A Two Thousand Dollar Nebraska Land Purchase Leads to a Federal Fraud Case
I drove into North Platte the next morning with the photocopy of the consent form on the passenger seat.
The sheriff’s department lobby smelled of floor wax and wet winter coats.
Deputy Reynolds sat behind a thick pane of glass with a circular metal vent in the middle. He had a graying mustache that drooped over his top lip and a stack of yellow accident reports under his hand.
I slid the paper through the curved gap at the bottom of the glass.
“This is a forgery,” I said. “Someone signed my name to a county document to claim an easement on my property.”
Reynolds did not touch the paper at first. He looked at me through the glass, his eyes slow and heavy, then reached down and pulled the sheet toward him.
He turned it over, then turned it back.
“Whose signature is this supposed to be?” he asked.
“It is supposed to be mine,” I said. “But the stroke is wrong. The loop on the ‘G’ is completely flat, and I have signed my name with a round tail since I was sixteen years old.”
