Gerri Sheppard mug shot, Nov. 16, 2011.
Gary Trafford mug shot, Nov. 16, 2011.
The office of the Nevada attorney general announced today that the Clark County grand jury has indicted two title officers on charges of running an alleged robo-signing scheme that resulted in the filing of tens of thousands of fraudulent foreclosure documents with the Clark County recorder’s office between 2005 and 2008.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the scheme resulted in wrongful foreclosures.
The attorney general’s office said Gary Trafford, a California resident, is charged with 102 felony counts of offering false instruments for recording, felony false certification on certain instruments and misdemeanor notarization of the signature of a person not in the presence of a notary public.
The indictment charges defendant Gerri Sheppard, also a California resident, with 100 counts of felony offering false instruments for recording, felony false certification on certain instruments and misdemeanor notarization of the signature of a person not in the presence of a notary public.
The defendants couldn’t immediately be located for comment.
“The grand jury found probable cause that there was a robo-signing scheme which resulted in the filing of tens of thousands of fraudulent documents with the Clark County Recorder’s Office between 2005 and 2008,” Chief Deputy Attorney General John Kelleher said in a statement.
The indictment alleges that both defendants directed the fraudulent notarization and filing of documents that were used to initiate foreclosure on local homeowners. The state alleges that the defendants directed employees under their supervision to forge their names on foreclosure documents, then notarize the signatures they just forged, thereby fraudulently attesting that the defendants actually signed the documents, which was untrue and in violation of state law. The defendants then directed the employees under their supervision to file the fraudulent documents with the Clark County recorder’s office, the state alleges.