1607: The Fake Lawyer

Speaker: Today's episode is about a problem that I didn't even know was a problem. Now this story, an alleged fake attorney in even more hot water for taking thousands of dollars for legal services. That's right. Yes. Fake attorneys. I posted a video about this on TikTok. A Pennsylvania woman was charged with pretending to be a partner at a law firm except She didn't even have a law degree. Kimberly Kitchen was promoted to partner. That's when her firm realized that she had forged all the documents to become a lawyer, including her law license and even her bar exam results. In addition to that, she was also charged with a felony for tampering with public records. But then, I discovered another case of a fake lawyer, and then another case. All right, so my understanding is that you were outside speaking with members of the jury. Is that correct? That's either yes or no. Henry Berrocad is standing before Judge Stephanie Boyd of the 187th District Court in San Antonio, Texas. Berrocad was wearing a three piece suit and a tie. No, no, no. You were outside speaking to the jurors. Yes or no. It's not entirely clear why he was talking with members of the jury. But he did tell the judge that he was a federal employee. And what division? All right. Do you have documentation for that? You can't really hear what he's saying, but as you can tell, the judge is not buying it. While this exchange was going on, the court bailiffs were slapping handcuffs behind his back. And where's your documentation that show you work for the federal government? Of course, he had no proof. Later, it was discovered that Henry Betrocad was posing as an attorney, even visiting quote unquote clients in jail. So, you are not allowed to be in this courthouse anymore. You do not have any business here. If you are not, if you are not a witness, you know that you are not supposed to. Be speaking with the jurors in the hallway. You were, those jurors were not asking you any questions. You took it upon yourself. To tamper with the jury. You are not allowed in this courthouse anymore. Do you understand? No. Do you understand? In today's episode, we're going to talk about two of the wildest legal con artist stories I've ever come across. The first story is a case of legal stolen identity. And the second story is Probably one of the ballsiest legal maneuverings I've ever seen. I'm Javier Leyva. And this is Pretend stories about real people pretending to be someone else. I found out about it in September. When I was approached by Metro, the police department, the detectives, and when they told me what was going on and that it was going on for the past year, it completely just blew my mind. I was so shocked. You're hearing from Las Vegas attorney Ophelia Markarian. Ophelia says that Senia Paulson, a paralegal, impersonated her and represented clients under her name. Ophelia says that she didn't personally know Senia Paulson, but she suspected that something was up. You see, Senia Paulson was working for this guy. Hi, my name is Doug Crawford, I'm an attorney here in Las Vegas. Attorney Doug Crawford, an actual attorney, was arrested and charged for sexually harassing employees. He's even accused of trading legal services. So when a judge took his ability to practice the law, that's when attorney Ophelia Markarian stepped in. I was helping out in closing out his law firm and going through clients and basically finding a home for each client. And so I met her when I was helping Wind down that law firm and her and I had exchanged a few words in regards to her doing things that I had not authorized and she never worked for me. Personally, but at that time she had to take authority because I was the one taking care and in charge of winding down this business along with other people that were attorneys. Her role was just to follow instructions and get each client situated and find a new home per our instruction. And so when I noticed issues with her, I had bought it. To everybody's attention that was involved and at that point I was done, you know And I had made it very clear to her that she did not have my authority To sign off on things. She did not have my authority to Talk to clients on my behalf and I thought that that was the end of it. And so A year later when I found out that all of the things that I had told her a year ago That she didn't have the authority to do. She she did it for a whole year behind my back She portrayed herself as an attorney Uh when she you know, let's say went out networking clubs Restaurants things like that and she portrayed herself as an attorney and had clients hire her You To represent them outside of the firm, right? When that firm closed down in June of 22, she went off to work at different law firms and at those law firms, she, she portrayed herself as a paralegal, but while she was at those law firms, she was portraying herself as an attorney to certain clients. And building a clientele for herself as an attorney. But in terms of billing and all that, was she billing on the side? Her job was a paralegal and her side job was pretending to be a lawyer and lying to clients and taking on cases that she has no, no right to do so. She's not a licensed attorney. Right. And what kind of cases was she taking? She was taking on family cases. Um, she was taking on cases, you know, it was an adoption or it was a non contested divorce where there's not, There's certain cases that you can do without seeing a judge, and those are the cases she would do because she would just do the