[dvtrn]

The lawsuit would also create a paper trail that you can use to exonerate yourself in the future.

Thanks to the tragedy of a common name in my country, I’ve had to petition multiple jurisdictions to procure paperwork for a very similar reason.

Only became a necessity when applying for a job and being asked, once the background check came back for someone who had not only the same name but also birthdate 700 miles away if I had been convicted of extortion and blackmail.

How that had never come up before I hit my late thirties is anyone’s guess, since the conviction was recent enough to get someone looking more closely, but not so long ago that again I’m surprised that moment was the first anyone had asked me about it after doing a background check.

Long story short, a few letters to the jurisdictions in question and $500 worth of help from a local attorney and I soon had official papers saying “No, the Bob Loblaw applying for your job is not THAT Bob Loblaw we threw the book at.”