A deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) is an agreed arrangement between a prosecutor and a person or entity (defendant) to resolve an allegation of wrongdoing that might otherwise be prosecuted as a criminal offense (crime).
A DPA is unlike a plea bargain, a sentence of probation, or a sentence of deferred adjudication, because in those instances the defendant is convicted of a crime—but a person or entity who enters a DPA is not convicted of a crime and the result may be dismissal of the charges.
