Please advice for mitigate misconduct in employment and personal conduct. Investigator didn’t ask question about family arrested during interview. How to justify regarding family arrested on Statement of reasons?
There is a reference book that is available online, Adjudicative Desk Reference. Nonetheless, if you received SOR for something like this, I would advise you to contact a security clearance attorney as the attorney will better assist you. Most security clearance attorneys do offer free consultation.
Why was your family arrested? You got a SOR specifically for your Family being arrested and that’s it?
My close family member was arrested in 2013. There was no any questions regarding family arrested on security form SF-86 and investigators didn’t ask me during interview regarding family arrested. So, I didn’t disclose during interview. In SOR, they stated why I didn’t disclose during interview. I don’t know how I can mitigate this issue.
Read the SOR carefully so you know what exactly is the concern. If there was no requirement to report it then that is not the concern. Under Guideline E: Personal Conduct this is a concern:
Association with Persons Involved in Criminal Activity
Special circumstances may apply if the criminal is a family member such as a brother, father, or son.
But if there is no question on the SF-86/eQIP about family members with criminal history, how can this person be denied for not disclosing it?
I don’t know the new SF-86 by heart but I don’t recall there being such a question…?
So I just did a search of the SF-86 for ‘criminal,’ ‘family,’ and ‘association.’ I could not find any question that asked about association with persons involved in criminal activity. However, there was some verbiage in the instructions that criminal checks “MAY” be run on your family members.
Hopefully the applicant will be able to mitigate this with a good response to the SOR.
Hence, I told him to make sure he knew exactly what the concern was in the SOR.
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That is peculiar, but I think Marko is on the right track. I have been able to clear people with substantial convicted, incarcerated family members. But it is possible a very close association with a serious felon where one cannot reasonably claim no knowledge of their deeds…think large quantities of drugs distributed from the living room of the apartment you share with mom and dad. You kind of are aware of what is happening. But I think a decent clearance lawyer would be best to navigate this as there is no obvious question speaking to it. Did the investigator scope and ask about family and the person denied knowledge, later proved untrue…unknown. Broken record on over report vice under report, but I personally would have spoke to family members involved in serious crime. I would want to make clear I am not conducting my life in that manner.
You ask about misconduct in employment and personal conduct but go on to ask about family arrests. Sounds like you may want to believe the denial comes from family member issues but you avoid the employment misconduct aspect. Are you confused on what they are questioning? I have had a few employees insist they were never written up at work, yet there are signed counselings in their employee file. It doesn’t matter if you believe you were in the right or wrong…what matters is that you speak to being written up. You are acknowledging they will find something and it is an honesty/ethics/integrity check. Simply tell them I was wrongly accused of something and was counseled for XXX. Otherwise you have a lack of candor and that is hard to defeat.
Good point… I missed that part
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Thank you for your respond. How do adjudicators make decision the applicant as the whole person concept?
That is a bit of alchemy. Some is a gut feeling, most a preponderance of evidence. If one has negative hits across multiple areas of concern…a picture is formed to the overall character of the individual. For instance, credit scores are used (rightly or wrongly) to determine your health insurance rates, car interest loan rates, and much more. The government uses it to see if there are vulnerabilities. If a person has poor credit, previous drug use issues, criminal arrests, one forms an overall opinion. Time can mitigate a lot, so if all that was 30 years ago and one now has good credit, etc…much is no longer considered. .
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The family member involved with criminal activities/prior activities often arises during the family, police record, and drug activity sections of the Subject interview.
Such as when an address for a family member is missing and the response is “I don’t know where they are because they are in prison somewhere”. They arise in the police record and drug activity when the Subject is arrested/used and explains they were at the incident, or started using, because they were with (cousin, brother, parent,etc).
There are other sources. Just know that if the information arises you could be contacted to explain the relationship between you and that friend/relative.
What you don’t need to do is panic that uncle Bob is going to kill your clearance. Just like any other issue, the adjudicator is more interested in your involvement, the relationship closeness, and any recent activity.
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Oops. That could be an awkward moment.
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More common than you think.
I’ve had two instances over the years when the Subject was in federal law enforcement and didn’t know a sibling was in prison for drugs until the Subject interview. Both times they called family members to find out the sibling’s address during the Subject interview (I always discourage this as it rarely goes well) and discovered the sibling was in prison.
Family members didn’t mention the sibling in jail because the family knew the Subject would be upset… as they were each time.
We all have “that” cousin, sibling, family member. The BGI is trying to establish the influence that person has on the Subject. .
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Had that happen on several SF86’s. Hope the apple falls further from the tree with these ones.
We all have those family members and one family member doesn’t kill a clearance - after all, you can’t choose your family.
The influence that family member has on you is more of a concern.
And, of course, you do choose your friends.
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Just be careful if they list UNICOR as a recent “employer”!
Hey I think they made my desk calendar. I understand they have a comprehensive benefits package.
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I understand that they offer steady, secure long-term employment and complimentary housing in a gated community.
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