Bench Warrant Sought for Former Vancouver Attorney Josephine Townsend
VANCOUVER, WA – Prosecutors are seeking a bench warrant for former Vancouver defense attorney Josephine Townsend after she failed to report to the Clark County Jail on Friday to begin serving a 10-day sentence for forgery and identity theft.
Assistant Attorney general Jaime taft, who prosecuted Townsend’s case, stated that Townsend’s former associate informed her Saturday evening of a medical emergency involving Townsend on Friday.Taft indicated that documentation shared with her did not detail the nature of the emergency, and additional medical information has been sealed by the court.
The defense has filed a motion requesting Townsend be excused from the jail sentence due to the medical issue. As of Monday afternoon, townsend, 65, was not listed on the jail roster.
Townsend was found guilty of two counts of first-degree forgery and two counts of second-degree identity theft for creating a falsified court order for a former client involved in a protection order case. The verdict followed a four-day bench trial in Clark county Superior Court in July.
Lewis County Superior Court Judge Joely Yeager sentenced Townsend on August 26 to four months, with the first 10 days to be served in jail and the remainder under electronic home monitoring. The case centered on altered documents related to a civil protection order against Travon Santiago,where Townsend copied Judge Suzan clark’s signature from a previous order onto the forged document and affixed the Clark County Clerk’s electronic filing stamp.
Townsend and her defense team argued at trial that Santiago and his girlfriend were responsible for the forgery. Following her convictions, Townsend resigned from the Washington and Oregon state bar associations to avoid disbarment and was in the process of closing her law practise.
