Does an expunged arrest prevent me from entering the Air Force?
July 18, 2010 3:33 AM   Subscribe

Will I be rejected by the Air Force due to a charge that was "expunged"?

I am aware that the criminal background check by the military is the most thorough out there. This happened over five years ago and I was found not guilty. Does this matter or does any spatter on your past have implications?

Does it matter what the charges were? To be more specific, the charges are non violent and non drug related. I laugh about it now, but at the time it was a nightmare: I was at a party where a prostitution sting went on and I was mistaken for a lady of the night. Ha-ha.

My lawyer said that although these charges are "expunged" ... anyone who wants to really find it can. That is not reassuring to me.
posted by ilovehistory to Law & Government (13 answers total)
 
You were found non-guilty. That's what matters.
posted by knz at 3:43 AM on July 18, 2010


If you don't want people to be able to track down an unfortunate incident in your past, asking questions with your username here is probably not a great idea. You really ought to memail a mod to anonymize this.
posted by rodgerd at 4:09 AM on July 18, 2010


call a recruiter.
posted by lemniskate at 4:23 AM on July 18, 2010


Even if you had been convicted multiple times, the military has had a "moral waiver" system in place due to difficulties in recruiting.

Full disclosure to your recruiter is your friend, of course.
posted by availablelight at 4:54 AM on July 18, 2010


If your chosen field will require a security clearance, tell them. No ifs, ands or buts. Not only is it not as bad as what you think, but the act of not telling them everything about your background can be prosecuted as a criminal act.

Expungement is an upsell from your attorney, for all the good it does on deep background investigations.
posted by Mooski at 5:13 AM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I'm confused. How does my username reveal anything about me to other users? I didn't create a profile or anything. Thanks for the heads up though.
posted by ilovehistory at 5:26 AM on July 18, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'm confused. How does my username reveal anything about me to other users? I didn't create a profile or anything. Thanks for the heads up though.

Better safe than sorry and all that jazz.
posted by InsanePenguin at 5:53 AM on July 18, 2010


These kinds of checks are done to find things you didn't disclose partially in case you didn't disclose something really terrible, but primarily to check to see if you are trustworthy.

Not telling them about an expunged arrest is a thousand times worse than telling them you were arrested once and found not guilty.

It shouldn't matter what the likelihood is of them finding out, if they're asking questions that should yield this information as an answer, you need to give it to them, background information or not, partially because that's the right thing to do, but also because the consequences for lying are gigantically disproportionate to those for being arrested and found not guilty.
posted by toomuchpete at 5:57 AM on July 18, 2010


You absolutely have to tell them, but it probably won't keep you out of the Air Force.

The background checks for security clearances are conducted to see if there is anything you haven't told them that could be used as leverage to get you to provide information should not be shared.

Even if you don't tell them, they will find out. The fact that the charge was expunged will (very effectively) back up your position that you were not guilty.
posted by jshort at 6:10 AM on July 18, 2010


Having been through the process, I'm nthing full disclosure. They want the sort that will stand in front of their past anyway, not hide from it. That you were found not guilty and the charge expunged is just more evidence that you're USAF material. (IANAAFR)
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:51 AM on July 18, 2010


My father was in the USAF and had omega clearance for a short time. He always said, what they're most concerned about is risk exposure. They don't want you to have a problem that makes you in any way susceptible to foreign influence. So, they don't want gamblers (or anyone with heavy debts). They don't want people with skeletons that are still in their closets getting extorted.

But I think the problem here isn't the OP's issues of embarrassment, but the legal question of whether you are allowed deny something if its been "expunged?" I think that the specific question that was asked would make a big difference in how you're allowed to answer (i.e., have you ever been arrested for anything? v. have you ever been convicted of anything?)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:52 AM on July 18, 2010


The big disqualifiers are usualy felonies, domestic violence, and drugs (any of those means you cannot possess firearms).

Since you said it was non-violent and non-drug, as well as the fact that you were not convicted, you should be fine. A recruiter would be able to tell you for certain, however.
posted by C17H19NO3 at 9:28 AM on July 18, 2010


Are you enlisting, or looking for a commission (I can see that you have a degree from some previous questions)? As others have said, the fact that the record was expunged should = no problem, although you should definitely disclose when asked about prior criminal history. However, if you want to be an officer then sometimes they can get a little weird about things like this, even though it really shouldn't make a difference.
posted by _cave at 10:37 AM on July 18, 2010


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