For two women whose misdemeanors defined life, new ‘clean slate’ program is ‘joyful’
After spending weeks applying to dozens of jobs, Ruby Coty felt hopeless.
She’s used to nailing interviews, mostly for $15 to $18 an hour service jobs. But she’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop — her background check coming back red.
“I was gonna give up,” said Coty. “I had seen the email that Allied Security had denied me and I was just crying, tears flowing.”
Other than minor traffic violations and a few petty misdemeanors like loitering and riding public transit without paying, Coty has one more serious conviction: a felony aggravated robbery charge.
She pled it down to felony theft and it was then reduced to a misdemeanor conviction when she completed probation in March 2020. Coty said she committed the crimes when she was homeless or financially unstable, and pleaded guilty when she wished she fought in court.
But it always came down to not having money or time.
“It's been so long. I am not that person,” said Coty. “You're digging in my past for what reason? This is 2025, get out my past. Don't continue to hinder me.”
While she was scrolling on her phone for ways to get around her criminal record, she stumbled across Minnesota’s new criminal expungement law. The 2023 Clean Slate Act automatically seals criminal records of low-level offenses, with the hope of giving an estimated 500,000 Minnesotans a “fresh start” with accessing jobs and housing.
“I said, is this God speaking to me? I'm still crying, but it's a joyful cry now,” said Coty.
BCA aims for late June to have first round of criminal records sealed
Coty is one of the 500,000 in Minnesota who are waiting for their records to be sealed. Under the law, certain petty misdemeanors, misdemeanors, gross misdemeanors and felonies are eligible for automatic expungement. The case must have been resolved at least two to five years ago, depending on the crime. Most violent convictions are not eligible for sealing.
The law went into effect on Jan. 1 but has been delayed because of technical issues with processing millions of records dating back almost 100 years.
“The last thing we want to do is seal a record that should be available for a variety of things to get sealed erroneously,” said Drew Evans, superintendent at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
“And so that's why we've been doing that, and that's what's led to the delay. But we are working through that now with a new approach.”
The new approach, which includes hand review of eligible records, has allowed the BCA to start sending criminal records to courts as of April 21. Courts will have 60 days to review and dispute any records. The agency is aiming for June 20 to have the first records sealed.
In total, the agency estimates 2 million records are eligible for automatic expungement. Expungement means criminal records can’t be accessed by the public, but they are not erased completely.
Most employers and landlords will not be able to see a sealed record, but it could still be viewed by law enforcement agencies and opened as part of a Department of Human Services background check for certain jobs or licenses.
“So when I go on to the judicial branch website and conduct a search on somebody, an expunged record would not show up for me — a random person looking at the publicly available database,” said Lucy Chin, a lawyer with The Legal Revolution.
Chin says if someone with an expunged record is suspected of a crime in the future, a judge can order for the record to be reopened, she added.
Records are still maintained by state agencies and are only sealed in Minnesota, meaning agencies outside of the state are able to access and request expunged records.
Life still on hold for Minnesotans waiting for records to be expunged
In the meantime, the six-month delay has real consequences for people like Coty, who constantly get denied employment. She just got a new job at Domino’s, but is on the search for a second job.
“My goal is to get my record clean, cleared, sealed and expunged, so I can be able to leave Domino's to get a better position where I will be in a better position to be able to provide for my food trailer,” she said.
Her dream is to start her own food truck business, selling soul food. But it’s a dream that is out of reach on $15- to $18-an-hour jobs.
“I'm going to work this job. I'm not going to stop. I'm going to work this job and do what I have to do to make ends meet, but I'm still going to be looking for something better,” she said.
For others, having a criminal record is getting in the way of pursuing a better career. Morgan Pogatchnik is the single mother of four kids in Oakdale, and her primary job is caring for her disabled son, Koreon, who is 14 years old.
Koreon is diagnosed with epilepsy and a brain injury that hinders his ability to speak and move on his own.
“The best way to describe it is he's equivalent to a newborn in his development skills and what he can do for himself. So he needs all cares to be provided by someone else, but overall, he's happy and he's comfortable. And that's my main concern, is to just keep him happy,” she said.
His medical condition resulted from medical negligence when he was born in 2010. Pogatchnik started going to Minneapolis Community and Technical College to become a pharmacy technician, hoping it could help her take better care of her son.
But she was also struggling with anxiety and trauma from his birth and used cannabis to cope. Shortly after Pogatchnik graduated MCTC in 2013, she was caught using cannabis and was charged with a felony drug possession.
The drug charge, which was reduced to a misdemeanor after she completed a diversion program, is the only crime on her record apart from minor traffic violations. Still, Pogatchnik says that has hindered her.
She can’t pass a background check to get a job as a pharmacy tech or to get into nursing school.
“Originally I wanted to do pharmacy technician, and that completely took away the option for me with that being on my record. The nursing has affected majorly because I want those — well, I need that education to better care for my son. So that's important to me,” she said.
Because of her record, Pogatchnik says she also had to go through additional hoops to secure medical treatment and funding through the state to care for her son.
“It’s kind of triggering to be told that – not to say you’re not good enough – but because you have this on your record, we need to know more. And we need to look deeper into you as a person to give your own child care,” said Pogatchnik.
She plans to pursue nursing again after her record is sealed.
Most people won’t know their records are sealed
The vast majority of Minnesotans who are eligible for expungement don’t know it, according to community organizers. The law as it’s written does not require the BCA to notify Minnesotans that their records are being sealed.
That’s created more work for nonprofits like T.O.N.E. U.P., which helps Minnesotans coming out of the justice system. Founder Antonio Williams advocated for the Clean Slate Act when it was being proposed, but has been disappointed by the delayed rollout.
“It's lazy legislation,” said Williams. “It’s lazy implementation. These are things that should have been thought out as this bill was being put together.”
For the past several months, Williams’ nonprofit has been doing outreach on the Clean Slate Act to fill the gap in education for those who could benefit from expungement. But it’s been a challenge.
“The hard part is getting people to know exactly what their case is because people haven't really learned how to collect their stuff. You have some who are very into their own thing, but then you have a lot of people too who are like, I don't even know what statute this is,” he said.
He’s also working against the stigma around having a criminal history. Williams says it’s time consuming to figure out what crimes are eligible for expungement, when the law is mostly clear about what isn’t eligible.
If Minnesotans want to learn if they’ll have their record sealed, lawyers like Chin recommend checking online records to see what’s publicly available and compare it to the list of crimes under the Clean Slate Act that can’t be sealed.
Here are two places people can use to search their records:
“Checking your records is free,” said Chin. “I recommend looking yourself up and knowing because that is the only way you'll know if you have records that are eligible to benefit from the Clean Slate Act.”
The BCA also says Minnesotans can submit a request for copies of their criminal record to check if their records have been sealed.
Correction (May 2, 2025): An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated whether the Department of Human Services can consider expunged criminal records when doing background checks. It has been updated.
