A Vancouver protection legal professional is going through forgery costs for allegedly altering paperwork associated to a civil safety order in opposition to her consumer.
Josephine Townsend, 64, is charged with two counts of forgery in Clark County Superior Courtroom. An assistant legal professional normal filed the fees Tuesday on the request of the Clark County Prosecuting Lawyer’s Workplace, court docket data present.
A date has not but been set for Townsend to seem in court docket.
Based on court docket data, Travon Santiago, 26, was arrested in December 2023 on suspicion of first-degree assault. A decide ordered a legal safety order, in addition to GPS monitoring, prohibiting Santiago from coming inside 1,000 ft of the sufferer, Joseph Prendergast.
Round that point, Prendergast’s associate, Angela Foss, filed for a civil safety order in opposition to Santiago. The civil safety order was issued in January and restricted Santiago from coming inside 5,000 ft of her, in line with court docket data.
On April 25, Superior Courtroom Decide Suzan Clark issued an order to alter the space restriction within the legal safety order to 500 ft. Clark County sheriff’s deputies discovered that was as a result of Santiago’s house was roughly 1,000 ft from Prendergast’s house. However, they mentioned the civil safety order prohibiting Santiago from coming inside 5,000 ft of Foss was by no means modified, court docket data state.
On July 17, deputies responded to a 911 name from Foss reporting a violation of the civil safety order. When deputies accessed the net GPS monitoring system, they noticed Santiago was at his house, which was in violation of the 5,000-feet restriction, court docket data state.
When deputies went to the house, Santiago’s girlfriend offered them with a doc that claimed the safety order had been modified. However deputies mentioned the case quantity was for the legal case, not the civil case they had been there to implement, in line with court docket data. Deputies mentioned Santiago’s girlfriend was on the telephone with somebody they discovered to be Townsend, Santiago’s legal professional.
The deputies left the house.
Santiago’s girlfriend later known as the sheriff’s workplace. She advised a sergeant that Townsend had despatched her an order exhibiting the safety order had been modified. She forwarded the order to the sergeant, which deputies famous was dated April 25 and now had the right case quantity for the civil safety order. They mentioned it additionally had Decide Clark’s digital signature — with the identical time stamp, all the way down to the second, because the modified legal safety order — together with the clerk’s workplace’s e-filing stamp, in line with court docket data.
The sheriff’s workplace’s data unit was unable to seek out any report of the order Santiago’s girlfriend despatched to the sergeant. The county clerk’s workplace was additionally unable to seek out any report of that order, nevertheless it did discover within the civil case file a movement to change the safety order dated July 18, the day after deputies went to Santiago’s house, court docket data state.
The sergeant mentioned he started to suspect the order had been solid, and he mentioned he discovered inconsistencies within the markings on the doc, in line with court docket data.
Investigators adopted up with Santiago’s girlfriend, who mentioned Townsend assured the couple the safety order had been modified. She mentioned she was pissed off with Townsend as a result of it took hours for Townsend to ship her the order, in line with court docket data.
Deputies additionally confirmed Santiago’s girlfriend the movement filed July 18 to change the civil safety order with narratives requesting the change and with Santiago’s signature. Santiago advised deputies he didn’t write the narratives and that it wasn’t his signature. He mentioned his identify was misspelled within the signature, court docket data state.
Deputies met with Clark, who mentioned she had by no means seen the order Santiago’s girlfriend supplied, in line with court docket data, and the decide mentioned she by no means signed it.
Investigators reviewed the recording of the court docket listening to by which Clark modified the space provision within the legal safety order. Clark famous the better distance provision within the civil safety order and mentioned Santiago would want to file a movement in that case for a decide to rethink the space, court docket data state.
Townsend additionally later advised deputies Santiago didn’t rent her to signify him within the civil case. She was solely conscious of the legal safety order, she mentioned, till the couple known as her and insisted there was one other order within the paperwork they requested her to scan, in line with court docket data.
“We have a lot of cases and are buried with work,” she wrote to deputies, in line with court docket data.
The following day, she filed the doc for Santiago, she mentioned, however she didn’t request a listening to as a result of he nonetheless hadn’t employed her. She mentioned she confronted Santiago about whether or not he was mendacity to deputies, however that she couldn’t inform deputies something extra due to confidentiality guidelines, court docket data state.
When deputies adopted up with Santiago and his girlfriend, they mentioned that they had struggled to get in contact with Townsend for months. Additionally they let deputies have a look at their textual content messages with Townsend relationship again to April, by which she promised to set a listening to for Santiago’s civil case, in line with court docket data.
Townsend has since withdrawn from Santiago’s instances, citing skilled guidelines round confidentiality, court docket data present.