Two Cayo women charged with forgery, theft

They worked in the Cayo courthouse and police station…but today two government employees found themselves in the role of accused. The women, both of San Ignacio, have been charged with numerous offences surrounding the misappropriation of funds. Forty-one year old Antonia Lourdes Castellanos, a clerk and interpreter at San Ignacio Magistrate’s Court, has been charged with eight counts of uttering a forged document, claiming on a forged document, forgery, and theft, along with a single count of conspiracy. Her alleged accomplice, thirty-eight year old Zelita Berry, a cleaner at the San Ignacio Police Station, has been charged with a single count of all the above charges. It is alleged that when a worker at the courthouse went on maternity leave Castellanos, with Berry’s help, forged and cashed her pay vouchers. The amount of money involved totals over two thousand dollars.