paperwork and file things, which she can't even do because she was using. She used my name and my bar number on certain cases to file. And you had no idea until the police came and told you about this. Yes. And I, the clients didn't, I mean, so she created a Facebook account with my name, she created a lot of things and she also had clients that came to her, you know, Through somebody else and so they just trusted her and she didn't even she didn't even do so a client had hired her To do an uncontested divorce And they had hired her months prior to Her filing. I mean she didn't file for Like eight months or nine months until the client kept calling her and asking her, you know, the status and what was going on She finally filed and she filed under my name and when I was contacted by metro And told that this divorce was filed in august of 2023 And I was contacted in september of 23. So just a month ago. I was I was shocked And I pulled it up on, you know, the online account. I just could not believe it because it had my name and my bar number. Honestly, this was something that you would read in law school on like a ethics exam or something. You know, I couldn't believe it was real. Not only Was a shocking to me, but there's people that believe that they're divorced when in reality, they're not because they're doctors and all fraud. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. So God knows how many people or do we know exactly how many people she, you know, did this to because they might not even be divorced at this point, right? Yeah, so the ones that we know of, I was able to go in and I did a pro bono for free and I, you know, changed and redid all of the paperwork to just make sure that it was now legit and real. And it was me signing off. But there are, I mean, I have no idea. I mean, this is why we've been having these media appearances and news conferences, just so that if there are people that they, I hope that they will reach out to the prosecutor and let them know. That would be first or, you know, to match or whoever to the detectives because it's still ongoing, you know, and if there are more, I, I, I would imagine that there are, she's been doing this for 18 something years, you know, I'm a young attorney, um, but at the end of the day, I'm an attorney, I went to law school, I took the bar, I'm actually licensed in three states and where is she now? She's in Vegas. Is she out of prison, do you know, or out of jail? Yes. She got bailed out with, um, on an OR on her own recognizance. So she didn't even have to put up a bail amount. Oh, wow. And so she's out there. The funny thing about people like this is that they don't stop, right? Like they, no, no. And that that's honestly, my biggest fear is that, you know, being in the legal field is already so difficult. Right. And, you know, there's certain things. That are put in the system to, to make it easier for attorneys to be able to get their job done. Right? Like for example, you know, the electronic signatures, right? Like that is such A benefit, you know, first of all, you don't have to print out every single document to sign, you know, you it's easy, right? You just sign online and file. That's it. But then this is the problem that it causes is you've got people just e signing for you and you have no idea. I would have never known. So that's how she was doing it. She was e signing and that's how she was able to get away with this stuff. Ah, e signing and not appearing in court. Right. I mean, she was, she was also, she was doing everything that didn't require court appearances. It's just forms. You, you fill out the forms, you submit it to the court, you get the judge to sign the decree and you're done. It's easy money. And it's great for clients, right? Like it's great for people that, you know, got married fast and, you know, need to get divorced fast. It's a fast city. Yeah. Wow. And, and the, the worst part is that she had everything she needed to get this done. She had your bar number, she had Access to the, the electric tronic signatures and she had access to the clients, right? Yep. Wow, that's crazy. And so, when is her trial? Do you know? No, no idea. She does have court coming up here pretty soon. The thing is that a lot of these cases, they're going to get plead out. Yeah. You know, they're going to get plead out and she probably won't even go to trial. When we come back, you're going to meet a woman who posed as a district attorney and a judge in order to drop her on charges. This next story is wild. I first posted about this story on TikTok and Instagram. A New Hampshire woman poses as a prosecutor then drops the charges against herself. Let's say you have a couple drug charges or, you know, you stole somebody's purse. Don't worry about it. Just pose as a prosecutor. And make it all go away. That's actually what prosecutor say Lisa Landon of New Hampshire did for three different court cases against her. Somehow, Lisa Landon tapped into the court's computer systems and filed documents to submit her fake filings. So, how did this all go down? Well, a state forensic examiner was looking at Landon's court records and noticed something unusual. All the charges against Landon were dropped, but when they started looking even deeper into her files, they realized that she had done this over and over again. They even found a document waiving her filing fees. For a lawsuit that she had filed in the courts. She posed as a judge to do this. And she also filed a document to halt the guardianship proceedings