This is my first post, but I have been an ardent SDN follower/lurker for years. I’m writing this today because I was involved in a truly remarkable brush with the law 2 years ago amidst preparing my applications for medical school, and I’d like some input on whether I might still have a chance of a career in medicine, or any professional career for that matter. Until this incident, I WAS your bright-eyed bushy-tailed, run of the mill med school applicant; mid-level college, 3.87 GPA, 37 MCAT, high school teacher, 2 years research, publications etc… What happened thereafter forever changed everything.
I was involved in a relationship of 2 years with a girl who was rather unstable (i.e. bouts of anorexia, suicide ideation, cutting, borderline personality disorder). At the time I was working extremely long hours in a research lab at an undisclosed university, and I wasn’t able to spend very much time with her. I came to learn that she was two-timing me and actually DATING another guy, while still living with me…somehow. This realization precipitated into an argument one night when I confronted the girl with my evidence of the relationship. When presented with an ultimatum, she proceeded to grab a knife and slash herself on the wrist, claiming she was ’going to kill herself.’ A struggle ensued, I restrained her, she exclaimed ‘get off me your hurting me’, I removed the knife, and she raced back to grab another knife. I continued to restrain her, prying the knife from her hand as she’s pressing the knife vertically against her arm. She then raced to the door of the apartment with knife in hand, and tried to leave, but I pulled her back into the apartment because I was scared that she was going to run out into the parking lot and kill herself. More struggling ensued, and I finally restrained her against a sofa in our living room, removed a knife and placed it out of reach under the sofa. That’s when police burst into the apartment with guns drawn, and found me on top of my girlfriend holding her down…. Not a good look. Even after explaining my situation to the police, with evidence of bloodied knives around the apartment, I was charged with domestic violence (for restraining) and kidnapping (a witness saw me pull my girlfriend back into the apartment, but didn’t see the knife in her hand). The girl was sent to the psychiatric ER for slashing her wrists.
The story gets even crazier and almost unbelievable; I spent the next week in jail awaiting bond. The evening I got out, I received a phone call from a detective at the university I worked at. She wanted to ‘talk to me about some things that may have been going on in my lab.’ Confused, I called up a friend who worked in the lab who told me that the lab had been raided by the DEA earlier that day, and that they suspected I was manufacturing methamphetamine and LSD in my workspace. They brought drug dogs in, took samples from my hood space, removed a large amount of glassware from the lab, and cordoned off my section of the lab as a suspected clandestine lab. Once I heard this news, I became very frightened and broke down, eventually violating a no-contact order against my girlfriend to try to talk to somebody, and I was sent back to jail.
Fast forward one month, and my domestic violence/kidnapping case goes to trial. In an all-women jury, I am thankfully found not-guilty. However, I am told that the drug investigation is ongoing and they found ‘materials that could be used to make LSD, and a complete and fully stocked methamphetamine lab setup’ and my workplace (the organic chemistry lab I worked at). They searched my apartment, they searched my car, they took my laptop and forensically searched all the internet history searches I had ever made, they basically searched everything I owned. Fast forward 8 months, just when I was thinking the case was abandoned, I’m called back to the state and arraigned on 2 counts of manufacturing charges and a witness interference charge (for getting upset after reading the discovery and learning that my girlfriend had lied to police and told them I was running a meth lab at my workplace). Three weeks later, my lawyer came to me in jail and told me the prosecutors were dropping everything for ‘complete lack of factual evidence’, all they had was my girlfriend’s statement and a bunch of circumstantial evidence like me working ‘late nights’, positive field tests for drugs (actually false positives for the amines I was working with in the lab) that later turned out negative on GCMS analysis, and an informational book on ‘mind altering drugs’ by the American Chemical Society, on my desk at my workplace.
So… long story short, I’ve gone to the depths of hell and back, in two back-to-back cases involving extremely serious charges. However, I was acquitted of charges in both cases and I stand innocent. I’m now saddled with arrest record with 6 felony counts and 1 misdemeanor that make me look like a hardened criminal, but no convictions. I haven’t had any run-ins with the law either before or since these incidents. I’m left wondering what to do with my life, and what sorts of avenues are still available for my career after something like this. Some say that arrests and charges don’t count for anything without a conviction, while others including medical schools and licensing boards analyze arrests and charges for character assessments including integrity and risk-aversion. Should I, can I still pursue medicine? Can I even pursue ANY licensed profession? Will powers that be respect legal process and give me the benefit of the doubt, in spite of such horrible accusations? Or did my efforts just go to waste? What to do?
