Thread: IRS Form 23 to become an EA

I want to study & eventually pass the IRS’ EA exam. I know that in order to practice that I would have to file IRS Form 23, but one of the questions on that form (Question 9) asks if the applicant “has ever been convicted or fined $ 500 or more, for violating any law, excluding traffic tickets.”
Unfortunately back in 11/02 I was arrested & arraigned on a substance abuse charge, the circumstances which briefly were that I altruistically gave some Tylenol with codeine to a developmentally disabled friend (believe it or not she’s still my friend to this day), but she became upset the day subsequent to my having helped relieve her congestion, called her social worker(s) & I was dragged into court. As it’s said: “hindsight is 20/20” & I realized that it was certainly “my bad” although I merely tried to do a “my (friend’s) good.” The offense is listed in my CORI as possession & distribution of a Class C substance, in court the judge dismissing it as “continued without a finding” (not considered a conviction here in Massachusetts) & dismissed the offense with unsupervised probation for 3-months.
But although there technically was no “conviction”, the judge fined me $ 1K, paid into a local statutory victim witness fund, of course under this circumstance my having to answer “yes” to IRS’ Form 23, Question 9. The case was closed in 2/03 but the “blot” remains on my record & I am of the attitude that “no good deed goes unpunished”.
Obviously my question is in light of the aforementioned: Should I even bother to study for the EA exam considering any reviewer of a potentially submitted IRS Form 23 would just “throw it out / deny the application”? Any thoughts or comments on this would be greatly appreciated but I am not going to spend valuable time or financial resources just to be “bounced”.
Thank-you to any reader’s of this for your time & thoughtful considerations.