Forgery

A 14-YEAR veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department was arrested Monday for allegedly engaging in an ongoing conspiracy to steal from a local toy store, police said. Bridgette Paris, 48, was charged with retail theft, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, forgery and related offenses, police said. The charges followed an investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Bureau and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Police have not identified the store that Paris allegedly targeted.

A forgery scheme that drained an Upland Borough checking account of more than $33,000 has resulted in the arrest of four people for theft and related offenses. The plot involved old checks stolen from the borough hall basement in October during a housecleaning of old documents. Arrested were Edward J. Clausen Jr., 29, of Ridley Park, and Raushanah Nadirah Dill, 19; Wesley Williams, 32; and Leah Goldsborough, 29, all of Chester, said Joseph McGettigan, Delaware County first assistant district attorney.

A Philadelphia lawyer pleaded guilty to forging a court document yesterday in New Jersey Superior Court in Camden. Rather than tell a client that a case had been dismissed, Nina E. Perris, 48, gave him a forged court order that said he would receive money for injuries received when a security gate fell on him in Virginia. The client showed the document to another lawyer, who recognized it was not an official court order and took it to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Whitemarsh police have charged a Maple Glen salesman with forgery. Edward M. Munyan, 37, of the 1400 block of Patrick Court in Maple Glen, was charged after his employer, Ken Mattis, the owner of Diversified Leasing Inc., 511 Germantown Pike, was told May 12 by Fidelity Bank that his secretary's signature had been forged on a $1,000 check. Munyan will have a preliminary hearing at 10 a.m. today before Lafayette Hill District Justice Katherine Speers on charges of forgery, unauthorized taking of an auto and theft by unlawful taking.

The former bookkeeper of a Wayne insurance office was charged last Thursday with forgery, theft and related offenses for allegedly writing more than $35,000 in business checks for personal use, Tredyffrin police said. Colleen J. Myers, 32, of the 200 block of Conestoga Road, Malvern, the former bookkeeper at Marquardt Associates, is charged with writing a total of 59 unauthorized checks - many of which were used to pay for day-care services for her children - from September 1987 until last April, according to court records.

Charges of theft and forgery have been filed against a Morrisville woman suspected of forging $3,000 worth of checks from an account at a Yardley law firm where she worked as a paralegal. Police said Deborah Gibbs of Franklin Street was arrested Jan. 9 after lawyer Earl A. Mead asked police to investigate two canceled checks mailed to his office. According to an affidavit of probable cause, Mead discovered the checks by accident because Gibbs usually picked up the mail. According to the affidavit, the checks belonged to an estate for which Mead's firm had been trying to find heirs.

When June Rosso died of cancer last year, her oldest son, Donald A. Rosso, 39, ended up with all of her money, leaving nothing for her estranged husband, Dominick A. Rosso, or their two younger children. In September, Dominick Rosso persuaded Bucks County Court Judge Leonard B. Sokolove to declare the will a forgery. Now, the widower is asking the court to remove county Register of Wills Barbara G. Reilly from office, alleging that she was negligent in allowing Donald Rosso to get his mother's $150,000-plus estate.

No stamp forgers of great note have appeared in recent years, but it wasn't too long ago that one of the most infamous counterfeiters went out of business. Many in the stamp business regard Jean de Sperati as the titan of all forgers. In his long career, he copied more than 550 stamps - some several times - and his work was so realistic that, fearing the worst for the hobby, the British Philatelic Association in 1953 bought out his stocks and dies. De Sperati once said a reason he resorted to forgery was that as a youngster he spent his savings for a stamp that turned out to be a fake.

Three men were charged with forgery Tuesday after they were found in a Camden park in possession of what authorities say was counterfeit money. A Camden County Park Police sergeant noticed a suspicious vehicle in Pyne Poynt Park in North Camden around 9:30 a.m., according to officials. He approached the car and found two men in the front seats and a man in the rear seat who was using a small paper cutter to trim what officials say were bogus bills. Authorities recovered $1,330 in counterfeit ten- and twenty-dollar bills, plus trimmings, torn-up pieces of replicated bills, and drug paraphernalia from the vehicle, officials said.

