What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Florida
Hello,
In 1995 I was convicted in New York of a class A misdemeanor under Federal law (18USC-2113(b) Grand Larceny not exceeding $100) resulting from grossly mishandling the funds from my parents estate. Since this was my first (and only) offense. I was given 2 years probation and restitution. My probation was extended to 5 years due to financial issues I was having in paying the restitution. I paid back 100% of the funds and completed my parole in March of 2000.
In one respect this conviction was a good thing for me. It made me reassess my life and where I was going with it (at that time nowhere) and motivated me to start a pursing a career. Between 1997 and 9/11/2001 I had built up an impressive career in Information Technology working almost exclusively within fortune 100 organizations and commanding some very hefty salaries. During this time my conviction was never an issue with any of my employers. In fact at one position I was in charge of a database that contained approximately a quarter of the nations credit card information; including authorization codes and the personal information of each cardholder. During my career, I have dealt with confidential material of both a corporate and financial nature.
I was laid off from my job as a direct result of 9/11. After 9/11 the IT industry went flat and I found myself out of work until about 14 months ago when I took a chance with the last of my savings and moved down to central Florida from New York. I worked at my first job here in Florida for seven months when I was released from my job for "a variety of reasons" (note: we hired a new VP of HR a month before hand who was very strong on running background checks). I then took a job in Orlando, FL and was there for 6 weeks when I over heard my manager screaming in his office “Well if he lied about this on his application, then what else has he been lying about”. Shortly there after my managers demeanor towards me took a very negative turn and I was dismissed less than 10 days later. Prior to this he was telling me how please he was with me and how glad he was to have me as a part of his team. It was at this point I started thinking that somehow my misdemeanor had come back to haunt me, I honestly thought this was a dead and gone issue. I had never reported my misdemeanor status to any of my employers because on the applications they never asked about misdemeanors, only felonies.
Since then I have applied for state jobs in both Florida and New York only to be told "no thanks" due to my "FELONY" and I have documented proof of this. I tried to explain that this must be a mistake since I only had a misdemeanor, but the damage to my credibility had already been done. Due to this I have had extreme difficulty finding a job. I usually have great initial interest from a prospective employer if I do not tell them about my conviction issues, but once they narrow the job search down and run a background check, I get dropped from consideration. If I do tell them up front about the situation, I am almost immediately dismissed as a candidate. This is the case not only for any IT jobs, for even the most basic retail job. I have applied for and/or interview for over 300 jobs in the last 90 days alone with the same results. I know of tons of jobs locally I am qualified for that require security clearances, but I know I can't even think of applying for them with this over my head.
My research into this has shown that at some point since my 1995 conviction that the Federal Law (18USC-2113(b) Grand Larceny not exceeding $100) was rewritten to read "18USC-2113(b) Grand Larceny not exceeding $1000". Furthermore if you read the "new" law, Paragraph one addresses a felony conviction while paragraph two addresses the misdemeanor. With this change I have now become a "felon" in the eyes of the reporting agencies.
My question regarding this is threefold. How do I:
1> Get the reporting of the charges corrected?
2> Possibly getting this expunged and sealed?
3> If this was expunged and sealed, would I be able to obtain a security clearance?
Can anyone out there help me or guide me in getting this set right? Can this be straightened out, and possibly be expunged so that I can get on with my life again? I have run out of options and finances. Due to my 9/11 layoff and now this I have either lost most of my assets or have been forced to sell them. I do not know what to do about this or where to turn. I am looking at being homeless in the next month or so and there have been rumblings within my marriage of a separation or divorce.
Please Help if you can
Hello,
In 1995 I was convicted in New York of a class A misdemeanor under Federal law (18USC-2113(b) Grand Larceny not exceeding $100) resulting from grossly mishandling the funds from my parents estate. Since this was my first (and only) offense. I was given 2 years probation and restitution. My probation was extended to 5 years due to financial issues I was having in paying the restitution. I paid back 100% of the funds and completed my parole in March of 2000.
In one respect this conviction was a good thing for me. It made me reassess my life and where I was going with it (at that time nowhere) and motivated me to start a pursing a career. Between 1997 and 9/11/2001 I had built up an impressive career in Information Technology working almost exclusively within fortune 100 organizations and commanding some very hefty salaries. During this time my conviction was never an issue with any of my employers. In fact at one position I was in charge of a database that contained approximately a quarter of the nations credit card information; including authorization codes and the personal information of each cardholder. During my career, I have dealt with confidential material of both a corporate and financial nature.
I was laid off from my job as a direct result of 9/11. After 9/11 the IT industry went flat and I found myself out of work until about 14 months ago when I took a chance with the last of my savings and moved down to central Florida from New York. I worked at my first job here in Florida for seven months when I was released from my job for "a variety of reasons" (note: we hired a new VP of HR a month before hand who was very strong on running background checks). I then took a job in Orlando, FL and was there for 6 weeks when I over heard my manager screaming in his office “Well if he lied about this on his application, then what else has he been lying about”. Shortly there after my managers demeanor towards me took a very negative turn and I was dismissed less than 10 days later. Prior to this he was telling me how please he was with me and how glad he was to have me as a part of his team. It was at this point I started thinking that somehow my misdemeanor had come back to haunt me, I honestly thought this was a dead and gone issue. I had never reported my misdemeanor status to any of my employers because on the applications they never asked about misdemeanors, only felonies.
Since then I have applied for state jobs in both Florida and New York only to be told "no thanks" due to my "FELONY" and I have documented proof of this. I tried to explain that this must be a mistake since I only had a misdemeanor, but the damage to my credibility had already been done. Due to this I have had extreme difficulty finding a job. I usually have great initial interest from a prospective employer if I do not tell them about my conviction issues, but once they narrow the job search down and run a background check, I get dropped from consideration. If I do tell them up front about the situation, I am almost immediately dismissed as a candidate. This is the case not only for any IT jobs, for even the most basic retail job. I have applied for and/or interview for over 300 jobs in the last 90 days alone with the same results. I know of tons of jobs locally I am qualified for that require security clearances, but I know I can't even think of applying for them with this over my head.
My research into this has shown that at some point since my 1995 conviction that the Federal Law (18USC-2113(b) Grand Larceny not exceeding $100) was rewritten to read "18USC-2113(b) Grand Larceny not exceeding $1000". Furthermore if you read the "new" law, Paragraph one addresses a felony conviction while paragraph two addresses the misdemeanor. With this change I have now become a "felon" in the eyes of the reporting agencies.
My question regarding this is threefold. How do I:
1> Get the reporting of the charges corrected?
2> Possibly getting this expunged and sealed?
3> If this was expunged and sealed, would I be able to obtain a security clearance?
Can anyone out there help me or guide me in getting this set right? Can this be straightened out, and possibly be expunged so that I can get on with my life again? I have run out of options and finances. Due to my 9/11 layoff and now this I have either lost most of my assets or have been forced to sell them. I do not know what to do about this or where to turn. I am looking at being homeless in the next month or so and there have been rumblings within my marriage of a separation or divorce.
Please Help if you can