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Questions about background checks of arrest with no conviction

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sos12345

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY

Hi I'm a college student and I'm majoring in accounting, and will be applying for jobs at financial firms in the future for positions related to accounting. I will be graduating in 2-3 years.
My case was that a year ago I was arrested for shoplifting/petty larceny and fingerprinted, later on I had to go to court and I got an Adjournment in Contemplation of dismissal (ACD) in which I had to attend a stoplift class which is not mentioned on my final disposition and that my case was automatically dismissed after 6 months and I was never asked to enter a plea whether guilty or not guilty plea. My attorney told me that I would not have any criminal record, and I've searched on google about an ACD and it says that all records regarding this case would be sealed and fingerprints and picture would be supposedly "destroyed" after the case gets officially dismissed, I was never convicted of anything since I received the ACD, and according to NY law an arrest is not considered an arrest if there's no conviction and I think I've also read somewhere that in NY it is not allowed for consumer reports to report arrests that did not end up in conviction to employers, is this true?

Now, What does not having a criminal record mean, does it also mean having no arrest records shown to the public? What would show up on my FBI and state rap sheet that is sent to the employer? and how exactly does the sealing of records that end up in dismissal work, what does it do?
Will my records be on the OCA, (the court records which you obtain by paying $50) even though there was no conviction of anything?
Will I have to answer yes to the arrest/charge questions on employment applications? even though I was never convicted?

o and I want to add that most of the financial firms that I'll be applying for will require fingerprinting for background checks, so does that mean that the rap sheet records that are sent to them from FBI and state will also contain the sealed records, will they show everything the same as if it was the rap sheet sent to me?

Also, I've read somewhere that financial firms have legal right to access FBI records, does that mean they can see even the sealed records?

Thanks in Advance
 


outonbail

Senior Member
The only thing I can suggest is for you to do a search on yourself and see what comes up.

There are quite a few on-line companies that will do criminal record searches as well as provide all sorts of other information on anyone you chose. They vary in cost, so do a google search on "Background searches" and/or "criminal record searches" and give one or two of them your information and see what they come up with.
 

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