ClassyFisherman

Definitely gotta be honest!! I’m not sure why but somehow people always assume that you’ve been arrested if you’ve ever had an indictment but I was never arrested, ever, for anything. Do I wait to be asked about it or do I bring it up myself at the interview?

I fully believe this. Thankfully I was never arrested and planning to always be honest but do I wait for them to ask about it or do I bring it up first?

Thank you! I’ll carry the documents with me to the interview.

I do understand that but did I have to disclose this now? Since it wasn’t an arrest or conviction?

I did. some more digging and it seems I was correct in the first place when I ticked off “no” according to uscis it isn’t a conviction if the outcome was “Nolle prosequi” I put “Nolle Prosequi” in the translator and it said the exact phrase it says in my court docs. So not a conviction. Should I still bring it up or wait for them to bring it up?

Yes. the case was dismissed before a trial even happened. This is what made me think it wasn’t a conviction. I’m beginning to think that the big factor deciding wether or not it counts as a conviction is the finding of guilt? It makes it even more complicated because the two countries laws are so different. From uscis I found this “If the accused is directed to attend a pre-trial diversion or intervention program, where no admission or finding of guilt is required, the order may not count as a conviction for immigration purposes.”

If it helps the exact verbiage was “refraining from prosecution under conditions and instructions.” meaning I had to pay the money back and they dropped the case before it ever came to a trial. Is this a conviction or no? Did I mess up by saying “no”?

I was not arrested. Just sent a letter from the court to tell us that they opened a case against me. The case was dismissed after I paid back the money they said I “gained” from it. Which was like 2000€ I think. This was all handled by the family lawyer and my father so I didn’t hear much about it. never went to court, never spoke with a judge or anyone for that matter. the court immediately said to pay the money back and dismissed the case.

I just realized a gigantic mistake and I need help trying to fix it. On my DS-260, for the question about having been convicted of a crime I checked “No” because I’ve never been arrested and thought I’d never been convicted because from what I understood my conviction had been forgone in the one criminal case I’d ever had to do with. When I was nineteen I was asked to court for “accessory to commit fraud” - but the case was ultimately closed and nothing came of it. The final paper said “case dismissed” so my brain thought this wasn’t a conviction. I never went to court and didn’t even have any of the documents. I can’t imagine I’m the only person this has happened to. If something was dismissed you automatically think it wasn’t a conviction don’t you? I was fully prepared to mention this case on my interview to be fully transparent and I had already set aside any documents I had to give to the consular officer despite it having been dismissed but I didn’t realize that this was considered a conviction or I would have clicked yes. I wasn’t at all trying to hide it. When we were filling out the form my husband and I googled what a conviction was and our findings brought us to think this wasn’t one. Our mistake seems to have been that we didn’t google wether this was a “conviction” in the eyes of immigration because in some back corner of the internet I finally found out that immigration has a different definition of the word than the “real world” My interview is this week and I just found out my mistake yesterday 😣 I have the papers and I’m still planning to bring it up at the interview but I’m terribly worried they’re going to think we ticked this box wrong on purpose. I want to do everything correctly and I’m already so upset I messed this up, how can I fix it now?