Curt581-
First off, I really appriciate the help you have given me. Opened a lot tonight.
Second off-
I never used my previous employer as any referance, or anyone connected with my previous employer. I don't LEGALLY have to use them on my applications. How did they find out? Background checks. It's one thing for me to live with the guilt and knowledge that I screwed up..but another for me to be denied by an employer because of something that is in my past.
Here is a little bit on what drove me to do this:
In late November, I got into a minor car accident. It was not my fault. I was pulling out of a parking space at about 9pm at night. It was pitch black out. As I was pulling out of my space, the motorist had no headlights on, had nothing alerting me that there was oncoming traffic. I was behind a SUV, so I could not see through to make sure, that is why I crept. I merley scratched the paint.
We got out, and I immediatley grabbed my insurance car and made sure the guy was okay. I asked him what to do. We both agreed that we should notify the police. We notified them, and an officer came out. He did the routine stuff, etc. The man did not want to report this to the insurance agency. The police officer asked me if it was something I would do, and I said sure. Me being 17, not wanting to notify my parents, and scared out of my mind, agreed with it. The Police Officer wrote up a accident report, that was non-insurance forming.
The man and I agreed to settle it with cash. I told him I would pay via cash to make him happy. He told me he would go and get an estimate done, and give me a call in 2-3 business days. I got a call, and he told me the estimate on a scratch 4 inches long was going to cost out of pocket $765. I agreed. Well, I agreed, but was unsure as to how I was going to get the money.
I told some of my co-workers what had happened, and a lot of them needed some money. Since I worked at the returns desk, we devised a plan to return merchandise that we never bought in the first place. It started as under $10 so we would not have to have a managers approval for a return. We started getting riskier, and started copying down Transaction Codes, using the amount from the receipt, and refunding the total purchase, making that customers receipt void.
All in all, we got about $3,113.59, and recovered enough to drop it below $2,500. I had already paid off the guy at this point...but we just kept doing it, and I was scared to even do it each time, but I gave into peer pressure too easily.
One day coming into work, I was called into the managers office. The Loss Prevention man was in there. He was interrogating me pretty much asking "Do you know why you are in here?" etc. I played dumb for about a minute, before I started telling him everything. My guilt, and my concious took over. I wrote down a statement, and they told me to wait for my mother to come and pick me up. Instead of my mother, I got two police officers... then my mother... after they had already arrested me and had me in handcuffs.
I was arrested in the office, and brought out to the police car. They brought me to Waukesha County Jail, and told me I was being "Booked and Released." They took my finger prints, my photo, and asked a lot of information. They told me I would be hearing from the Courts in a few days.
This was December 19th.
I got my first letter to appear in court on April 9th, 2007, and my first date was April 14th. I went there, and I plead guilty...me being stupid. The balif told me to follow her, and so I did. She told me that I needed to change my plea because I don't want a felony on my record, yadda yadda yadda. I just wanted it all to be done with that day... but here I am now.
I have no course of legal advise except from you, Curt. The person at the Public Defenders office told me that I would be receiving a letter from an attorney in about 2 days. Nothing came after two days. I found out who my PD was, and I called him everyday since I found out up until today. I don't know what the guy looks like, or if he even knows that he is representing me.
I'm now thinking it would have been in my best interest to take the money from my grandparents, and hired an attorney. I didn't do that because I felt I already did enough to everyone, and I didn't want to put anymore stress on myself, or anyone else.
As for the breakdown, there were a lot of things that were going on..
#1. My girlfriend and I were going through a rocky period in our relationship, but that's all worked out now, going strong for so long.
#2. Little did I know that 2 days later that my Appendix would burst. I was feeling like crap the whole week before, and leading up to everything, and two days after the incident, my appendix burst...leaving me hospitalized over holidays and family time. Not to mention all I wanted to do was have some alone time and straighten things out without anyone getting in my way of anything, but I had nurses, doctors, family, girlfriend all visiting me...acting like nothing happened. When I would try and bring it up with my parents, they told me we would talk about it later, and to not worry about it right now... kinda hard to worry about it when you just threw your whole life down the drain over something so stupid.
#3. School was not going good. I am usually an A-student, but I was stressing out over a few B-Marks...which is unacceptable. I was sick a lot, etc. just had a lot of stuff going on and I couldn't make it to school.
I'm not looking for a pity party here or anything, I was just looking to see what my options were, if anything other than a Misdeameanor A.
I don't know if it will help anything criminally wise but this is what my track-record looks like...
- All A's in school
- Had a really good record of attendance, up until I got sick.
- A state tittle in wrestling, and a state runner-up in wrestling
- No previous type of ANYTHING...not even a ticket in my life.
- I am very good... I am always trying to better myself education wise, aswell as in life in general.
I don't know... maybe I just have to bite the bullet and hope it gets expunged. I don't want to work for my father either...just not my thing.
