LastliberalinTx and NSMA I need some legal advice

About 5 years ago I was arrested, not for anything violent, not for anything drug related, I was trespassing. But I had a good reason...

Ok, my husband and I used to be friends with a guy named Andy. Andy was brilliant but occassionally crazy in a dangerous way. Andy was severely bi-polar, and didn't like taking his medicine.

Well after months of not seeing him, he just showed up one day. I had just gotten off of work and went to meet my husband and Andy at our favorite bar. When I got there my hubby was acting very weird, when ever Andy turned around he started mouthing stuff to me. As soon as we got a minute my husband pulled me aside and said, "Andy isn't on his meds, he has been threatening me all night, saying crazy shit like if I don't buy him more to drink that he will come to our house and get us!"

My response, "WTF!!!" My husband is a big guy and has 2 black belts. Andy is a bigger guy that has had some martial arts training as well. Plus he's crazy and crazy people sometimes don't feel physical pain the same way as noncrazy people. Andy knew where we lived. My younger brother who was only 14 at the time was spending the summer with us and I did not want Andy anywhere near him.

That night we were literally held hostage by our friend, we didn't know what to do. When the bar closed our two options were to go home with Andy or somewhere else where he felt comfortable while we tried to find a way to keep him occupied until one of us got the chance to call the cops. We didn't have a cell phone then so it was ALOT harder to get away than you could imagine.

We took Andy to an apartment complex where a common friend of ours lived. The last time we saw Andy, we hung out with the friend in the complex's pool and hot tub. Andy was on his meds then, we had a good time. Unfortunately our other friend wasn't there. He had gone to visit parents for the weekend. We decided to jump the fence and take our chances.

After about an hour and half Andy seemed more relaxed. I mentioned getting some cigarettes out of the car. I had intentionally left the cigarettes, as an excuse to get away.

I immediately ran and banged on away friend's door, DAMN not home!! I banged on three other doors until someone opened up and let me use their phone. I call the police and told them that we were being threatened and that we were trespassing.

10 minutes later the cops show up and arrested all three of us. The manager of the apartment complex was pissed that we were using their pool without permission and pressed charges. So even though I was arrested for basically having bad luck, hubby and I were so happy to be away from Andy that we smiled in our mug shots.

They took him into custody and he was committed. We have not seen him since. We didn't contest the arrest because paying the fine was easier than missing work for a trial. Especially a trial that would require us to sit in court with Andy.

Now my hubby wants to go to grad school in Canada and there may be problems because we have a criminal record. This incident was the only problem either of us had ever had with the law.

This is such a bizarre story, but Andy was really scary. You have no idea what it's like to have a friend turn on you like this.

So my question is, is there a statute of limitations for misdemeaners on you record? Is their anything that we can do five years later to get rid of these charges?

I don't know what the laws are in Mass. You can consult an atty and find out. It shouldn't cost too much...within probably 300 to 500$..with one caveat..even if your record is expunged on most applications for any type of license you would still have to honestly answer the question "have you ever been arrested."

Legal advice is best received from your attorney, not DU members. Thanks for your understanding.