Civil demand claim from Kohls in Virginia and impact on TS/SCi clearance

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

I am currently in the process of being investigated for renewal of my previously held with no issues TS/SCI clearance (began about May 4th 2015).
unfortunately due to some stress related issues and bad judgement I shoplifted merchandise from Kohl’s store and was caught ( about 85$ in merchandise value). The Loss Prevention person did not call police, but took my name, SSN, and all info, photographed my licence etc and recovered merchandise from me, but stated I will receive a civil demand claim for shoplifting. I was told to stay away or I will be prosecuted for trespassing. This is TOTALLY out of character for me and this was the only time it happened, yet I don’t know what got into me. Needless to say - I want to find out what will the impact on my security investigation be since

  1. It is currently in progress do I need to report the incident to my investigator?
  2. No police was called, so there is no case number, however, I am begin told based on various forums that if I pay the civil demand claim my data will be entered by Khols to National Database of shoplifters, so it is better NOT to pay, and ignore ALL thier letters and demand as they will most likely not go to court due to low amount, but I am worried they may purse legal case in court later? I was never shoplifting before.
  3. Do I need to report it to my Security Officer at work as well that I it happened?
  4. I would like to pay, but don’t want to be entered into National Database. How can I avoid it?
  5. Will I have to report civil demand claim if I decide to pay in any SF-86 in the future?
  6. Do POM investigators review National Database of shoplifters when renewing clearances in the feature.

I know I made a terrible mistake and I will NEVER do that gain, so don’t preach for what I did, but please advise how I can get out of this mess in the best possible way.

2

There is no such thing as a national database for shoplifters, sounds like a ploy just to scare you. Do you know for a fact it was never reported to the local police? I would run your own records check just to be sure. You should report this to your Security Officer, better to hear it from you then to find out from someone else, that is a part of integrity and trustworthiness for which you are entrusted with a clearance.

3

I think there are at least three: Esteem Retail Theft Database, as well as APIS and Choicepoint

4

The validity of those are questionable, and background investigations do not involve any checks of these supposed national databases. They are used to prevent the retailers from inadvertently hiring someone who has a history of shoplifting.