Hello,

I am a college student that has been convicted of selling drugs at campus by undercovers (a felony). I have been trying to get good grades and move ahead. I know I'll need to work a little harder to get a job, that is why I am starting with getting good grades. I had many questions as to how this will affect me, but after reading this site, I found great relief in finding out this isn't the end of the line for me, and I appreciate the attitude amongst you unlike other sites (probably run by law enforcers) that makes it sound like felons are sub-human.

I would like to enter into the electrical engineering field, and after reading this site it seems many projects require government clearance. You are not allowed to work on government jobs if convicted of a felony? I thought it was against the law to discriminate based on the fact of a conviction.

However, I can apply for a Certificate of Relief from Civil disabilities, which supposedly restores all my rights. (This happened in New York) Will this certificate carry out throughout the states, and more importantly allow government clearance?

Sadly, New York does not allow for expungements or sealing of any felony convictions no matter how much time has passed, thus this seems the best that I can do. =(

I've had dreams of owning a hotel, or a bar, or something like that in life. I hear it is hard to get a liquor license if you are a felon, but the Certificate of Relief will allow you to get one. Will the certificate carry out its effectiveness to other states? Thankfully, I am not a New York resident, I was just going to school there.

Also, do you think that by joining the army would help my case? I want to prove that I am not different than anyone else, and would like to prove that I am respectful and simply made a mistake. I know a lot of people that are "felons" but aren't labelled as such -- for they haven't been caught and I have!

Thanks for your time.

You can join the army if you wish as they are taking felons now and you could probably get "hired" by them.

Well it would not help to seal or explunge your record anyway, This only hides the conviction from normal employment background checks, all arrests ( even those dismissed) and all convictions even explunged will show up to police records check ( NCIC reports) they merely edit that info out before giving it to the public. And it will show up to any national security records check.

This is a "gottcha" type of thing, first of course they can not hire you because of a conviction, I have heard a few states have those laws, but that is why they ask have you ever been convicted of a felony.

On top of that , there are many licenses you can not get, Pri Dect, Insurance and Real Estate in many states if you have a felony conviction.

But you will find a felony conviction will keep you from getting hired in many places, if for say there is 100 applications for one job ( not unusuall now a days) they will start weeding them out, and guess who gets weeded out first, those with convictions, those that have been fired and so on. So you will have to be a little better, and stand out in their minds a little more with a conviction on your record.

You will also have to have a good credit record for some of the higher security levels, if you have any past due debts ( and they will search back way past your credit report,) when I got my highest level, they found a loan I did almost 18 years old, and I had to do a payment plan with them for the clearance to go though.

In fact for the one clearance, they sent inspectors to talk to my high school teachers, my college teachers, all of the neighbors I had for the previous 10 years, Honestly, and this sounds silly, they had in my record pick up lines I had used when I was young . I have no idea where they got all that info, and every negative issue had to be addressed before I could be cleared. ** and of course I had to sign where they could wire tap my phones and intercept my mail for the rest of my life.

So for a national security clearance, sorry there is nothing you can do at this point and time to ever hide it or get it so they will not see it.