for one of her children. After I posted this video on social media, the internet rejoiced. Lisa Landon was a hero. Here, let me read you some of the comments. Quote, Legend. Chess, not checkers. She pulled out an Uno reverse card. I mean, you can't blame her for trying. There were almost a thousand comments just like this. So, I started digging, and as it turns out, this story took a more sinister turn. When I looked up the charges against Lisa Landon, you know, the charges she dropped by hacking into the court system, well it turns out that she was accused of burglary and entering an apartment of a person with the initials JD. Then there was another incident where Lisa Landon broke into another person's house. This time it was a person with the initials VK. According to the court records, she spent the night and took this person's property. But all of this was written in legalese and I really couldn't tell what was going on. We know there were drugs, stolen property, and possibly some stalking. And I also couldn't get my hands on the police reports. At least not soon enough to make it onto this episode. So, I'm I was searching for the victims listed in the court documents, and I was able to find JD. Here's his story. I'm one of her victims. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I kind of came across your name. She broke into my apartment and stole my truck. She caused 14, 000. I've got a, a 2016 GMC pickup truck that I bought brand new. It's got. Today, it's got 8, 000 miles on it, but she took it out and caused 14, 000 worth of damage to it. Like what? What did she do to the truck? She ran it into a guardrail. Oh my God. Yeah. Which they were, they, they were actually, I believe, cooking meth over there. And she actually knew people there. I had never seen her before. In my life. Wow. She, she pulled up on a, she pulled up on a cop speeding and they pulled her over and there was meth in the truck. You know, she had drugs in the truck. And I had to have the whole, the whole truck swabbed down with her, you know, fentanyl and fentanyl. Stuff. So, so that, that's interesting because like the news story, paint her out to be like this mastermind, but really what you're pointing to is that she, she's, she's, she, she's a smart person, there's no question. And she knew how to play the system, so she would get arrested. So she, she got caught with my truck in Burling, Berlin, New Hampshire. She got pulled over and, uh, she claimed it was her truck. I didn't even know it was gone, and I didn't believe that I had to go home. And check to see if the truck was gone. Garage was open. Truck was missing. And I went and got the truck. Do you still have the truck now? I do. I'm probably going to get rid of it. It makes me sick to drive in it knowing that she was in it. Like J. D. said, he didn't know Liza Landon, but she knew everything about him. After she stole J. D. 's truck, she was released from jail. But that wasn't the last time he saw her. Yeah, she came back. She actually came back, and that's the second, the second time is when we actually caught her in the apartment. Oof. So, you saw her? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I caught her. We caught, we caught her in the apartment on the property with police already in the building investigating the other break in, in one of the other apartments. And this is after she stole the truck or before? After she stole the truck. Oh my God. Yeah. So they released her on bail reform and then she just came back. When you walked in on her, what happened? Like she, she was like, I, she's lucky probably the police were in the building cause I did have a firearm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I knew that the police were upstairs, so I immediately yelled for the police that she's down and they didn't know who I was because they didn't know I was in the building and they were kind of hesitant to go in the apartment. Like she went out the back door. She stood there. She looked right at me and she goes, don't call the cops. Don't call the cops. And I just kept on yelling for the cops. They came down and they got her in the backyard. Oh, man. And then, and then she's like laughing and giggling and, and. Kind of made me upset. There's stuff in my apartment. She tore my, she tore my whole spare bedroom apart. She took the computer apart. She took the TV out of my bedroom. And she was trying to hook the two together. You know, her, her, her crack lighter or meth lighter was in there. And we had a, we had a Corvette in the garage and she tried to take that. She had pulled the cover off of it. And I had the keys. She, she had the keys. She actually, when they arrested her and they took her possessions off, she actually had the keys to the Corvette. The only reason she could have started it was because the battery was disconnected. Otherwise she would have took that. There was a, a thumb drive in the back, back of my Comcast modem. Oh man. Which I, I believe, I gave that thumb drive to, to the, to the uh, the investigator and he, he, he, I think he passed it on to the FBI. I, I, I, I, I. I mean, think about what she was doing, man. If she's capable of hacking into like the court system. Now there's a thumb drive in your router. I mean, she's could get into your bank account. She could track your every online move. I mean, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She, that's, that's, that's why I say this, this person was, she's very intelligent. There's, there's no, there's no question. There's, there's