Domestic Violence related interview experience

Case Vacated and Nolle Prosse

First of all my appreciation and thanks to JohnnyCash, Bobsmyth and many others for their guidance and encouragement at various points when I was confused and fearful.

Today, my old and only domestic violence case was vacated and the state dismissed the case as the state filed "Nolle Prosse" in the court. The court set aside the judgement, withdrew the adjudication and set aside the prior conviction.

Thanks.
 
Old conviction vacated with a new "Nolle Prosse"

I had an old conviction of With-held Adjudication of Guilt which was successfully vacated today and the state filed "Nolle Prosse" which means that the old judgment is totally wiped out (as per my understanding). Now how to answer the question 18 (listed below) in N-400 application. Is the answer to the following question still "Yes" or now can I safely answer it as "No"?

Q18. Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offense?

Secondly, can I re-apply n-400 now or I need to wait for a certain amount of time. If so, when can I safely re-apply N-400.


Happy for you man!! Congrats!
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Ganjik, thanks for your kind words.
 
ACD and Naturalization

Fellows, I was going through a bitter divorce and my ex filed a false case against me for violation of order of protection. I was arrested and pleaded not guilty. When prosecutor found out that the case is false, they offered me what is called ACD -adjournment in cotemplation of dismissal for one year. The case recently got completely dismissed. There was no fine or anger management class was ordered.

My question is
1. Am I safe for N-400 naturalization process
2. Does anyone know a good immigration/criminal lawyer in New York area
 
manny93 said:
Fellows, I was going through a bitter divorce and my ex filed a false case against me for violation of order of protection. I was arrested and pleaded not guilty. When prosecutor found out that the case is false, they offered me what is called ACD -adjournment in cotemplation of dismissal for one year. The case recently got completely dismissed. There was no fine or anger management class was ordered.

My question is
1. Am I safe for N-400 naturalization process
2. Does anyone know a good immigration/criminal lawyer in New York area
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Did you plead guilty? If the prosecutor thought the case was false, should they just completely with draw the case? ACD is sually for the offender who they thinbk really did it but they want to give a chance as first timke offenders etc.
 
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manny93 said:
Fellows, I was going through a bitter divorce and my ex filed a false case against me for violation of order of protection. I was arrested and pleaded not guilty. When prosecutor found out that the case is false, they offered me what is called ACD -adjournment in cotemplation of dismissal for one year. The case recently got completely dismissed. There was no fine or anger management class was ordered.

My question is
1. Am I safe for N-400 naturalization process
2. Does anyone know a good immigration/criminal lawyer in New York area
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This shouldn't be an issue for naturalization process. Just bring your court documents to interview.
 
Acd and false case

WBH said:
Did you plead guilty? If the prosecutor thought the case was false, should they just completely with draw the case? ACD is sually for the offender who they thinbk really did it but they want to give a chance as first timke offenders etc.
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Dear Fellows!!! To answer your question, I did not plead guilty. It is a woman's world in all domestic and divorce related cases. Even if you did not do anything or there is a false report or a simple false allegation. Judges issue order of protection and one year ACDs for only reason to avoid any further escalation and to be on the safe side.

I asked the DA to file charges against my ex-wife for filing false case and he said, oh women do this a lot, we will let her go this time and if she does it again, we will think about it. I am sure, if I would have filed a false case, I will be in jail. Then I asked for complete dismissal, Prosecutor said he has to hold a formal trial for that. This meant another $5000 in my legal fees and what if my wife showed up with some false story with crocodile tears in her eyes and carrying a baby. So my lawyer after consulting himself with an immigration attorney advised ACD will be best
 
I consulted to several lawyers since I had a similar case. I asked several of them if it would be possible to convince prosecutor to file "lying to police officer" charge against my ex-gf. Basically what all lawyers told me was that DA wouldn't do it. They have a policy to encourage reporting of Domestic Violence cases since many cases go unreported. So filing a charge for false report would discourage people to report potential DV cases. Basically all of them said it would be impossible. My charge was dropped. But i have an arrest record for life and a feeling that justice has not been served for me. If not for my GC position I would probably pursued this case to the trial hoping truth would come out in the end. But I have much more to loose in case trial would not go into my way. As my laywer said he saw innocent people got convicted. So I decided just to drop all this and go on with my life. Still 1.5 year later I have this feeling that I still need to explain this case over and over again even though my charge was dropped. And still constantly worried about my upcoming citizenship process.


manny93 said:
Dear Fellows!!! To answer your question, I did not plead guilty. It is a woman's world in all domestic and divorce related cases. Even if you did not do anything or there is a false report or a simple false allegation. Judges issue order of protection and one year ACDs for only reason to avoid any further escalation and to be on the safe side.

I asked the DA to file charges against my ex-wife for filing false case and he said, oh women do this a lot, we will let her go this time and if she does it again, we will think about it. I am sure, if I would have filed a false case, I will be in jail. Then I asked for complete dismissal, Prosecutor said he has to hold a formal trial for that. This meant another $5000 in my legal fees and what if my wife showed up with some false story with crocodile tears in her eyes and carrying a baby. So my lawyer after consulting himself with an immigration attorney advised ACD will be best
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Similar case in ganjik

GANJIK, We both have similar cases. One more thing, the arrest came up in my recent employment application. One employer a big bank totally refused and for the other bank I had to hire a lawyer, who dealt with HR and resolved the matter.

