Public Trust additional investigation

Hello,

I was hired to a govt contractor to work at NOAA and was told that to retain employment I would need to obtain a Public Trust. I was hired and began working prior to receiving the clearance. About 6 weeks into working, I was sent for finger printing. A few days later I was approached that my finger prints returned findings and would require additional investigation and had to leave the contract until completed. A little while later I was sent a request to enter an E-QIP and haven’t heard much of anything else since then.

I have excellent credit, no debt other than my house, 1 car, and a couple of low limit credit cards (no missed payments). I have a couple things in collections but they are really old and probably about ready to drop off.

However, about 12 years ago I was in an incident where a guy jumped on the hood of my car and the people around thought I hit him. I ended up being arrested and charged with a felony assault. That charge was ultimately dismissed a few days later. About a year later I was indicted on a misdemeanor assault stemming from that same incident. I went to court and was found not guilty and that was the end of it. I didn’t have any criminal history before or after that.

That is literally the only thing I can think of that would require additional investigation but it was 11/12 years ago and I’ve had no police interactions since then at all.

What is the likelihood that is what they are investigating and does it seem like that would prevent me from obtaining the Public Trust?

Thanks,

M

I’ve been in contact with my PM, HR Director, and FSO daily and they continue to tell me they haven’t received any information. I’m still employed, working temporarily on another contract they hold but that can’t last much longer. I was informed of the additional investigation over 2 weeks ago. If they were to receive a SOR, would that have happened by now?

The need for more investigation is likely due to the incidents you described. I would suggest contacting a lawyer in the state you received the charges and having them expunged from your record. If successful you won’t have the same problem again.

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Expungement is for convictions? I wasn’t convicted of the charge. I will look into it.

I contacted the municipal court in the county I was arrested in and they will expunge non-convictions for free. The process takes 8 weeks so I think I’ll finally get these things off of me after all these years. Thanks for the idea, wish I did it 10 years ago.

MG

Great info to know. I wish you well. Please keep us informed. Essentially it seems as if someone tried scamming you for insurance money or had a personal beef and wanted to cause you grief (they have caused grief). But it appears the long arm of the law eventually won out. I am always surprised the lengths one will go to cover a lie. Apparently this person kept going. As it is 11 plus years ago I wouldn’t sue him but the expungement seems a good step. From the perspective of the clearance, if they see the felony charge, followed by a misdemeanor charge for assault I can’t blame them for thinking there may be guilt on your part. They will read the charges from a neutral perspective that allegations were made twice.
Though dropped and dismissed it shows up on your record. Don’t hide from them, if there is more to them than you are able to capture here, make sure you reveal all. Don’t downplay it. If there was a history between you and this person reveal it. If it was a quarrel over a romance talk to it. Any attempt to talk around it will work against you. If it was a perfect stranger (is there such a thing?) make that clear as well. I have seen a denial of a TS, revocation of Secret, but 6 weeks later the person obtained a position of trust. So it isn’t the end of the road.

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It did happen to be a stranger. It happened when I was in college. Oddly enough, we had some amateur detectives running around campus and one guy told me the person who jumped on my car (who wasn’t a university student, just some local burnout) had a history of slip and fall attempts in various businesses around town. I never saw the guy before that or ever again after that except in court. The explanation is just as I wrote and with the length of time and lack of recurrence of offenses in the years following, I would hope that it is easily mitigated. I got an email today from the security specialist in charge of the investigation that she is going to start processing it tomorrow so hopefully I have an answer soon. The petition to have the charges expunged landed on the municipal courts doorstep about an hour ago so I’m hopeful moving forward. It will be nice to never have to explain this again.

Thanks for the insight