Legal Question in Criminal Law in Texas

expunging records from false accusation

My husband was informed that he had a report of sexual assault in his background check.

In 1994 I had been receiving harassing phone calls from a woman. After asking the woman to stop calling me at home and work, my husband and I finally resorted to filing a harassment charge. The woman warned me if I did report this our lives would be ruined and she would see to that personally. We brought a tape recording of this statement to the police when the harrassment claim was filed. Just as she had promised, the woman filed a report the very next day with the same police dept claiming she was sexually assaulted by my husband the month before.

We were never even notified of any

court proceedings (or her filing this report) or allowed to defend my husbands reputation. Thankfully it was obvious even to the officers this was a planned retaliation effort. The charges were ''no billed'' by a grand jury and the case was closed. He was never notified of this charge and of course never arrested or charged with anything. We have obtained records of both filings and want to find out how to expunge it from personal records used to determine credit and employment worthiness.

How can this be removed from the record?


Asked on 2/15/01, 12:32 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Charles Aspinwall Charles S. Aspinwall, J.D., LLC

Re: expunging records from false accusation

Generally speaking, it is not legally permissible for one to be refused employment or credit when there has been no criminal conviction. Of course it is usually impossible to determine that mere charges are the basis upon which the applications were refused.

Since the records you speak of are public records, it is difficult to "erase" them by expungement.

One device which can be successful is an application to the court in which the grand jury sat to seal the records of that proceeding.

Another is to appeal to the law enforcement agency to seal their criminal complaint records, although this usually cannot be successfully done unless 10 or more years have elapsed.

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Answered on 3/30/01, 11:09 am


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