Question on expunged juvenile felony

[bl2080]

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Soooooo I may have screwed up. Long story short, when I was 17 I got arrested for shooting a bb gun at a school bus (yes super dumb). I had a misdemeanor and felony charge. I plead guilty and the case went to a diversion program where the case was expunged. Now my problem is I just sent out 22 DO apps. I talked to a lawyer before hand and he advised me to check "NO" on any question that asks about felonies or misdemeanors unless it was for licensure. He said my arrest will only come up from a fingerprint background check.

He basically said not to worry about it since in Florida you can't legally ask about expunged/sealed cases unless it's for very specific employment or licensure, however, I am seeing that a few rotation spots require an FBI fingerprint background check.

I am not a competitive applicant for DO (3.2 cGPA 3.4 sGPA 505 MCAT) so I am pretty sure if I contact each school and let them know I made a mistake and that I have been convicted of an expunged felony, my chances for acceptance are zero.

So I guess my question is, should I contact all my schools with my felony or should I ride it out and hope I don't hit a rotation spot with an FBI background check. I'm assuming that if I did not disclose my felony, and then it came up during rotations, I'd be expelled.

 

[bl2080]

No, dont. It is reasonable for an applicant to conclude that a juvenile misdemeanor that has been expunged does not need to be reported for application purposes especially when advised as such by an attorney. The possible exception to this would be if an application asked specifically for both juvenile and expunged records, which is highly unlikely. Additionally, expunged means just that, the court record has been expunged. An arrest record may appear however, that will not normally show disposition of the case without judicial order typically. In other words, an arrest may show up but not a guilty plea or diversion, just essentially unavailable record.

I think you have much more of risk of non acceptance with admitting this , then you do of a possible "deans letter" where you have to explain this either post acceptance or in rotations/licensing, and again, being juvenile at time of incident, has much less chance of being a legal issue for anything in the future. If this does come up as a question post acceptance, you will send a very, very, very short note to the dean as below. You only need this if questioned about this later

"I was arrested as a juvenile for taking a pot-shot with a BB gun at a school bus. I pleaded guilty, was adjudicated thru a diversion program and my record was expunged I was advised by my attorney that I did not need to report this as it was a juvenile offense that was expunged."

Sincerely

Thanks for your reply!

I did not see any questions on any of my apps that asked about juvenile offences, but there were a few that asked for expunged felonies which I checked "NO" to. I saw a post on this site about a fellow student who had an expunged felony and was expelled after it was revealed after an FBI background check for a VA hospital. To be honest, I don't even really know what happened with my case other than it was expunged. My original lawyer for that case has retired (my arrest happened 8 years ago) and the only documents at the courthouse they have are just a list of my charges... nothing else. I'm thinking of doing a full FBI background check on myself and see what comes back, I'm assuming it will say I was convicted of a felony and misdemeanor. Looking up licensure statutes, I see most states don't like violent felonies.

How bad would it look if a school later found out about this during rotations?