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2019 County and District Clerks’ Association of Texas Annual Education Conference June 23-27, 2019 The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center Piece of the Puzzle, Part of the Whole Breakout 2: “Catch Me If You Can” Forgery—Things to Watch for in Court Records Tuesday, June 25, 2019 1:45–2:30 p.m. Ms. Tracy Hopper, IT Administrator Harris County District Clerk’s Office With today’s technology and tools available to forge documents, this session will examine an actual case involving forgery of documents in multiple counties through e-filing and paper filings. Learn how it happened, what lessons were learned, and how to catch these types of documents.

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Page 1: Piece of the Puzzle, Part of the Whole - County Prese… · Piece of the Puzzle, Part of the Whole Breakout 2: “Catch Me If You Can” Forgery—Things to Watch for in Court Records

2019 County

and District Clerks’

Association of Texas

Annual Education Conference

June 23-27, 2019

The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center

Piece of the Puzzle,

Part of the Whole

Breakout 2: “Catch Me If You Can”

Forgery—Things to Watch for in Court

Records

Tuesday, June 25, 2019 1:45–2:30 p.m.

Ms. Tracy Hopper, IT Administrator

Harris County District Clerk’s Office

With today’s technology and tools available to forge documents, this session will examine an actual case involving forgery of documents in multiple counties through e-filing and paper filings. Learn how it happened, what lessons were learned, and how to catch these types of documents.

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Ms. Tracy Hopper, IT Administrator, Harris County District Clerk’s Office Tracy Hopper serves Harris County as I.T. administrator for the District Clerk’s Office. With 22 years in the District Clerk’s Office, she has filled previous roles as a software developer, project coordinato and application manager. Hopper has helped architect, design, program and deploy systems from financial accounting, jury, human resources, budget and various other office systems. The largest application built and run by the District Clerk’s Office and Hopper’s staff is a document management system serving criminal, civil, family and juvenile district courts, county criminal courts, legal community and the public. The application houses more than 270 million pages of electronic documents with more than 65,000 pages added daily. The document management system serves more than 80,000 customers including the courts. The system serves upstream and downstream document needs including an interface to receive electronic filings from the statewide eFiling infrastructure along with sending back interfaces to the statewide portal. Documents are also being programmatically generated and sent to other agencies electronically. Hopper helped transition Harris Civil district courts from a paper-based circulation to an electronic system. Most of the civil/family courts have been automated to electronic signatures and juvenile courts will follow.

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Forgery – Things to Watch For In Court RecordsBy: Tracy Hopper

I.T. Administrator, Harris County District Clerk

Mahsa Parviz placed her 3 months old child in danger of physical harm when she attempted to kidnap her 4 year old nephew and physically assaulted the child's father.

Parviz parental rights to her child were terminated on December 5, 2018. The child is currently in foster care at an unknown location.

There is a concern that Parviz will attempt to locate and kidnap her child. Parviz is known to be manipulative, and had forged documents in the past, in order to give an authentic appearance.

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Masha was on probation in Collin County for kidnapping, forgery, evading arrest with a motor vehicle, and abandoning/endangering a child.

Masha parental rights were terminated pursuant to an order issued by Collin County District Court #469, with Honorable Judge Piper McCraw presiding. This order was enforced on January 11, 2018, when Parviz child was removed.

On the one year anniversary of the enforcement of the aforementioned court order, (January 11, 2019), Parviz arrived in Harris County, filed an Order Granting a Writ of Attachment, and an Order for Protection and Release of Medical Records.

Parviz filed the two aforementioned orders through the Harris County District Clerk’s Office, after hours drop box, under Harris County cause number 2019-02707, which was assigned to Harris County Family District Court number 309, with Honorable Judge Linda Dunson presiding.

This action was subsequently transferred to Harris County Family District Court number 312, with Honorable Judge Clinton Wells presiding.

Parviz forged Honorable Judge Kristen Hawkins’ signature on the two documents referenced above. Judge Hawkins presides over Harris County Civil District Court number 11.

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Hand written – Forged Document Judge’s Electronic Signature

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Found 5 logins to our website for the suspect We log each time the case details are

retrieved from our website We log each document viewed and purchased Mahsa Parviz had 185 log entries Mahsa PARVIZ had 128 log entries Dr. Mahsa Parviz had 664 log entries Mahsa Khyavi had 53 log entries Shamsi Damavamdi had 48 log entries

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There is an additional filing in the year 2018, under the defendant’s mother’s name (Shamsi S. Damavandi), in Harris County Family District Court number 312, under cause number 2018-22876. Further, there is an additional filing, namely a “Warrant to take possession of her child”, under a random case, filed under cause 2011-00516JA, in Harris County Family District Court number 245, Honorable Judge Triston Longino presiding.

