Plea Bargained Charge Wasn't Supposed to Fall Under the Lautenberg Amendment

[zoomz_99]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: I am in the military stationed in KY ,been in for 12 yrs with no UCMJ actions against me. Now my wife and I got into an argument and we were both charged for Assault Title 18 113(a)(4). Now on the citation the MP's , since this happened on post housing, put domestic in parentheses (domestic) along with the Title 18 113(a)(4). Now when we went to court the prosecutor brought me and her into a small room and discussed a plea agreement. With the plea agreement I would only do two days in jail, $85 fine and government will not identify the victim. Now I thought this was a good deal and also inquired to the prosecutor if I would be under the Lautenberg Amendment, if i was going to be able to continue with my career and if I was going to be able to get my personally owned weapons back. With all those questions he responded with yes i will be able to do all of the above like this never happened. So with this in mind I agreed to the plea agreement and the prosecutor and I signed a legal binding agreement. Now once signed we went into the court room plead guilty to assault. The judge signed off on it and I awaited for the US Marshals to contact me so that i can do my two days in jail. Now after everything is said and done. Confinement is complete, my $85 fine paid in full the day of court and I take all the paperwork to my Chain of Command all happy because now I can go on with my career and get my firearms. Nope, my Company commander takes the paperwork to legal to make sure he can give me back my weapons and that he is able to assign me my weapon back so i can continue with my job. Well brigade legal said , no don't assign him a weapon and keep his weapons locked up in the armsroom, since he falls under the Lautenberg Amendment. Once my brigade legal couldn't find the answers they went higher. Now this would be Administrative Law. They said I could either reenlist, ETS(expiration time of service), or be separated. If AdLaw did their research it says i can not reenlist if I am under the Lautenberg. So they do not know what they are talking about or did a piss poor job in researching. So right now I am stuck either ETSing or face possible separation. Now, how can i fall under this when the conviction did not even state the victim? And they would be going off general knowledge of who the victim was. Wouldn't they have to go off the conviction? In the conviction is does not state who the victim is. I have talked to legal services, civilian military lawyers, and also various other agencies including Police departments and Military Police to run background checks. It has been eight months since the incident and five months since the conviction.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If the plea bargain explicitly included the stipulation that the conviction charge would not trigger the Lautenberg Amendment, consult a criminal defense lawyer in the county in which you were convicted about the possibility of reopening the case to enforce the plea bargain. Otherwise, consider having a lawyer look into the case and perhaps contact the prosecutor to explore whether there are other potential grounds to reopen your case with or without the cooperation of the prosecutor. This doesn't sound like a do-it-yourself matter.