In September to be exact, my younger brother age 15 physically , brutally attacked me I was 18 (5'2) vs (5'10) 15 yr old; I called the police because I thought my nose was broken because of the excessive bleeding, however 5 troops came to the house an ambulance the whole 9 yards, afterwards they took are reports and just when they were about to arrest him he mentioned that I hit him back , so they arrested me and charged me with child abuse , I spent a night in jail and went to court the judge released me without a bond than my brother and I wrote a letter to the state attorney explaining why we don't want to press charges so than the state dismissed the case , so I went to pay the court fee and the lady was still able to pull up that felony ? Can a employer do the same ?
Michael Leonard MastrogiovanniDUI / DWI AttorneyNew Port Richey, FL ·
If you were an adult at the time, then yes this charge will come up each time someone runs a background check on you. It will show up as a child abuse charge and may not be easily recognized that the charge was dismissed. Often the stigma alone of being linked to a charge like this can detour employers.
The best option is to have the case expunged if you have never been convicted of a crime anywhere and at anytime. Then your charge will be removed from any court and sheriff websites other than public search engines i.e. mugshots.com
Feel free to contact my office if you would like any further information regarding this process. If you choose to do this yourself, check the FDLE website as they provide guidance about how the process is completed.
The arrest is public record even though the charges were dropped. It will always show until and unless you expunge your record. Since the case was dropped by the state, typically called a nolle prosse, you are eligible for expungement of your record. This means it will be removed from public view and not accessible to employers (with a few exceptions).
John S. Riordan, Esq.
West Palm Beach, FL
(561) 650-8291
If the arrest was reported to the FBI's criminal history data-base NCIC, then state remedies such as expungement will not cause a removal of the record from the data-base, but the additional info of the State remedy will be added to your NCIC report. You can go to the FBI website and order up a copy of your criminal record as it appears in that data-base for a very small fee.
