Arrest Expungement

How do I know if I am eligible to expunge my arrest record? So essentially taking your FBI file from something that would have the arrest information and then sort of court information, even if the matter was dismissed, to a clean FBI Rapsheet response, which would just have your name, date of birth, and an indication that there was no record. I work with my clients in Washington State to do a request to expunge the non-conviction data with the Washington State Patrol.

Eligibility, one, enough time has to have passed. It has to have been 3 years since the date of the arrest or 2 years since it became non-conviction data, so either the dismissal date or the date that they did no charges files. The second thing is that you can’t, generally, have any arrests or charges since it happened. The third thing is that you can’t have any prior convictions for a gross misdemeanor or a felony. Finally, it can’t have been dismissed by way of a deferred prosecution or “similar.” So, a deferred sentence or generally something where there is an admission of guilty and a heavy-handed punishment.

If you meet those requirements, you may be able to expunge your arrest with the Washington State Patril. I work with clients regularly with this. It’s a pretty smooth process when you work with an attorney. Feel free to give my office a call.

Question: What does your criminal record look like if you have been arrested, meaning fingerprinted and either administratively or literally booked for an offense but not convicted, either it got dismissed or did not get charged. Answer: Your FBI record is still going to reflect the case information as well as the arrest data. The file in the video is from Google Images, because I’m not even showing my client’s redacted stuff.

But essentially, an arrest will still come back on the FBI file with the arresting data, the agency, and the change. Then it will have court data, maybe it will say dismissed on date. In order to remove that information from your FBI file, I work with clients in Washington State to expunge their arrest record, which removes the record from the Washington State Patrol non-conviction database as well as the FBI database, so that when an FBI report is run, it says your date of birth and name and says that there is no information for you.

So, that is the process to get your FBI record cleaned up if you have an arrest on your record. People do this for immigration, travel, employment, security clearances. My office helps people with this in Washington State only.

In this post I want to talk about expunging an arrest and what that means and how the process works and how a Washington state expungement lawyer can help you with it. So, there are situations where someone is arrested for a crime and then they are charged with the crime maybe they are not charged with the crime, but it results without a conviction. Maybe you entered into some type of a deal with the prosecutor where it would stay not a conviction if you complied with the terms, such as a stipulated order of continuance, maybe you were found not guilty, maybe charges were never filed.

If you have an arrest but not a conviction, you may qualify to expunge the arrest record. It is a paperwork process I help clients with, it involves sending a fingerprinting kit and prepared paperwork as well as a self-addressed stamped envelope for me. I get it back, write a letter and send it to the Washington State Patrol.

What that essentially does as clears the arrest from the Washington State Patrol database and then they are the repository or holder of records and then they send that information to the FBI for the FBI to update their databases as well. Expunging an arrest is something that people consider when they are having issues with travel, perhaps for immigration, employment or housing or just to feel like you have a clean slate. My office can help. Please give me a call.