Coast Guard officer appears in court for forgery

In more news from Magistrates’ Court, twenty-one year old Marlon Hernandez, an officer of the Belize National Coast Guard, was charged with six offences, including forgery, when he appeared in court today. Hernandez was charged with two counts each of Possession of a Forged Document, Claiming upon a Forged Document and Uttering a Forged Document. He was offered bail of five thousand dollars on the condition that he pays an outstanding fine of seven hundred and seventy-five dollars for a previous conviction of theft. Hernandez was unable to pay the fine and was remanded to prison. The charges against the Coast Guard officer follow a report made by Lieutenant Elton Bennett that on March thirteenth, while he was at work he received a call from Sharina Hoare, an employee of Alliance Bank Limited, inquiring about Hernandez’s salary because he was applying for the issuance of a Credit card with a limit of one thousand dollars. Hoare provided copies of Hernandez’s salary and income verification letter to Bennett who detected that the signatures on the letters were forged. The signatures purported to be from Audibaldo Maximo Junior and when contacted abroad he confirmed that he had not signed any of the letters. Hernandez allegedly committed the offences on December twenty-eighth, 2007. The letters also had the official stamp of the Belize National Guard and as it turns out was stolen in August 2007.