no question on my mind is she's an intelligent person. She knew what she was doing. You just don't hack into, you know, the government stuff and issue yourself money. I don't know if this is for sure, but it's listed online that she was, uh, either working at ITT technical Institute. So this is like a person that knows technology, right? More than the average Joe. I believe so. I'm not sure how much of. If, if it, any of it is true because there was stuff on that thumb drive that, you know, you were very, very questionable. Like, did you check the thumb drive? What was in it? Yeah. Yeah. I did. What was it? The thumb drive. It was there. There was stuff that shouldn't have been in there, but I don't think any of it was real. I think it was made up. Like what? Now you pick my curiosity. Like what? Like she had a lot of money. Oh. And I don't Bad statements or something. Yeah. Yeah. Like investment funds, that type of stuff. I think it got passed on to the FBI and then the FBI think deemed it was just, a lot of it was not real. A bunch of nothing. Yeah. Yeah. It was a bunch of nothing. But what, what she was trying to do with, I mean, she like took my whole computer like out of the desk and unplugged it. She cut the speaker wires and she took the TV out of my bedroom and she was trying to hook the TV. to the computer. I had no idea what she was actually, what she was doing. I mean, it could have been worse. I mean, there's things in my apartment that I'm glad that she didn't steal. Well, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. Oh yeah. That would have been dangerous. But you know, it's like feeling violated, you know, your home should be where you feel safe and you know, most people have like this irrational fear of like break ins and stuff like that. I mean, usually burglars don't want to be found or whatever, but you actually know somebody who has been in your home maybe repeatedly and like that, that has to play a number on you. Oh yeah. It was like, I know this person had been in my apartment at least twice, but when I was standing there after, you know, The police had left, you know, and I'm like, it, it, this is a smell, it just, it, it hit me. It just, it was like, she'd been in here before, you know, it's like she probably was laying on my couch watching TV. Yeah. You know, you don't, you don't pay too much attention to when you leave the house every day of where things are or where things are placed. Man. So when we caught her in my apartment, I, I walked in and, and they might chuckle at this, but, this is like B. O. stuff. I'm a, you don't know me, but I'm a, I'm a, I'm a neat freak. I'm clean. I take two showers a day. I'm, I'm just one of those neat guys and I would, when I was standing in the apartment after she'd gone, I could smell this like BO smell and it just flashed back because there would be times I would go home after work and I'd walk in and I'm like, what is that smell? And it was the same smell. It was like, it wasn't like a garbage smell. It's like, it smells like BO in here. She was just hanging out. And she, she, I, I, I honestly think, and again, I can't prove it, but I honestly think that she, she knew that I worked, you know, 14 hour days and nobody was there. So do you think she was targeting you or do you think she was just like a meth head just looking for her? Yes. To some degree, I think, I think, yes, she did target me, but she, you know, this, this time because she's been in jail and she's, you know, now off of, uh, meth. You know, she, she came out, she goes, I didn't know what I was doing. I thought it was my apartment. I thought it was my car, you know, and I'm thinking, I, it doesn't, that, that doesn't change anything. So I, I actually believe that she had been in my apartment more than once. I work a lot. So I'm not home. So I think that she, she, she watched and she knew. But I had somebody apply for credit cards underneath my name and this was before we caught her. And now I think back on it. She probably took my mail and she tried to apply, uh, for a credit card based on information that she found in my apartment. I mean, that's not a stretch. It's not a stretch to believe that she did that. I mean, considering that she hacked into the judicial system and, and she issued a check, she issued money, a refund to herself. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. She, she knew she might've been on drugs, you know, and, but she knew exactly what she was doing and she knew, you know. How to play the system in order to get release. I've been trying to figure out how Lisa Landon was able to hack into the court system in order to drop her own charges. I just haven't been able to get anyone from the prosecutor's office to talk to me. But I was able to get audio of one of the court proceedings. All right, um, the matter before the court is the state of New Hampshire versus Lisa Landon. Good afternoon, Ms. Landon. Okay. They're here to be arraigned on several charges today. The first is That charges you with the offense of false impersonation. Lisa Landon of Manchester, New Hampshire, you commit the offense of false impersonation, excuse me, not Lisa Landon, that did knowingly and falsely assume and exercise the functions, powers, duties. But this is not a trial, so they didn't really get into the juicy details. