On May 29, 2018, an Administrative Judge determined that an individual’s access authorization under 10 C.F.R. Part 710 should not be restored. The individual is employed by a DOE contractor in a position that requires her to hold a DOE security clearance. The Local Security Office (LSO) received potentially derogatory information regarding the individual’s finances and personal conduct. In citing Guideline F, the LSO relied upon the individual’s “irresponsible” behavior with respect to her finances around the time her husband was laid off from work in December 2014. The Notification Letter cited, inter alia, that between October 2014 and June 2015, the individual sent a number of messages to her husband from her government computer in which she expressed serious concern regarding her financial status and her ability to pay their bills. In citing Guideline E, the LSO relied upon, inter alia, the individual’s financially irresponsible behavior as well as an allegation that she plagiarized a paper she wrote as part of a master’s degree program paid for by the DOE and allowed her husband to complete some of the required coursework for her program.

 At the hearing, the individual acknowledged that she was cited twice for plagiarism, first receiving an F on a paper in a class she took in 2012, and then failing a class in 2015. The individual testified that she did not purposely cheat on her papers, and did not know she was citing her work incorrectly. When questioned about whether her husband did some of the required course work for her master’s degree, the individual testified that although she relied heavily on her husband’s expertise, she only used her husband as a resource and submitted her own work. With respect to her finances, the individual testified that her financial problems stemmed from her husband having periods of time when he was not employed. The Administrative Judge concluded that given the issues regarding the individual’s personal conduct, and her lack of credibility in responding thereto, she could not find that the individual’s behavior with respect to this concern is unlikely to recur. She therefore found that the individual had not adequately addressed the security concerns under Guideline E. Likewise, given the lack of credibility demonstrated by the individual with respect to her personal conduct, the Administrative Judge found that the credibility of the individual’s explanations for various expenses she made was suspect and failed to demonstrate good judgment. Faced with the inability to pay her mortgage, the individual chose instead to purchase Christmas gifts, travel, accept jewelry charged to her credit card, and pay thousands of dollars for “spiritual awareness” sessions. The Administrative Judge could not find that the individual’s behavior is unlikely to recur and does not cast doubt on her current reliability, trustworthiness or good judgment. She found that the individual had not sufficiently resolved DOE’s security concern under Guideline F. As such, the Administrative Judge concluded that the individual’s access authorization should not be restored. (Kimberly Jenkins-Chapman)