After Jasmine Violenes was mistakenly picked out of a police lineup and charged with two felonies she did not commit, she lost her home, her car and — most harmful of all — her good name.
As the single mother of two tried to pick up the pieces of her life in Atlanta after the charges were dropped, she found that clearing her record was more of an uphill battle than proving she was not involved in the road-rage incident in Smyrna, Georgia, in 2022.
Violenes joined an untold number of Americans each year who are charged with crimes they did not commit and who struggle to clear dismissed charges from public records and the internet. It’s a predicament that can haunt them when they apply for jobs, loans and other potential opportunities.
The number of people in Violenes’ situation is not tracked or compiled in a database, experts and advocates said, and though the records-clearing process varies by state, most agree the task is burdensome, time-consuming and often expensive.
“They screwed me, took everything from me, and now I’m just left to figure it out, and it’s just not fair,” said Violenes, adding that the hurtful experience has left her with PTSD symptoms.
For the first few weeks after her arrest, she said she felt like a “zombie.” She rarely left bed and had a hard time caring for her sons. She had “constant sweats” from the anxiety and was losing hair and weight, she said.
“My whole life, my identity, everything that made me was ripped away from me. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what my purpose is,” she said. “I’m dying inside.”
Violenes, 34, had dreamed of becoming a nurse. She was due to start a residency program at Grady Hospital in Atlanta in April 2023, but that January she was arrested and charged with two felonies in connection with a road-rage incident that happened while she was at work in another town. Her vehicle had been placed at the crime scene while her then-boyfriend, Kevin McCoy, was driving it,…
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