A client walks into your office in a major panic! She just got off the phone with the bank… who just told her she doesn’t own her own home. They have a deed that transfers the property out of her possession – that’s now owned 100% by her ex-husband – and it’s even been recorded by the county recorder. How can you possibly help this client?
Forensic document examiners are retained to determine whether a document has been altered. By reviewing a series of case examples, Mike Wakshull provides an overview of the different types of alterations encountered by document examiners in legal cases and the methods used to detect these alterations. Mike discusses alterations to the following documents: a real estate deed, a birth certificate, a falsified mortgage document, a transfer of property agreement, an employment contract, an altered receipt, a holographic will, an altered PDF and an altered email. He also addresses using Photoshop, examining ink, discovery of cut-and-paste signatures, tools used by document examiners, digital microscopes vs. stereo microscopes, pixilation, examining signatures written on digital tablets, examining word documents and the future of forensic document examination.
A court-qualified forensic document examiner, Michael N. Wakshull has been involved in the Forensic Document Examination arena since 1983 and belongs to a number of Document Examination Associations. A licensed attorney in California, Jason Castillo actively participated in this course.