if there were any allegations/accusations made against you, but I don't know that they would be obliged to inform you.
You cannot be convicted of elder abuse without an investigation. Plus there would be a penalty of some sort if you were found guilty.
You’re going to have to do a background check on yourself to get to the bottom of this.
Can you explain further? Were you a caregiver in the past?