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Employee of process-serving company indicted
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Aug. 26, 2010 | 7:41 a.m.
In a rare action, the office manager of an embattled process serving company was indicted Wednesday on a felony charge of filing a false notary public application with the Nevada secretary of state's office.
The charge is part of a nine-count indictment against Vilisia Coleman in the growing scandal tied to her unlicensed company, On Scene Mediations, which is accused of filing false affidavits of service in Las Vegas Justice Court.
Secretary of State Ross Miller said his notary administrator, Laura Ethridge, has never seen anyone prosecuted criminally for filing a false application during her 21 years overseeing the notary process.
"The fact that we were able to bring forward charges is significant," said Miller whose office has assisted Las Vegas police with their investigation of On Scene Mediations. "I believe that this type of notary fraud is relatively common, but undetected. We largely lack the resources to effectively enforce these statutes."
Miller said his office can seek to revoke Coleman's notary appointment, but won't take action until the criminal case concludes.
The eight other charges against the 46-year-old Coleman, which include perjury and filing false court documents, are the same as those in a criminal complaint filed against her earlier this month. That complaint will be dismissed, and Coleman, who is free on bond, will be arraigned in District Court on the new charges on Sept. 1.
The notary charge follows an Aug. 11 Las Vegas Review-Journal story that questioned whether Coleman lied about her criminal past when she filled out her application with the secretary of state. When asked whether she had ever been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, she checked the "No" box, officials told the newspaper.
But records show that she was sentenced to three years of probation for felony cocaine possession in 2006 and was ordered to undergo drug treatment.
She also has a gross misdemeanor conviction for attempted grand larceny at a Walmart in 2001. In that case, she was charged with violating her two-year probation in 2003 and ordered to spend eight months behind bars at the Clark County Detention Center.
Her criminal record should have prohibited her by law from becoming a state-approved notary.
The indictment accused Coleman, whose bail was increased from $24,000 to $50,000 on Wednesday, of covering up her criminal past in the state application.
Coleman was charged Wednesday in what authorities call a sweeping scheme by On Scene Mediations to file false affidavits that allowed payday loan and debt collection companies to get Justice Court default judgments.
Also charged in a separate indictment is Maurice Carroll, the 41-year-old former Las Vegas police officer who owns On Scene Mediations.
Authorities allege that both Coleman and Carroll, whose company has operated without a license since 2003, lied in notarized affidavits when swearing they had served defendants with copies of court papers on behalf of debt collection agency Richland Holdings. Richland Holdings obtained default judgments after the defendants failed to respond to the lawsuits.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@review journal.com or 702-380-8135 or read more courts coverage at lvlegalnews.com.
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Another example of the quality humans MEtro employs. He may have been fired but how many Metro cops are there that are getting away with their crimes under the cover of the badge today?
This whole thing with process servers isn't new by any means nor is it restricted to this company. I used to work security at a gated community and it wasn't uncommon for a process server to just drop the paperwork on the driveway and leave. They would make no attempt to actually go to the residence to serve them. They just tried to give it to security at the gate and when they were told we weren't authorized to accept the papers on the behalf of the resident and that they did not need authorization to enter the community, they dropped them out their window and drove away.
These people really are scum. But what do you expect? The leader is ex-Metro.
More scum caught. I hope they both get several years in jail. Better yet, I prefer the lethal injection method so my money isn't spent housing this crap who pose as human beings.