Stealing from Your Employer is Not a Good Idea

A Federal IT contractor was recently denied security clearance eligibility by the DoD Central Adjudication Facility because of criminal and personal conduct issues. The contractor subsequently appealed the denial to the Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA). Here are the highlights of the case:

The contractor worked as an IT specialist for his former company for 16 years. In February 2018 the company IT manager initiated an internal investigation into missing iPads taken from their storage room. A review of security camera footage caught the IT specialist entering the room on three separate occasions and it showed he had removed monitors, the iPads, and some camera equipment. He was interviewed and confessed to taking the equipment and getting money for them at a pawn shop. The company terminated him the next month and took the amount stolen ($3350) out of his final paycheck.

Fast forward to October 2018 and the IT specialist gets hired by another company and filled out a security clearance application in January 2019 and annotated on the FS-86 he was “discharged from previous employment due to misappropriated IT equipment.”

In April during his interview with a background investigator the IT specialist again admitted to stealing and pawning off the equipment. The DoD denied him eligibility and in his appeal to DOHA, the applicant pulled an about face, denying the incident happened and coming up with alternative theories as to what happened and why he was fired. Needless to say, the new fabricated tale did not go over well with the judge – clearance denied!

You can read the entire case here.