My shoplifting story from start to end, in New Jersey

Hi friends,
This forum has been extremely helpful to me for the past 1 month, and I thought of posting my experience which may help several other people who are passing through the harrowing experience and outcome of a shoplifiting arrest, and have a court date.
I am a 29 yr old Indian female living in New Jersey, and currently on H visa, and already applied for a Green card(permanent residency).

I was arrested for shoplifiting from a large retail chain on October end. The valuation of goods was $45. I was arrested with a disorderly offense, and subsequently released on bail of $750. My 1st court date(arraignment) was scheduled couple of days later. Immediately I hired a good defense attorney(you can get several references from the internet) who waived my presence on the arraignment date and pleaded not-guilty. Subsequently we were given a new court date , couple of days back from today.

So for 1 full month, I was left shocked and was terribly worried about what is going to happen. I saw several posts on this site, which helped me to get some idea. Meanwhile my defense attorney assured me, and because of my immigration status, she was shooting for a downgrade to municipal ordinance.

Now what happened in court 2days back: The court was running very late, and there were several people, mainly traffic violators in the court. From the retail store, the store personnel was there(who caught me at the store), and they had a private prosecutor. This was the 1st time I came across the concept of a private prosecutor. I never heard about one in the posts here. However, my attorney came, and started negotiating with the prosecutor. She tried to convince stating about my immigration status, and I should not really get a shoplifting conviction. It was very difficult to convince them, because the store personnel was not willing to accept. After a long series of negotiations, finally they did agree to a municipal ordinance violation with a higher fine($500 odd in my case). To those who might know what is a municipal ordinance, it is not a severe criminal conviction, it is something like an annoyance, disturbance, noise, and has almost minimal effects on immigration.

Finally the judge called us, read out the municipal ordinance and asked whether I plead guilty to that. I replied yes. The judge being very kind, granted me the ordinance violation with the fine. No probation, no community service..

I paid the fine at the court yesterday itself, and came back home with a relieved mind, and with a firm resolution of "NEVER SHOPLIFT". This is the message to all shoplifters.

I hope somebody here can shed a bit more light on New Jersey's "private prosecutors". It's an interesting concept.

Thank you for sharing your information here.
I have an exactly same situation but in ny.
.... I have court date in 2 weeks and I will answer that time.
Thank you so much for your sharing again. It's really helpful to me.

Do you still need to do an expungement?

Jerseyfriend,

Please give contact details of your attorney. I am in desperate need for some positivity.

Sincerely,
Trupti

I had the same story in October too.I caught for shoplifting for $135 in NJin a big chain store.It was just an accident.They caught me ,I paid $150 as "civil Penalty"I send to jail and there got a paper for court appearnce.I hired a defence atorny .On my first appearnce in the court on my atorny's advice I plead not guilty. No one was in the court from the store side. Then I got a new court date . My atorny did contact with the store manager for civil compromise but the manager refused. On my next court date my defence atorny talk to the store lawer about my case .we were ready to pay as much as fine they want just to avoid criminal record plus immigration problem (I am permanent resident but to apply for citizenship).I also plead guilty as disorderly person make noise in the store etc.I paid $568.as fine .May be its the same fine as you paid.My atorny said that it is less serious crime for immigration then the shoplifting .He thattold me that I will eligible to expunge my record after 5 years. Till then this crime will be in my record.One more thing I didn't get any document from court .Is it ok ?.I am still so worried about this .Did you get any document or paper for your record from court ?

Does any one know that after paid the fine for "Disorderly Person "does any body get copy of court discion for record to use in future for immigration or to expunge the record?
Thanx

If you don't get a copy of your disposition when you're sentenced, you can obtain a copy from the court clerk. There may be a small copying fee.

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Quoting aaron

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If you don't get a copy of your disposition when you're sentenced, you can obtain a copy from the court clerk. There may be a small copying fee.

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Ask for the copy to be certified.

I got the certified court disposition from the court clerk, right after my court date.. be sure to request the clerk to kmake it clear about what exactly the ordinance is(loitering/trersspassing/noise etc.), because by default they will document the act like ORD-14B etc.

as for the lawyer, I suppose we should not disclose lawyer names in the forum.. my lawyer was from www.njcrime.com