A woman in Washington State created false court documents and distributed them to TV news stations and the public. They were created to represent that an agency had a restraining order against an individual because this woman wanted to harass the individual. These documents were aired on TV. The TV station with more integrity researched and found that they were false and stated such on their broadcast. What kind of charges can be brought against the woman who did this? They were completely false, they were not filed with any court and the agency itself said they were false. In some states, this would be a felony. This woman has a history of such conduct in another state. She recently had a lawsuit settled (two weeks prior) for libelous statements on a website.) This was the only person who was willing to prosecute her in a libel lawsuit. This incident appears to be criminal in nature. What about Washington. Thank you.
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falsification of court documents
4 Answer
If she intentionally deceived another person or persons causing some sort of suffering it would be considered fraud. I have attached a link to the Washington State Legislature which will give you an explanation of the different types of fraud cases. Fraud in Washington state like every other state throughout the US is considered a felony. Here is the link: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.60
There are actually three different classes of fraud in the state of Washington, class A, B and C. The first class is the most serious. No matter the situation, if charged with a felony you could be looking at more than a year in prison and/or big fines. If she has admitted to the crime she may be on her way to the big house!
Thank you Mike, Kevin and JJ for your responses. Your website references were very helpful. If any of you are interested, this is the link to the TV site where you can watch a video of their report of this falsification of documents.
http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=6880485&nav=menu484_5_5
This is unreal and I have yet to hear about this story. I have heard in the past that lawyers have been charged with creating and filing false court documents but never a person. Below is a case in which an attorney filed false court documents:
We set out the above matters in detail to illustrate that the Respondent was convicted of four counts of criminal conduct arising out of his actions as a licensed attorney; that his conduct involved dishonesty, deceit, misrepresentation, and fraud; that his conduct included the filing of false court documents and frivolous appeals; that he performed the misconduct deliberately and with the intent to impair and obstruct lawful investigations and functions of the FBI, federal grand jury and federal court; and that his motive for the conduct was personal financial gain. For more information visit http://www.iardc.org/97SH100HB.html - you see this most often in probate cases.
I am not a lawyer but I can tell you that this certainly is a criminal charge.