Legal Question in Criminal Law in New York

In the NY Penal Law, �Exposure of a Person� is an offense that is a �violation,� which is on the same level as a �traffic infraction� (as far as the hierarchy of lesser offenses goes). It is less than the misdemeanor of Public Lewdness, which carries more of a pejorative connotation and which is morally more distasteful than what you to admitted in court to doing. You essentially pled guilty to exposing yourself in public without any ill intent. Public Lewdness, on the other hand, contains ill intent and is meant to alarm or harm others. As such, in your case, you will not have a criminal record (in the sense that you will not have a criminal conviction for a crime). The record of your having pleaded guilty to this infraction will generally be sealed in the local NY court records after one year. However, your arrest and infraction will generally appear in the FBI record as something that historically occurred, i.e., that you were arrested and pled guilty to this infraction. Whether it will be, in fact sealed, in the NY court records is another matter. Most violations are automatically sealed by operation of law, after the end of the required conditional discharge period that would have accompanied your guilty plea and sentence. However, the right to have the record sealed can be �waived� by a defendant, through your lawyer during negotiations, at the request of the judge or prosecutor, as sometimes occurs with violations pleas in courts in Nassau County, Long Island, for example. You must check with your lawyer if there was such a waiver in your case. Plus the are many violation convictions that fall through the cracks and do not get properly sealed. Best of Luck!