Web Posted: 12/09/2007 10:36 PM CST

LEAKEY — Former Real County Attorney Patricia Foster Skelton is slated to go on trial today in Uvalde on a charge of forging a will while working in private practice in 2003.

Skelton, county attorney here from 1999-2000, also faces four charges in another pending case over an insurance claim.

In the forgery case, her lawyer contends Skelton cut signatures off a will she'd drafted for Ysidro Canales of Real County before his death — because the original document was damaged — and taped them on a replica that was then filed in probate court as a will copy.

"It was ill-advised but not criminal," said defense attorney Guy James Gray, who expects the trial to last a few days.

But a former secretary of Skelton, who alerted authorities, said she suspected the cut-and-taped will, dated Aug. 16, 2002, was a total fabrication.

"Patti specifically told me that she had never done a will for Ysidro Canales," Mary Steelman wrote in a statement filed in court records.

After finding the cut-and-taped will in the office shredder in May 2003, Steelman said she examined the office computer file on Canales' will, which indicated it had been created in the previous 24 hours.

Steelman said she balked when Skelton directed her to file a facsimile of the cut-and-taped will in court, but never told her she thought it was a forgery.

"Fine. I'll take it to the courthouse myself," Skelton responded, according to Steelman, saying no one would contest the will.

The will, which left the bulk of Canales' estate, valued at $160,000, to a nephew, Robert Canales, is being contested by other Canales family members, officials said.

Proceedings in that dispute are on hold pending the outcome of the forgery trial against Skelton, who could not be reached for comment.

Among the potential witnesses at trial is Real County Judge W. B. Sansom Jr.

He said last week that Ysidro Canales' will was filed as a copy of the original, but he was unaware of claims it had been cut and taped.

Tony Reyes, the special prosecutor in the case that was moved to Uvalde County because of publicity here, declined to say whether he'll contend in court that the will is a fraud or that it was just cut-and-taped illegally.

Skelton also was indicted in November 2004 on charges of theft, money laundering, securing execution of a document by deception and criminal conspiracy, along with George Harding Sr. and Deborah Harding, who also are represented by Gray.

Gray said that case concerns an insurance claim made in 2001 by the Hardings after the death of their son, Timothy S. Roach, in a car wreck in September 2000.

Gray said Skelton helped the Hardings file documents that indicated that, at the time of death, Roach was living with them, which allowed them to collect insurance proceeds on him that exceeded $20,000.

Although Roach had his own apartment, Gray contends the criminal charges against his client are unfounded because, "You can have two residences."

However, the indictment says the defendants conspired to defraud the Bristol West Insurance Group by deception by filing an amendment to the death certificate for Roach that contained fraudulent information.

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