Hello and good afternoon. Back in NY in 1996 I was charged with a class b misdemeanor but pled guilty to a non-criminal offense, known as a 'violation"(not a fingerprintable offense) in NY state. I paid a $50 fine, received a conditional discharge, and my criminal records were sealed as per 160.55 of the NY CPL in 1997.

By 'sealed" it means that the arrest fingerprints were removed from the NY state DCJS database(no record if printed by a NY state employer) DA records and police records sealed. Also, NY state sends an expungement order to the FBI requesting expungement of all information petaining to the arrest event. It's considered almost the same as receiving a dismissal or acquittal except that of course the court record remains unsealed because a conviction took place under 160.55.( Under 160.50 however, the court record is sealed because there was no conviction)

The only time an arrest record in NY can be unsealed is if an application is being made for a pistol permit or to work as a police officer(or during a subsequent arrest). In that case the sealed fingerprints are kept on a hard copy for law enforcement

My question has to do with expunged FBI records. I recently inquired about visiting Canada. I told Canada about my sealed conviction. They said that while my record isn't considered serious, the record may show up at the border. They said it didn't matter of the record was sealed/expunged. They said they couldn't tell me for sure what may show up

I have also heard that any police agency in the nation can easily find out if you have ever been arrested, even if the arrest was sealed or no conviction resulted

FBI tells me that once your prints are removed from their system, there should be no record at all

Does anyone know how this works?

Thanks in advance

RL

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Originally Posted by rlrl

Hello and good afternoon. Back in NY in 1996 I was charged with a class b misdemeanor but pled guilty to a non-criminal offense, known as a 'violation"(not a fingerprintable offense) in NY state. I paid a $50 fine, received a conditional discharge, and my criminal records were sealed as per 160.55 of the NY CPL in 1997.

By 'sealed" it means that the arrest fingerprints were removed from the NY state DCJS database(no record if printed by a NY state employer) DA records and police records sealed. Also, NY state sends an expungement order to the FBI requesting expungement of all information petaining to the arrest event. It's considered almost the same as receiving a dismissal or acquittal except that of course the court record remains unsealed because a conviction took place under 160.55.( Under 160.50 however, the court record is sealed because there was no conviction)

The only time an arrest record in NY can be unsealed is if an application is being made for a pistol permit or to work as a police officer(or during a subsequent arrest). In that case the sealed fingerprints are kept on a hard copy for law enforcement

My question has to do with expunged FBI records. I recently inquired about visiting Canada. I told Canada about my sealed conviction. They said that while my record isn't considered serious, the record may show up at the border. They said it didn't matter of the record was sealed/expunged. They said they couldn't tell me for sure what may show up

I have also heard that any police agency in the nation can easily find out if you have ever been arrested, even if the arrest was sealed or no conviction resulted

FBI tells me that once your prints are removed from their system, there should be no record at all

Does anyone know how this works?

Thanks in advance

RL

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You are correct that any law enforcement agency can find your arrest. NCIC ( National Crime Information Center) catalogs all arrests in the country. If LAPD arrested you, they would know the date of your offense and what you were arrested for in NY. Once you are arrested, the arresting agency will forward details of the arrest to NCIC, located in Washington,D.C. This includes all misdemeanors, felonies , persons with outstanding warrants, the serial #'s of stolen property,etc. It is a tool used to consolidate information from the local, state and federal levels. Since your arrest was a misdemeanor, you should have nothing to worry about. The record would reflect that RL was arrested for shoplifting, public drunk,etc. and that's it. That entry should not prevent you from entering into Canada, as long as you are traveling on the proper documentation.

Thanks for the prompt and courteous reply(other similar type boards have some angry people responding to others' concerns and questions).

So assuming NY sent the FBI an expungement order(NY is supposed to do this for a conviction of a violation as per state law 160.55) and assuming the FBI followed their order, if a licensing agency or employer checks my FBI record would there be ANY indication of any arrest or conviction? According to the FBI record the ENTIRE record from arrest to conviction is expunged, leaving no record at all

NY sends the FBI an expungement order because the original charge was a fingerprintable charge but the disposition charge was for a non-fingerprintable charge so they send the expungement order to the FBI

I am sorry but you are totally mistaken what they do in real life, forget what they told you, and forget what you think it does.

When they explunge the record, they merely mark it explunged, it is not erased or taken out. As a police officer when we would run a NCIC report of a person, if they had explunged records, it would show us the arrest date and if was explunged, the date it was explunged. This info could not be given out to the public but was always avaialbe to law enforcement.

After that if we gave out any of the info we had to take that part out.

With the new National security rules and homeland security the explunged records are also available to them also.

A employer checking a record will not see this only other police and law enforcement

Next as for as the fingerprint, once they are in the system, they may be moved from criminal to non criminal records, remember there are more non criminal fingerprint records on file than criminal records, every law enforcement person getting hired, all school teachers, and the such all have their fingerprints on file.
But once you hit the system, it is merely marked not to give out publicly, which seals it from all but national seucrity and law enforcement usage.

But no it is never just erased.

** past justice deptment manager, past police officer and worked with national security and homeland security.

I am sorry I know this is not what you want to hear, but this is how it really happens. You can quote all of the statues and rules, but the FBI and the Federal government are not under any state statue and do not have to erase anything from their records.

Also even at the state level, the paper records of your court appearances will always be someone in some file cabinet,

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Originally Posted by rlrl

Also, NY state sends an expungement order to the FBI requesting expungement of all information petaining to the arrest event.....

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Hello rlrl:

NY state law does not apply to the FBI. They are under no obligation to adhere to the request, and I'm certain they don't.

excon

Thanks for the info. I'm not dissapointed by what you say. I suspected that NCIC law enforcement keeps the prints on file as NY does for law enforcement

What about a professional licensing agency that does background checks through their state system(Georgia) which includes a notation "multi state offender" if the applicant ever was arrested and convicted?

If a NY violation conviction was expunged at the FBI would the info show up at the Ga professional licensing agency? I'm not sure if law enforcement check those records or not. The license does not involve licensing a pistol

Hello again, rl:

In the final analysis, even professional licensing agencies hire someone to do their background checks. Some background checks are very detailed and expensive. Some are cheap and cursory. And, since there are humans involved, some are expensive and cursory. Given the above, it's very difficult to say what this particular licensing agency would or wouldn't uncover.

excon

Except for GA POST ( law enforcement) and GA hand gun licensing which is done though the court, the GA licensing does only sees the edited verson, so all explunged records will be sealed from them

But I will even make it worst for you, lets say someone good on the internet is doing a search on you, assuming you signed up with your real name, and now the info as to where the crime happened and license board in GA, someone doing a web search can now find your question online.

And some pages get ( and I don't know why some do) archived, one of my wife's first web pages from 8 years ago that was deleted and the server out of business is still available if you look deep enough in records saved. So If I was looking hard about you, these posts give the basically info into public forum

Thanks. Sounds accurate.

In my state arrest records are never expunged based upon conviction for an offense lesser than the original charge. Unless there has been a legal finding that there was no probable cause for the arrest, the arrest record stands.