I am starting truck driving school; to obtain cdl certificate. I have a felony from 1973, that has been expunged from my records. I have had two online background checks done and neither of them found my record. The charge was for, possession of an illegal substance. Should I list the conviction or would it be okay to not list it when asked if I have ever been convicted of a felony.

Hello mere:

If you had gotten a pardon, you could legally answer the question, no. However, expungement doesn't remove your conviction. It just removes it from view. If you lie on say, a bonding application, and they find out, you could be guilty of insurance fraud.

By the way, who's asking? I've been in business all my life and I've NEVER been asked about my criminal record.

excon

A trucking company that I have an interest in working with. I asked if an old felony conviction, a drug related would prohibit me from working for them. The person said that since it was drug related most trucking companies would not hire me. I am concerned that if I am up front with them now that I will not be able to be hired.

The law, regarding felony and misdemeanor convictions and felony and misdemeanor arrests changed during the Clinton administration. Prior to the change in the law, investigators were permitted to report convictions for the past 10 years only. Prior convictions were not reported. Clinton changed the law to allow convictions to be reported indefinitely. Arrests can be reported for the past 10 years... from the last court entry. It is hoped that investigators would also report the outcome of that arrest.

Now. Will the arrest and conviction be found: If the investigation is a governmental investigation using fingerprinting and the NCIC, they will find the file. If the investigation is being conducted by a private investigation firm the answer is probably not. The reason, surprisingly, is that the records are too old, not that you had it expunged. Most investigation agencies will search the past 7 years only. A client can pay extra and get a 10 year search.

People don't understand that the court may expunge records, however, prior to that expunge the record may already have been copied by a private vendor that sells criminal records to investigation agencies. Once they have copied that information, it becomes proprietary and unless someone pushes, it is not deleted. I've run criminal record searches for people wanting to be drug reps. I've found arrests and convictions that have been expunged. In most cases I've been able to get them removed from the database.

Since this happened such a long time ago, and it is possible that it can be picked up... you should probably be truthful.