Security firm fired from Super Bowl LII now fined, banned from future work in Minnesota
December 28 2019
A Minnesota state licensing board has handed down what the chair calls its largest civil penalty to a private security firm that was fired from working Super Bowl related events outside U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis last year.
5 INVESTIGATES first reported the Super Bowl Host Committee fired Entertainment Protection Group (EPG) after it found the company had at least one convicted felon working security at Super Bowl-related events.
State records from 2015 later revealed EPG failed to conduct background checks on roughly 85% of its employees.
A settlement agreement finalized this month with the Minnesota Board of Private Detective and Protective Agent Services requires EPG to pay a penalty of $10,000 and bans the firm from seeking another private security license in the state.
The agreement also bars EPG’s CEO, Erik Bergling, from serving in any “managerial capacity” for 10 years.
The licensing board’s chair, Rick Hodsdon, called the failures by EPG a breach of the public’s trust.
“That’s why the board was so distressed to see convicted felons providing private security, people who did not have the background checks, who did not have the proper training,” Hodsdon said. “To the industry, we hope to send the message:
‘Do what the law requires. Follow the law, please.’”
Signs for EPG were still in place at the company’s address in Minneapolis, but no one answered the door and the office space appeared to be vacant.
EPG’s phone number and web address both redirected callers and visitors to another security firm, Aegis Logistics. In an email to 5 INVESTIGATES, Bergling confirmed EPG is “no longer operational” and that the company had “sold certain assets to Aegis Logistics.”
In response to whether he was following the terms of his settlement with the state, Bergling wrote that he was an employee of Aegis Logistics, but with “zero % ownership or managerial responsibilities.”
Hodsdon says EPG’s $10,000 penalty will go into the state’s general fund.
ABC5
