Judge's Wife Charged With Forging Court Order In Attempt To Stall Home Foreclosure

In Marion County, Indiana, The Indianapolis Star reports:

• Forging a judge's signature. Pretending to be the victim of a vicious assault. Impersonating a co-worker at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Few would expect such actions from a police employee, much less the wife of a judge. But those are the desperate and criminal steps police say the wife of Marion Superior Court Judge William Nelson took in an effort to avoid foreclosure on the couple's Geist home.

• Kristina Nelson, 43, was arrested Friday on a preliminary charge that she forged the name of another judge -- her sister-in-law -- as part of a fraudulent scheme to stop the foreclosure, according to the police and court documents.

• A police report said Kristina Nelson admitted under questioning that she had signed Marion Superior Court Judge Sheila Carlisle's name on a counterfeit court order. The document, sent to EverHome Mortgage Co., claimed that she and her husband had been brutally attacked -- that he had been shot and she had to have her jaw wired shut -- and needed time to recover before they could make mortgage payments. Nelson told police that her husband knew nothing about the incident, and police who interviewed the judge Friday found him surprised by his wife's reported behavior.

For more, see IMPD: Ex-staffer is arrested in fraud (Police say forged signature was attempt to avoid foreclosure).

For follow-up stories, see:

• Marion Co. judge recuses in forgery case,
• Special judge is sought in forgery case (Jurist's wife accused of forging signature to halt foreclosure; lawyer says affidavit lists wrong house).