Need legal advice for a relative - Non-car related

[CV355]

Long story short...
18 years ago, a relative of mine got in trouble and had the book thrown at him in court (check fraud or something). He was given two options: 1) Go to court and get served with a felony and prison time, or 2) Boot camp. He chose boot camp. The court date was accelerated to a day before he was due at boot camp and he landed a felony charge. He then went on to serve in the Marines, toured in Iraq, came back, started his own business, and has been on the straight and narrow ever since.

FFW to present day. He still has the felony charge, which he is trying to get off his record. He has a court date on Tuesday to try to get this charge removed, and he is citing that he went to boot camp but the charge hit him anyway because the court date was accelerated back in '01.

If anyone on here with a law background can take a stab at this, what term can he use to describe what occurred? Is there legitimacy in this? Any advice?

 

[TK1299]

Sounds like he took a plea deal and went to boot camp, in which case it still counts as a conviction. The fact he served his country after and if he has continued as a model citizen then he has helped create a hardship argument to get the incident expunged. Unfortunately attorney fees will be in his future.

 

[CV355]

Sounds like he took a plea deal and went to boot camp, in which case it still counts as a conviction. The fact he served his country after and if he has continued as a model citizen then he has helped create a hardship argument to get the incident expunged. Unfortunately attorney fees will be in his future.

That sums it up, and I figured the same.

There's one detail that I'm confused about. Somewhere along the lines (back in '00/'01) he was told that he could not join the military if he had a felony on his name, and that the court case was bumped up to the day before he shipped off to BC. So, since the court case was bumped up and he was hit with the felony charge anyway, how could the military take him in? (I'm asking because I have no clue). Is that some sort of loophole, or a common occurrence?

I found out his court date for getting the record expunged is Tuesday.

 

[TK1299]

A recruiter would probably answer that better than I. I will take a shot in the dark and guess he wasn’t convicted before he signed on the dotted line to join the Marine Corp, so the recruiter was able to get him in. Just a guess though, but seems logical to me

 

[CV355]

A recruiter would probably answer that better than I. I will take a shot in the dark and guess he wasn’t convicted before he signed on the dotted line to join the Marine Corp, so the recruiter was able to get him in. Just a guess though, but seems logical to me

This is good! Make sense to me.

 

[TK1299]

Best of luck to your relative.

 

[CV355]

Apparently the court date went well.

 

[TK1299]

Apparently the court date went well.

All good then?

 

[CV355]

All good then?

Mostly. The judge asked for all documentation pertaining to his past case and the DA said they can't convict based on what was available. He basically had a case from '00/'01 re-opened due to procedural errors.

I'm hoping it works out for him.