My question involves criminal law for the state of: Florida
I have been on probation in Florida for the last two and a half years for a charge of Grand theft auto. It was misunderstanding with a rental car but my Public defender recommended I plead no contest in return for a witheld adjudication as I had no prior criminal history. I pleaded and stated probation but I was violated six months in due to moving without notifying my PO. I then was reinstated to drug offender probation ( I also failed urinanalysis) and told to attend a drug evaluation. This was in November 0f 2006. Since then I have not been in any trouble, reported on time to PO, attended drug evaluation, passed all drug tests, and began to make payments to my restitution of approximately 3000 dollars. The problem is that in July of this year I was cut back to part time hours making it difficult to make ends meet. On top of that I have a infant daughter who was born in August to compound my financial issues. I have been barely able to make rent and my PO understands and is sympathetic. I went to see her last month and she told me she will submit a request to convert my restitution to a civil lien as I am schdeuled to terminate probation on the 10th of December. I go to see her for my last visit on Dec. 3rd and I am wodering two things:
1) What do you think the Judge will do? Do they normally follow the recommendation of the PO? I work in the computer field with over 10 years of experience and my main roadblock of finding a new full time job is the fact that I am on probation and I always get a background check. My old job knows about my probation but other companies are not as lenient.
2) Will this civil lien if I get it be a disqualifying factor in the sealing of my record after I terminate. As I have said the background check is killing my job search so getting my record sealed is a top priority.
Any advice or knowledge in this matter would be helpful. Thanks for takingthe time to read this.

