I was falsely accused of assault & trespassing six months ago. When I finally went to court, my the two charges were dismissed.
My FSO has now contacted me to update my sf86 as this may “have a bearing on my eligibility.”
I will be updating the form, but I’m curious as to what can really happen. I literally did not commit any crime, and the charge was dismissed.
I’m not really nervous bc i did nothing wrong, but moreso concerned by the language in the email.
All of this is totally out of my control.
Was it reported in the required timeframe? That can still be an issue whether the charges were false, dismissed, or whatever. Also, they will get a police record which will give the story and not just the disposition. The story behind the charges are important as well. You can have charges dismissed without being completely innocent of wrongdoing.
I reported them as soon as it happened and with the outcome after court. There wasn’t a police report, just someone pressing charges.
I wasn’t arrested by police or anything.
If you made it to court there’s got to be some kind of police record of it. All I know about courtroom procedure I learned from TV but there must be some kind of paper trail on this (even if it is all digital)
In some, if not many states, individuals can direct file charges with a magistrate or prosecutor, without police involvement. In fact, in some cases, it is required, since police in many states can’t arrest for a misdemeanor outside of their presence.
What happens then is either (1) the alleged victim goes to the magistrate and presents his case. If the magistrate thinks there is probable cause, he issues a warrant to the sheriff’s office to serve or mails a letter to the defendant to come to court. (2) Police are called, they do their investigation and then present the case to the magistrate. Same process follows.
I’d like to thank all of you for your responses. The other individual got arrested for brandishing a firearm. There’s video footage of the entire incident, and he was the only person who left in cuffs. The charges were pressed soley for tactical legal moves. If they’re going to truly investigate this, I have zero worries. I’m just kind of blown away that it goes to this point when I never did anything and the charges were dismissed with zero contingencies.
evidence (including, but not limited to, a credible allegation, an admission, and matters of
official record) of criminal conduct, regardless of whether the individual was formally charged,
prosecuted, or convicted;
In other words, even if dismissed, the incident needs to be adjudicated. Based on what you mentioned above, likely will be favorably adjudicated but the government knows cases are dismissed for a variety of reasons and it is not always because it didn’t happen. Without further evidence, the dismissal should be enough but you certainly need to provide the answers which sounds like you did.