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the real victim of, of, of all this. I'm the guy, I moved, I lived in that, I lived in an apartment for 27 years and I couldn't, I couldn't deal with it. I, I moved. Wow. I moved. I had to go to therapy for it. I had to, it, it, it really affected my life. She's out now? Yeah, she, yeah, she's out now. She just, so I want to say last month or the month before was her, she was applying for early parole and they ended up, I voiced all of my opinions. I had the opportunity in front of her. She had been out on work release. So I want to say like the last six months she had been worked out on work release. Oh man. And they were like, you know, what's, what's another six months. Why can't you just get out? And I'm like, Yeah. What's another six months? She can stay where she put. You gave her a minimum sentence, you know, serve. I'm sorry. If you get a minimum sentence, you'd serve the whole minimum. It doesn't be doing it. We're going to minimize it again. I think that the courts don't want to, they, they, they deem them as, uh, nonviolent criminals. And so they allow these people to get out. But You know, as you know, you know, she's saying, Oh, you know, I've been doing good going on, and it's like, I don't really care. You know, I don't care how, how well you were doing. Yeah. And the prosecutor for the state and the victim advocate and, and the detective, um, all said that, you know, at some point in time, she'll. She'll mess up again. Best case scenario is that she did all this stuff because she was high. Worst case scenario is that she wasn't high and she knew exactly what she was doing, you know? Right. I think, I think it's a combination of both. Yeah. You know, some of it she was low, she was high, but some of it is she knew what she was doing. You don't, you don't do all those things and not know what you're doing. But whatever you're writing is that I, I don't, one of the things that I see today is, you know, Movies seem to, they, they make movies or seem to glorify these criminals, you know, it's like we give people attention, you know, the shows that, you know, document like serial killers or, you know, you know, you know, real criminals, you know, organized crime and all that. And it's like, you're almost glorifying these people and making them look like something that they're not. So to all the internet passerbys who think Lisa Landon is a hero, maybe you should listen to JD story. The only thing that you can hope for is that she learned her lesson by spending three years in jail and sobering up maybe, you know, and sobering up and seeing it and having to listen to what I had to say. You know, I guess I hope that she does better for herself, but you know, there's part of me too, that hopes that she, repeats and has to serve the rest of her site that I can say like she could rot in jail for all I care for, you know, altering. She altered my life. Yeah. I've been a, uh, a good person I feel for the most part of my life. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. Uh, I come to work every day, work 14 hours a day. I work hard for the things that I have. Yeah. And no, yeah, no, no, uh, no, uh, And I just, I don't have a lot of patience from people that take from others. That's the big message for me is that, look, if somebody violates you as small and petty as you may think it may be and you want to be done with it, if the person ends up in court, go. And voice how it made you feel and how it violated you. You know, because a judge is going to be lenient on that person to some degree if you don't. Because it'll freak you out listening to this, right? Yeah. No, anybody. Yeah. I tell people, I, yeah, people, I tell people, you know, like, geez, you know, there's something like you see on a TV program or something. Yeah. Like on Dateline or something, Like, she's just like that, you know, what gave me chills from your conversation was the odor. Oh, The odor, it's the, I have like, I can smell like everything. So I'm very sensitive to, to smell. And it's, if, if You know, bad breath, BO, you know, garbage smell. But there was literally times when I walk into the apartment at nighttime and I'm like, I know that I'm not dirty. I would go like smell my, my hamper, you know, where I put my dirty clothes and I'm like, it doesn't, it doesn't smell in here. Yeah. It just, you know, the odor. And I bet you have that smell memorized in your head. You could like. Oh yeah. It, it like, it hit me when, after they were arresting me, I was back in my apartment looking over things. I was like. I said it right now. This is a smell. She's been in here before. This person has been hanging out in my fricking apartment. That's chilling, man. Chilling. All right. That's it for today. I am working on a pretty big bombshell type of, uh, investigation. It's coming out next week. Of course, if you want to be the first ones to listen to the next series in its entirety, Subscribe to my Patreon or go to Apple podcast, where you will have not only the next series ad free as soon as it comes out, but you have the whole stalker series has his own channel ad free the catch me if you can series has its own channel ad free. And of course, you get to listen to my other podcasts, criminal conduct and Ponzi playbook ad free. So check that out. Apple podcast. Pretend plus, or you can listen to it on Patreon. Same content on both platforms is your choice. I'm also doing this thing where I am going to release a lot more bonus content. So make sure to check that out. Of course, you could always follow me on social at pretend pod. I'm on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, you name it. I'm on it. All right, guys, we'll talk soon. Take care.