I am a 35 year old male from Massachusetts applying to various Physician Assistant programs throughout the United States. I graduated college as a double major summa cum laude (Biology & Psychology).

When I was 19 years old I entered into an eight month relationship with a girl who was 14. Around the fifth month of our relationship we began having consensual sexual relations in the form of touching (not sexual intercourse). She kept a diary that detailed all aspects of the relationship that ended up being discovered by her mother. The mother approached me one day and questioned me regarding this sexual activity and I was honest with her and admitted it. She then told a friend about the situation, who then reported it to the police.

I was then interviewed by police. They asked for the details of the relationship and I was honest and cooperated fully. Though I am an American citizen, I spent half of my childhood and teenage years in Portugal, so I was not entirely familiar with the law at that time. They asked me to write and sign a formal confession detailing our relationship and how it involved sexual touching. I signed this confession and was immediately told that I was under arrest and charged with Rape and Abuse of a Child and Indecent Assault and Battery on a child over 14. Bail was set at $1,000. The extent of the press coverage was negligible – a small eight line article in the "police beat" section of the local newspaper.

Because the family of my girlfriend ignored calls from the district attorney for over a month and would not cooperate with investigators and after reading approximately 30 letters of correspondence between the girl and I detailing the relationship, the DA offered me a plea bargain to dismiss both the Abuse of a Child and Indecent A&B charges for an exchange of a guilty plea to misdemeanor simple assault with 2 years probation.

My question is this. What is the likelihood that I will be able to become licensed as a physician assistant with this misdemeanor conviction of simple assault on my record? In Massachusetts, simple assault is considered the least of all possible misdemeanor offenses. Also, Massachusetts allows you the petition of sealing misdemeanor convictions 10 years after probation was completed, which makes me currently eligible to do this.

Thank you very much for your help.

You will have some explaining to do, but the misdemeanor probably will not keep you from being licensed. There are no guarantees, though, due to the sexual nature of the allegations.

Whatever you do, DO NOT omit the conviction from your license application, including the original charges (if asked for arrests/charges as well as actual convictions). Failing to disclose a conviction is often even worse than the conviction itself. I am not suggesting that you would do this, but some people do, and it will almost certainly backfire.
You can try to get an expungement. Go to a lawyer. Don't try to do it yourself; this is not the time to save a few dollars. While it's a good idea in general to have it done, the expungement may not help you in this situation. The application probably will ask for ALL convictions, even those that have been expunged.

I'm a lawyer, but the above is not to be construed as legal advice. As previously stated, go see a lawyer who is licensed in the state in question.

Good luck.

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This is something that I would completely honest about with the board. I wonder if the board feels more comfortable with a potential licensee having a record sealed from public view or if it doesnt really matter to them? I am hoping two things will help my case: 1) This happened when I was 19 years old and 2) When I approach the board it will have been 17 years since the charges took place. I remember my court appointed attorney telling me afterwards: "Im not using to dealing with people like you......educated, in catholic school K-12, from a loving family, held in high regard in the community, very active in church, never in any prior trouble (not even school detention), and someone who cooperated fully with the police and essentially shot themselves in the foot with a complete confession."