PITTSBURGH - A sister of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin has been ordered to stand trial on charges she directed state-paid staffers to illegally do campaign work for Melvin while the justice was a judge on a lower appellate court. Janine Orie, 57, will stand trial in February along with a third sister, Pittsburgh-area Republican State Sen. Jane Orie. The charges will be added to a retrial scheduled for February for Jane and Janine Orie on charges that they similarly directed the senator's state-funded staff to do campaign work benefiting the senator and Melvin over the last decade.

PITTSBURGH - Superior Court on Wednesday rejected Republican State Sen. Jane Orie's claim that it would be double jeopardy to retry her in October on charges that she misused her state-funded staff to do campaign work. The court said Orie's arguments that a retrial was barred were "frivolous as a matter of law, without a shred of support in the record. " It was the second legal setback for the Pittsburgh-area lawmaker this week. On Monday, Allegheny County prosecutors charged Orie with perjury, forgery, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice in connection with her testimony and some documents she used to defend herself at trial this year - including two documents that directly led to a mistrial on the original corruption charges in March.

PITTSBURGH - Republican state Sen. Jane Orie was accused yesterday of fabricating evidence to be used at her trial earlier this year on charges that she used her state-funded staff to do political work. A criminal complaint, filed in Pittsburgh City Court, charges Orie with perjury, forgery, and tampering and fabricating physical evidence related to defense documents. Orie's trial in March ended in a mistrial when Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning agreed with prosecutors that two documents used to discredit the key witness - Orie's former chief of staff - were forgeries.

An investigation into an anonymous election mailing in May critical of an incumbent judicial candidate has resulted in criminal charges against a West Chester couple, the Chester County District Attorney's Office announced Thursday. Donald Skomsky, 57, of West Chester, was charged with forgery, false swearing, election law violations, and conspiracy, and his wife, Valerie Palfy, 46, was cited with forgery and conspiracy, all misdemeanors. The couple's attorney, Michael Noone, said his clients "intend to vigorously defend" themselves against the charges.

It was a dirty election. Even by Delaware County standards. Last spring, an Upper Darby GOP operative forged signatures for Pat Meehan, the Republican candidate in the 7th Congressional District. Then, over the summer, supporters of Democrat Bryan Lentz tried to split the conservative vote by assisting right-wing cuckoo Jim Schneller, an Obama "birther" with no shot at winning. The Democrats' scheme failed. Meehan was elected easily in November. But criminal charges are still seeping out of the stinking rubble eight months later.

The recently resigned president of Gloucester County College was charged with 11 counts of forgery Friday, according to the county Prosecutor's Office. Ten of the charges against Russell Davis, 52, of Deptford, accuse him of signing the name of a college official responsible for authorizing submission of loan applications to the college pension fund. Davis did receive pension funds allocated to him, according to Prosecutor's Office spokesman Bernie Weisenfeld. The 11th count alleges that Davis signed the same name to seek a hardship application to withdraw funds from his own pension account.

The state Attorney General's Office charged an Upper Darby man with forgery Wednesday related to nominating petitions he circulated for U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan (R., Pa.) last year. Paul V. Summers, 59, of the 500 block of Eaton Road, was charged with seven counts of forgery and seven counts of making false signatures and statements. Each forgery count carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The other charges are punishable by up to a year in prison and a $500 fine.

State prosecutors yesterday filed forgery charges against an Upper Darby GOP operative who is accused of falsifying signatures to help place U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan on the Republican primary ballot last spring. The Attorney General's Office charged Paul V. Summers, 59, of Drexel Hill, with seven counts of forgery in connection with the nominating petitions he submitted for Meehan in March. Agents say that the petitions contained dozens of forged signatures. Several Delaware County residents told investigators that they hadn't signed the forms, and some residents identified the names of relatives "who had died or since moved out of the area," according to the criminal complaint.

Has identity theft become acceptable practice in Pennsylvania politics? That's what some Delaware County Democrats are asking as Republican Tom Corbett made the transition yesterday from attorney general to governor - without filing charges in the forgery case involving Republican U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan's nominating petitions. County prosecutors forwarded the Meehan petitions to Corbett's office in March, soon after the forgeries were discovered. The Daily News also confirmed forgeries on Republican state House candidate Maureen Carey's nominating petitions for the 2010 primary.