Again, this was confusing to me too. The judge, my public defender, and both of the probation officers I had while on PTI gave me conflicting answers, with some saying that I had to petition the court to get it removed, if I completed it (I never did though).

Also, man watch NJ their dirty, and try and play you out. After my trial they told me probation started, but after not receiving any notification for two months I called them to have them say that those months didn’t count then. Following that my first P.O. told me damn you have a job, you have a 3.9gpa in college, and just seemed to get “mixed up in the wrong crowd” and vowed that she would try and get me off after 7 months of the 12 I was originally assigned as long as I continued. After 7 months I was switched to another P.O., who said that I would only have to come one more time to be discharged. I almost began smoking again, but glad I didn’t because the next time I saw him he said that would never happen, and that I might end up being on probation for 1yrs & 4 months total because I never signed into an outpatient or impatient addiction program which needed to be completed at my expense ($35 a week). I disagreed, not understanding how they could force me into treatment after coming up clean on ALL of the drug tests they gave me, but eventually went to my local YMCA. There the counselor agreed with me and even went to lengths to try and get me out of the substance abuse program ASAP, even going as far as to write letters and try and reach my P.O. who never returned his calls, and tried to deny receiving the letters at first.

All in all I ended up paying $1000 fine, getting 75hrs community service, paid $35 a week for about 5 months to go to counseling, forced to go to 2-3 N.A. meetings a week, and paid a couple hundred dollars worth of court costs and public defender fees. I ended up “officially” being on probation a little over one year and two months, or 1 year 4 months if you count the two months in the beginning they said it didn’t start yet.