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Early Termination of Probation After 6 Months, Joining Navy
Our client always dreamed of becoming a movie star and living in Hollywood. In November 2019, at age 19, he moved from Florida to Hollywood on his own to pursue this dream. He found a place to live with some other guys who said they were into movies, too. His mom, who raised him as a single mom, was concerned and skeptical, but allowed him to move 3,000 miles across the country to follow his dream.
Our client did not know what kind of movies his housemates liked. His naivete and ambitions overpowered his common sense of inquiring any further.
After our client settled into the house and unpacked his belongings in a room he agreed to rent, he found out that the other guys were producing gay pornographic movies. They told him he would have to participate in such movies to continue to stay in the house.
Our client was shocked and upset. He had nowhere else to live, but he hurriedly packed up his belongings and left the house. He tried calling his mom in Florida for advice.
He then went into a McDonald’s on Sunset Boulevard to gather his thoughts. After a while, as he had not purchased anything and was still in shock, a manager came to speak to him and asked him to leave. Our client refused, commenting, “No, McDonald’s is a family-friendly place, so I’m not leaving.” When asked to leave by a security guard, he responded by taking his suitcases and going into the restroom, where he locked the door and refused to come out.
Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Courts Building CCB LAPolice were then called and our client was arrested for trespassing. He also resisted the officers, which led to officers tackling our client to handcuff him. Two officers suffered cuts on their arms and neck from our client.
The client was eventually released from custody upon signing a promise to appear in court at a future date. The client then went straight back to Florida and, after a few weeks, his mom called Greg Hill & Associates.
The mom described what had happened and when her son’s arraignment would be. After hiring Greg Hill & Associates, she also provided information that her son was now intending to join the Navy. Her son had scored extremely high on the ASVAB test, so a recruiter was keen to have her son enlist.
As a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a member of the Academy’s admissions board for over 15 years, Greg was familiar with requirements for joining the Navy. He explained to the client’s mom that it might be difficult (or even barred) for her son to enlist if her son was on probation or if the case was filed as a felony. A felony filing was possible because the client injured two Hollywood Police Department police officers, causing them to bleed.
Greg then appeared in the Clara Shortridge Foltz criminal courts building and, quite luckily, the case was not filed as a felony. It was instead filed as a misdemeanor, but with charges of trespassing and two counts of obstructing, delaying and resisting arrest.
Over the period of the next several months with four or five pre-trial hearings, Greg was able to resolve the case for one count of obstructing, delaying or resisting arrest, a violation of Penal Code § 148(a)(1), a misdemeanor. This took place in September 2020, or ten months after the incident.
The resolution involved just one year of informal probation. The client was placed on just one year of informal probation and ordered to stay away from the McDonald’s in question, which was no problem for our client, as he was living 3,000 miles away in Florida. The client also had to pay certain court fees totaling $220.
The client’s mom quickly paid the court fees for her son and asked if Greg could get probation terminated early, as the Navy recruiter advised her that her son could not join the Navy if on any form of probation.
Greg asked for documentation from the Navy recruiter stating that the client was otherwise qualified to enlist and the mom provided this.
Greg then filed a motion for early termination of probation after just six months of probation being served. The motion explained and showed documentary proof that our client was trying to enlist in the Navy, but was barred from completing this due to his probationary status.
The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office did not oppose the motion and the judge granted the motion, which made both the client’s mom and the client quite happy.
Greg Hill & Associates then moved forward with filing a petition for dismissal (“expungement”) for the client, which was also granted.
For more information about early termination of probation and expungement, please click on the following articles:
