if a non-us citizen was found guilty of petit larceny (total amounting upto 68$USD; the one and only charge), given a year of probation and not charged any fine except for the court processing fee.

(1) how would this affect the person when he/she is asking for a status adjustment through a spouse whose green card is under processing.

(2) what can be done to get the records clean?

any other information that can be supplied in this regard will be greatly appreciated. thank you.

-- troy junior (sarvamsai@yahoo.com), January 24, 2002

Answers

On the face of it, this sounds good. Larceny (even petty larceny) is usually a crime of moral turpitude (which isn't good). However, with only one conviction, and a sentence under six months, you meet two of the three requirements for the petty offense exception to apply. The third element is that the maximum sentence possible for the offense is less than a year.

How or whether you can clean your record would depend on the law of the state where this happened. Here in Connecticut, it is extraordinarily difficult to vacate or erase an old conviction.

-- Michael Boyle (boylelaw@aol.com), January 25, 2002.