Norwalk, Grand Theft Conviction Vacated (PC 1437(a)(1))

About ten years ago, in 2013, our client was working as a financial controller at a Norwalk hotel and committed grand theft of about $5,500. This was soon discovered and reported to the police, who arrested our client.

At the time, our client was 45 years old. He had immigrated to the United States alone from India twenty-three years earlier, in 1990, on a work permit to escape the discrimination and poor treatment he suffered there because he was a member of one of the lowest classes there. In 1992, he became a legal resident here.

He wanted a better life. He only returned to India one time, in 1994, when his father died. His mom and sister thereafter moved to England. All his cousins, aunts and uncles also left India, many to Australia.

After being arrested for grand theft, our client was put in jail and could not afford to post bail. So, he sat in the Los Angeles County jail for about two months, into 2014, when he entered a no contest plea in Norwalk Superior Court to violating Penal Code § 487(a), “grand theft,” as a felony.

At the time, he only accepted the deal because he so desperately wanted to get out of jail. His public defender told him nothing about the adverse immigration consequence of plea. Our client had no idea he could be deported or denied citizenship in the U.S. based on such a conviction.

He was placed on three years of formal probation with no obligations other than to report to his probation officer and pay restitution to the hotel for the amount he stole. Our client paid back all restitution in about a year.

In 2021, our client asked the judge to reduce his felony to a misdemeanor and the judge did so.

At this point in his life, he was married and interested in becoming a U.S. citizen, so in 2022, he went to an immigration attorney who told him to speak to Greg Hill to file a motion to vacate the conviction. Indeed, a conviction for violating § 487(a) is a crime involving moral turpitude. See U.S.C. §§ 1101(f))(8) , 1101(a)(43)(U), 1427(a)(3) (must have good moral character to naturalize).

The client then called Greg Hill & Associates and discussed his case with Greg Hill. He explained that when he entered his plea to a felony in 2014, he did not regard any immigration warning as applying to him because he was a permanent resident.

Moreover, he had been in court and observed the judge give a similar admonition to every person entering a plea, even those who appeared to be obvious U.S. citizens. Our client considered the admonition “script” the judge read as mandatory for the judge to give to each defendant entering a plea, regardless of whether it applied, and that it often did not apply to each defendant. Our client did not believe it applied to him.

Moreover, he was too intimidated by his public defender to ask him questions about any consequences of the conviction that he had. He therefore followed all his advice, which was to enter a nolo contendere plea to the Penal Code § 487(a) charge.

The client explained that had he known of the immigration consequences at the time he entered his plea, he would not have done so. He knew no one back in India. No one in his family had lived there in almost 20 years. He had lived the American dream here, working hard and enjoying life based on grit and tenacity.

Had he known there were such consequence, the client would have insisted that his attorney continue plea bargaining, perhaps to an immigration-neutral charge such as a conviction for Penal Code § 459 (burglary) or he would have proceeded to trial.

The client then retained Greg Hill & Associates, who then prepared, filed and appeared at the hearing on the motion to vacate under Penal Code § 1473.7(a)(1). The motion was filed in the Norwalk Superior Court and after three appearances on the motion, the motion was granted.

When the motion was granted, the plea was vacated and the case is supposed to start all over with an arraignment on the complaint. However, the district attorney assigned to the case announced she was unable to proceed, so Greg made a motion to dismiss the complaint, which the judge granted under Penal Code § 1385.

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