I was involved in a relationship of 2 years with a girl who was rather unstable (i.e. bouts of anorexia, suicide ideation, cutting, borderline personality disorder). At the time I was working extremely long hours in a research lab at an undisclosed university, and I wasn’t able to spend very much time with her. I came to learn that she was two-timing me and actually DATING another guy, while still living with me…somehow. This realization precipitated into an argument one night when I confronted the girl with my evidence of the relationship. When presented with an ultimatum, she proceeded to grab a knife and slash herself on the wrist, claiming she was ’going to kill herself.’ A struggle ensued, I restrained her, she exclaimed ‘get off me your hurting me’, I removed the knife, and she raced back to grab another knife. I continued to restrain her, prying the knife from her hand as she’s pressing the knife vertically against her arm. She then raced to the door of the apartment with knife in hand, and tried to leave, but I pulled her back into the apartment because I was scared that she was going to run out into the parking lot and kill herself. More struggling ensued, and I finally restrained her against a sofa in our living room, removed a knife and placed it out of reach under the sofa. That’s when police burst into the apartment with guns drawn, and found me on top of my girlfriend holding her down…. Not a good look. Even after explaining my situation to the police, with evidence of bloodied knives around the apartment, I was charged with domestic violence (for restraining) and kidnapping (a witness saw me pull my girlfriend back into the apartment, but didn’t see the knife in her hand). The girl was sent to the psychiatric ER for slashing her wrists.
The story gets even crazier and almost unbelievable; I spent the next week in jail awaiting bond. The evening I got out, I received a phone call from a detective at the university I worked at. She wanted to ‘talk to me about some things that may have been going on in my lab.’ Confused, I called up a friend who worked in the lab who told me that the lab had been raided by the DEA earlier that day, and that they suspected I was manufacturing methamphetamine and LSD in my workspace. They brought drug dogs in, took samples from my hood space, removed a large amount of glassware from the lab, and cordoned off my section of the lab as a suspected clandestine lab. Once I heard this news, I became very frightened and broke down, eventually violating a no-contact order against my girlfriend to try to talk to somebody, and I was sent back to jail.
Fast forward one month, and my domestic violence/kidnapping case goes to trial. In an all-women jury, I am thankfully found not-guilty. However, I am told that the drug investigation is ongoing and they found ‘materials that could be used to make LSD, and a complete and fully stocked methamphetamine lab setup’ and my workplace (the organic chemistry lab I worked at). They searched my apartment, they searched my car, they took my laptop and forensically searched all the internet history searches I had ever made, they basically searched everything I owned. Fast forward 8 months, just when I was thinking the case was abandoned, I’m called back to the state and arraigned on 2 counts of manufacturing charges and a witness interference charge (for getting upset after reading the discovery and learning that my girlfriend had lied to police and told them I was running a meth lab at my workplace). Three weeks later, my lawyer came to me in jail and told me the prosecutors were dropping everything for ‘complete lack of factual evidence’, all they had was my girlfriend’s statement and a bunch of circumstantial evidence like me working ‘late nights’, positive field tests for drugs (actually false positives for the amines I was working with in the lab) that later turned out negative on GCMS analysis, and an informational book on ‘mind altering drugs’ by the American Chemical Society, on my desk at my workplace.
So… long story short, I’ve gone to the depths of hell and back, in two back-to-back cases involving extremely serious charges. However, I was acquitted of charges in both cases and I stand innocent. I’m now saddled with arrest record with 6 felony counts and 1 misdemeanor that make me look like a hardened criminal, but no convictions. I haven’t had any run-ins with the law either before or since these incidents. I’m left wondering what to do with my life, and what sorts of avenues are still available for my career after something like this. Some say that arrests and charges don’t count for anything without a conviction, while others including medical schools and licensing boards analyze arrests and charges for character assessments including integrity and risk-aversion. Should I, can I still pursue medicine? Can I even pursue ANY licensed profession? Will powers that be respect legal process and give me the benefit of the doubt, in spite of such horrible accusations? Or did my efforts just go to waste? What to do?
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