Josephine C. Townsend (jctownsend.com).
A Washington state attorney is facing criminal charges after she allegedly forged a legal document to keep her client out of jail.
Josephine C. Townsend is facing legal repercussions as she has been charged with two counts of forgery. The Washington Attorney General’s Office announced that Townsend could potentially face 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine. The charges stem from a case involving Townsend’s client, Travon Santiago, who was arrested in December 2023 by the Vancouver Police Department for an alleged assault. One of the conditions of Santiago’s release was to stay more than 1,000 feet away from the victim’s home.
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Aside from the criminal case, the victim’s girlfriend obtained a civil protection order in January which mandated Santiago to stay more than 5,000 feet away from their residence. As Santiago resided approximately 1,065 feet from the victim’s home, he would be in violation of the order upon his release on bail on April 2.
Despite Santiago’s efforts to comply with the order by staying elsewhere, Townsend attempted to have the orders amended by a judge. Santiago claimed that Townsend often informed him that she was working on setting a court date but at times was unresponsive. Eventually, on April 25, a judge modified the order from 1,000 feet to 500 feet. However, the civil protection order specifying a 5,000-foot distance remained unchanged.
Santiago, apparently unaware of this fact, returned home thinking he was clear of both orders. On July 17, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office responded to Santiago’s home after receiving a complaint that he was violating the protection order. Santiago’s girlfriend, who was also there, provided cops with the amended criminal order but cops had the civil one that said he had to remain 5,000 feet away. The girlfriend called Townsend, who eventually sent her a copy of the amended civil order with Santiago’s signature along with that of the judge and clerk. But no such order existed in the court system. The next day the order suddenly appeared in the court system after Townsend allegedly filed it.
Suspicious, cops began investigating the origin of the order. Investigators took the civil order to Santiago who immediately noticed something was amiss: His name was misspelled and the document had the wrong birth date. He said he never signed that document. The judge and clerk also told cops they did not amend nor sign the civil order.
“Based on what I learned in my investigation, I believe Josephine Townsend received a modification of one of two protection orders on behalf of her client.” Det. Sgt. Jayson Camp wrote. “Ms. Townsend was contacted by her client on the night of 17 July 2024 who advised Ms. Townsend that law enforcement had arrived to arrest her client for violating the unmodified civil protection order. I believe Ms. Townsend then forged an order modifying the civil protection order and emailed it to her client to present to law enforcement and thus evade arrest by deception.”
Police went to Townsend and asked her about it, and she denied forging the document and accused Santiago of lying. She claimed she only represented Santiago in the criminal matter and told him that she would help him with the civil case “only if you pay me,” according to the affidavit. But detectives obtained text messages between Santiago’s girlfriend and the attorney that said otherwise. Townsend claimed the text messages “lacked context.”
An attorney for Townsend declined to comment.
