After your brush with Lake Mary police and the 18th Judicial Circuit Court system is over, your attorney may have negotiated a plea deal with the prosecutor. You might not have to serve jail time, or your conviction for a first DUI is a misdemeanor, and you are put on probation with mandatory counseling. If you have a professional license; such as medical, nursing, accounting, commercial driver, and many others; do not forget one of the most important tasks you need to do.
You must report the outcome of your case to your professional licensing board or to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). Do not jeopardize your career by neglecting to complete this requirement. Our criminal defense attorneys understand that you want to put this ordeal behind you, and we can help you after a failure to report a conviction or plea in Lake Mary.
Overall, if you are a licensed professional and have been convicted of a misdemeanor, felony, or entered a plea of no contest or guilty in exchange for a reduced penalty, you must report the outcome to your licensing board or the DBPR within 30 days, according to Florida Statutes § 455.227.
However the rules are more stringent for teachers, who must report to the Florida Department of Education any arrest or charge involving child abuse or drugs. This requirement alerts the department that you are entangled in the system, compromising your ability to be a role model to children, although no action will be taken until the adjudication of your case. While you might absent-mindedly fail to report an arrest or plea bargain before a conviction, our Lake Mary attorneys will make sure everything is addressed.
Your licensing board has wide discretion concerning your penalties, from fines, suspension for a fixed period, or revocation in the most troubling cases. Oversight is meant to discover behavior which makes a professional unfit to practice. The most severe penalties are administered when the infraction relates directly to the profession.
For instance, an entrepreneur and their accountant can be arrested for embezzlement from a special needs trust fund. An accountant who commits a monetary crime will suffer harsher penalties than an architect with a first DUI because one crime relates to a fiduciary duty and the other does not. Other infractions that are likely to draw the stiffest penalties include:
Our attorney services can benefit you from the moment you are arrested or charged because they encompass building the best defense for your criminal case, and handling the requirements your professional licensing board imposes. For the best outcome, call the aggressive and compassionate lawyers to advocate for you after a failure to report a conviction or plea deal in Lake Mary.
Your licensing board periodically sweeps criminal databases and cross-checks professionals to determine if they reported the proper information. Often, a professional’s name will come up if someone files a complaint against them.
You will be notified by your board that an investigation has been opened concerning your criminal history and failure to report, and you will have 20 days to respond in writing. Your attorney can draft the response after reviewing the file obtained from your professional licensing board. If there has been a failure to report a conviction or plea agreement in Lake Mary, the investigation will continue, although your attorney can intercede and represent you to mitigate the severest penalties.
If you are a licensed professional who accepts a plea agreement or is convicted of a crime in Florida, you may not realize that you must report it to your licensing board. Penalties can range from fines to revocation of your license if your conviction relates to your job; for instance, if you plead no contest to charges that you embezzled from a client who entrusted you to manage their assets, and the court agrees.
Our attorneys are thoroughly versed in how regulations work for Florida professionals. We will identify all mitigating circumstances and work tirelessly to get you the ideal outcome. You have worked hard to get where you are in life, and we will not let failure to report a conviction or plea in Lake Mary stop you now. Contact our office today.
The Umansky Law Firm Criminal Defense & Injury Attorneys