Anyway, we are both bitten by same beast. Are you in New York area. Do you know a good lawyer
 
DV02, Which lawyer did you use to vacate your case? I need to do this too. Thank you for your time.
 
hi! my ex-girlfriend filed a restraining order last november and it was granted this january. is it a domestic violence case? i am a GC holder and im planning to go out of the country for a week. will there be any problems? i've been reading here that domestic violence is a ground for deportation that's why i want to find out if my case is a domestic violence.

thank you
 
Nicejoe,

You need to hire a local attorney so you can talk and discuss the issue. The attorney has to be competent and also communicative. I had hired an attorney to file to vacate my case but I found out later that this attorney is very lazy, unfriendly and wasn't doing the right thing though he filed the 3.850 (motion to vacate). I then had to fire the initial attorney who filed my motion to vacate and then hire another attorney to take over the case in the middle. The second attorney did an excellent job to communicate with the state attorney (very important) and plan out a deal before the appearance in front of the judge.

Overall, I was successful and I'm willing to share the info about my attorneys. Please send a message to my inbox.

Thanks.
 
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jayjaydlc,

Just a restraining order doesn't create a domestic violence incident. But if there was a domestic violence incident and you have with-held adjudication or you were found guilty in the domestic violence case by the court, then it might affect your status or/and have issues at re-entry on your return back to USA. But if it's just a restraining order, then you should be fine. But you may want to consult an competent immigration attorney before your trip abroad.

Thanks and Good Luck.

jayjaydlc said:
hi! my ex-girlfriend filed a restraining order last november and it was granted this january. is it a domestic violence case? i am a GC holder and im planning to go out of the country for a week. will there be any problems? i've been reading here that domestic violence is a ground for deportation that's why i want to find out if my case is a domestic violence.

thank you
Click to expand...
 
jayjaydlc said:
hi! my ex-girlfriend filed a restraining order last november and it was granted this january. is it a domestic violence case? i am a GC holder and im planning to go out of the country for a week. will there be any problems? i've been reading here that domestic violence is a ground for deportation that's why i want to find out if my case is a domestic violence.

thank you
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The question is why did she take out a restraining order against you? Is there a recorded history of abuse where the police was involved in past?
 
Thanks for the replies.

The story is a day after me and my ex-gf had an argument, my ex-gf moved out from our apartment. She forgot to bring with her some of her stuff. 3 weeks after the argument, it was her bday and I went to her aunt's house to greet her and give back all her stuff. When I arrived to the house, I saw her with her cousins getting in a car. I followed them and next thing I knew, there's a cop behind me. They called the cops and said, I was stalking them. I went to jail and got bailed out. She filed charges against me which is stalking with threat to kill her. After 2 months, we went to court and she got the restraining order she wanted. My lawyer asked her to tell the judge the reason why she's asking for the restraining order is because I am constantly bothering my ex to talk to me. And she agreed to that. Now that I have the restraining order, I still have to go to another hearing because of the stalking part. First, it was on a criminal level. Then my lawyer brought it down to a misdemeanor level. Now, I have to go to that hearing on April. I want to have a vacation on march, do you guys think it will be a problem when I get back to US? And what do you think of my case?will it affect my status or when I apply for citizenship?
 
jayjaydlc said:
Thanks for the replies.

The story is a day after me and my ex-gf had an argument, my ex-gf moved out from our apartment. She forgot to bring with her some of her stuff. 3 weeks after the argument, it was her bday and I went to her aunt's house to greet her and give back all her stuff. When I arrived to the house, I saw her with her cousins getting in a car. I followed them and next thing I knew, there's a cop behind me. They called the cops and said, I was stalking them. I went to jail and got bailed out. She filed charges against me which is stalking with threat to kill her. After 2 months, we went to court and she got the restraining order she wanted. My lawyer asked her to tell the judge the reason why she's asking for the restraining order is because I am constantly bothering my ex to talk to me. And she agreed to that. Now that I have the restraining order, I still have to go to another hearing because of the stalking part. First, it was on a criminal level. Then my lawyer brought it down to a misdemeanor level. Now, I have to go to that hearing on April. I want to have a vacation on march, do you guys think it will be a problem when I get back to US? And what do you think of my case?will it affect my status or when I apply for citizenship?
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Here are the original words regarding deportability of domestic violence, stalking, violation of protection order etc INA 237 (a)(2)(E).

You can examine these to see if they are applicable to your case or not.

E) 6/ Crimes of Domestic violence, stalking, or violation of protection order, crimes against children and.-


(i) Domestic violence, stalking, and child abuse.-Any alien who at any time after entry is convicted of a crime of domestic violence, a crime of stalking, or a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment is deportable. For purposes of this clause, the term "crime of domestic violence" means any crime of violence (as defined in section 16 of title 18, United States Code) against a person committed by a current or former spouse of the person, by an individual with whom the person sha res a child in common, by an individual who is cohabiting with or has cohabited with the person as a spouse, by an individual similarly situated to a spouse of the person under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction where the offense occurs, or by any other individual against a person who is protected from that individual's acts under the domestic or family violence laws of the United States or any State, Indian tribal government, or unit of local government.



(ii) Violators of protection orders.-Any alien who at any time after entry is enjoined under a protection order issued by a court and whom the court determines has engaged in conduct that violates the portion of a protection order that involves protection against credible threats of violence, repeated harassment, or bodily injury to the person or persons for whom the protection order was issued is deportable. For purposes of this clause, the term "protection order" means any injunction issued fo r the purpose of preventing violent or threatening acts of domestic violence, including temporary or final orders issued by civil or criminal courts (other than support or child custody orders or provisions) whether obtained by filing an independent action or as a pendente lite order in another proceeding.

http://www.uscis.gov/propub/DocView/slbid/1/2/65?hilite=
 
I want to know if the restraining order I got is considered a domestic violence (DM) charge? I've been reading here that DM is a ground for deportation.
 
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