A Vancouver defense attorney pleaded not guilty Thursday to two counts of forgery after a judge declined to dismiss the case based on the defense’s allegations of mismanagement and a biased investigation.
Lewis County Superior Court Judge Joely Yeager again told Josephine Townsend that she would treat her case the same way she would treat any other case. She sympathized with the impacts the allegations have had on Townsend’s career.
Ultimately, Yeager said the issues Townsend’s defense attorneys raised with the case during the two-hour hearing were arguments they could make to a jury at trial. She said the defense attorneys’ arguments did not show proof of governmental misconduct.
Townsend, 65, is accused of altering documents related to a civil protection order against her client, Travon Santiago.
Townsend’s Camas-based attorneys, Vern McCray and Roxana Manesh, said the Clark County sheriff’s detective who investigated the case ignored the motivation for Santiago and his girlfriend to lie to deputies about the origin of the allegedly forged court order. Instead, Manesh said, the detective sought to “nail (Townsend) to the wall.”
They said the detective only sought a narrow window of digital evidence from Santiago’s girlfriend’s phone that showed Townsend had emailed the document to her. But Manesh said they never disputed that Townsend sent the order; they disagree about who forged the document. Townsend’s attorneys said the document was on a flash drive that Santiago’s girlfriend gave Townsend, and Townsend emailed the document back to the couple.
Manesh said the detective didn’t seek further evidence of where the document came from before it was put on the flash drive, evidence that she said could have revealed the forger. Now, months since detectives began investigating, Manesh said that evidence has likely been destroyed and “might as well be on the bottom of the ocean.”
Assistant Attorney General Jaime Taft, who’s prosecuting the case at the request of the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, argued there was no evidence to support the case’s dismissal.
She said search warrants are supposed to be narrow and specific to protect people’s right to privacy. She said the detective didn’t have any information to suggest that Santiago’s girlfriend had a computer for investigators to search. She also said Townsend’s defense team had provided no proof that the couple have destroyed evidence since the investigation began.
After the judge denied the motion to dismiss, Yeager moved forward with arraignment and set Townsend’s trial for the week of July 14.
Incident
Santiago was arrested in December 2023 on suspicion of first-degree assault, and a judge ordered a criminal protection order, as well as GPS monitoring, prohibiting Santiago from coming within 1,000 feet of the victim. The victim’s partner also filed for a civil protection order against Santiago. The civil protection order was issued in January 2024 and restricted Santiago from coming within 5,000 feet of her, according to court records.
In April, a judge changed the distance restriction in the criminal protection order to 500 feet. Deputies learned Santiago’s apartment was roughly 1,000 feet from the victim’s home. But, they said the civil protection order prohibiting Santiago from coming within 5,000 feet of the victim’s partner was never changed, court records state.
On July 17, deputies responded to a 911 call from the victim’s partner reporting a violation of the civil protection order. When deputies accessed the online GPS monitoring system, they saw Santiago was at his apartment, which was in violation of the 5,000-foot restriction, court records state.
When deputies went to the apartment, Santiago’s girlfriend presented them with a document that claimed the protection order had been modified. But deputies said the case number on the document was for the criminal case, not the civil order they were there to enforce, according to court records. Deputies said Santiago’s girlfriend was on the phone with someone they learned to be Townsend, Santiago’s attorney.
The deputies left the apartment.
Santiago’s girlfriend later called the sheriff’s office. She told a sergeant that Townsend had sent her an order showing the protection order had been modified. She forwarded the order to the sergeant, which deputies noted was dated April 25 and now had the correct case number for the civil protection order. They said it also had Clark County Superior Court Judge Suzan Clark’s electronic signature — with the same time stamp, down to the second, as the modified criminal protection order — along with the clerk’s office’s e-filing stamp, according to court records.