Harris County, Texas 2019-02707 – Registration of Foreign Judgment filed

by Parviz (initially filed in 309th and transferred to 312th) – Active

2018-22876 – Registration of Foreign Judgment; Filed by MGM – Damavamdi (filed in 312th –Dismissed)

2011-00516JA – Declaration under UCCJEA and Warrant to take custody of child ; Filed by Parviz (filed in 245th) – Active

2019-14056 – Registration of Foreign Judgment; allegedly filed by MGM, but customer ID is mother’s ID (filed in 246th) - Active

Judge Burke’s signature was forged in the 2011-00516JA case.

Collin County, Texas 469th District Court under Cause 469-30012-2018.

Honorable Judge Piper McCraw presiding.Dallas County, Texas 330th District Court under Cause No. DF-18-23097 – filed

November 16, 2018; Application for Protective Order; Associate Judge Danielle Diaz

302nd District Court under Cause No. DF-18-25543 –filed December 31, 2018; Application for Protective Order; Judge Sandra Jackson

303rd District Court under Cause No. DF-19-00531 – filed January 10, 2019; Associate Judge Graciela Olvera ; Registration and Expedited Enforcement of Out-Of-State Child Custody Determination which has attached to it a Temporary Ex-Parte Protective Order issued by the 330th Judicial District Court, Dallas County, Texas, under Cause No. DF18-23097.

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Travis County, Texas 126th Judicial District Court under Cause No. D-

1-FM-18-007779 attempted filing on December 31, 2018. Application for Verified Petition for Expedited Enforcement of Child Custody Determination and Emergency Protection.

El Paso County, Texas 383rd Judicial District Court under Cause No.

2018DCM1909 filed by maternal grandmother Shamsi S. Damavandi on March 22, 2018; Judge Mike Herrera; Application for Verified Petition for Expedited Enforcement of Child Custody Determination and Emergency Protection.

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles County, case # 18STFL02571. The Los

Angeles County Court signed an order giving the defendant custody of her child, without having knowledge of the action of Collin County District Court number 469

Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, under Cause No.

183TFL02571 (remit to 18CWCSO3168); Judicial Officer Laura Seigle - Order on Request to Continue Hearing and Child Custody and Visitation (Parenting Time) Order Attachment

Case #18STFL02571 - Parviz, Mahsa vs. Maso, Blake Riad James - is a valid Los Angeles Superior Court case. The case is assigned is Dept. 2A , Judge Thomas Trent Lewis, at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

Email on 4/17/2019 from deputy Sheriff Ben Katrib - I was notified a few minutes ago, that Defendant Masha Parviz, cut off her GPS monitoring device, on Friday, April 12, 2019, at 8:30 PM, and her whereabouts are unknown. This is a violation of her bond condition for the criminal cases that she is facing in Collin County. Masha Parviz is charged in Harris County, with two counts of the second degree felony offense of “Tampering with a Governmental Record”, in Harris County District Criminal Court #179, with Honorable Judge Randy Roll presiding. Masha Parviz is known to travel to Harris County, among other Counties. On Thursday, April 11, 2019, Investigator Kevin Nichols and I, traveled to the City of Frisco, Collin County, Texas. We met with members of the City of Frisco Police Department. On Friday, April 12, 2019, we executed a search warrant at the residence of Defendant Masha Parviz, in Collin County, Texas. The Probable Cause for the search warrant was obtained based on the Harris County case, and information provided by the Harris County District Clerk’s Office. Masha Parviz, her sister, mother, and father, were very hostile towards Law Enforcement. We subsequently seized several computers, electronic equipment, documents, and the defendant’s cell phone. We returned to Harris County, and secured the evidence for processing at the Houston FBI Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory (RCFL), and the HCSO, High Tech Crimes Unit (HTCU), for forensic download purposes.

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Samuel Scott forged two documents in his misdemeanor criminal cases trying to dismiss his cases.

I found him by looking at each user who searched his cases in our log tables.

He didn’t create his login with his name but he did use his email address.

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Based on the information obtained from our logs and the Sheriff /my investigation, Samuel Scott was served with a search warrant to his home to retrieve his computer. During execution of the warrant, the defendant confessed to the forgery of the documents.

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Beware of forged documents/filings Electronic availability of documents will create

an easier way to forge documents.

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Page 15: Piece of the Puzzle, Part of the Whole - County Prese… · Piece of the Puzzle, Part of the Whole Breakout 2: “Catch Me If You Can” Forgery—Things to Watch for in Court Records

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