A criminal conviction for embezzlement can significantly hinder your opportunities to move with your life after you have completed whatever criminal penalties your convictions forced you to complete. For this reason, many in your same position have come to us here at Sapone & Petrillo, LLP asking if such an offense can be expunged from their public record. While that state of New York certainly does not want to hinder your chances of success following a criminal conviction, it does not provide a means through which an embezzlement conviction (or any criminal conviction, for that matter) to be expunged. However, it does allow your record to be sealed.
Having a record sealed differs from expungement in that details of a conviction remain on your public record. However, those details cannot be accessed through standard means (e.g., a background check). Thus, your conviction would not appear on a mandatory check that comes with applying for a job or a loan; anyone who wanted to see it would first have to obtain a court order to do so. In fact, you may technically be able to deny that you were ever found guilty of a crime in the first place.
The requirements to have a criminal record sealed can be found in Section 160.59 of New York’s Criminal Procedure Law. It states here that 10 years has to have passed from the date you sentence was imposed or (if you were incarcerated) the date your period of incarceration was completed. Only violent Class A felony convictions are typically excluded from eligibility to be sealed, your conviction for embezzlement can technically be considered depending on the circumstances of your case.
You can learn more about dealing with embezzlement charges by continuing to browse through our site.