In a strange turn of events, Justice of the Peace Russ Casey, is now under scrutiny for having potentially forged dozens, if not over hundred, signatures on his petitions for ballot access. If true, this would be a felony transgression.

To appear on the ballot in Texas for judicial positions, candidates must secure petition signatures from registered voters. For a Justice of the Peace that number is 250 signatures.

Incumbent Judge Russ Casey, who is no stranger to controversy having been reprimanded by the State Board on Judicial Conduct last year for requiring sexual favors from his court coordinator, has challenged the signatures of his two challengers on a technicality. Doing so caused one of his challengers to review Casey’s signatures. Last Friday candidate Lenny Lopez contacted Direct Action Texas with what appeared to be forged signatures.

Over the next 48 hours DAT, along with a team, went door to door talking to voters and securing affidavits from the voters stating the signatures are not theirs. Earlier today Lenny Lopez filed a challenge to 67 of Russ Casey’s petition signatures. 55 are needed to be removed in order to disqualify Casey from being on the ballot. That’s the first issue, however multiple counts of forgery constitutes a felony offense. DAT will hand over our evidence and affidavits to the proper authorities soon. Based upon our analysis there are between 93 to 130 signatures which appear to be forged on Casey’s petitions.

It took Lopez and DAT no time to suspect something. Here is one page from Casey’s petitions:

You’ll notice on each, all the signatures have the same hand writing. The first example, you’ll notice all the voters are on Thorncrest Court in North Richland Hills, that is where Judge Casey lives. His neighbors signed affidavits stating these are not their signatures. Not only that, notice the the “R”s in the voter’s signatures and compare that to Russ Casey’s signature at the bottom of the form – the Rs are the same.

This story will continue to unfold – stay tuned to DirectActionTX.com for updates.

We want to thank the entire team who went door to door on a rainy Sunday afternoon:

Matt Spano, Judge Alex Kim, Lenny Lopez, Crystal Lopez, Joel Starnes, Terri Gallagher, Judge Patricia Baca Bennett, Judge Deborah Nekhom, and Christine Welborn.

UPDATE::

Judge Russ Casey submitted a letter withdrawing himself from race. As a result the Tarrant County GOP accepted Lenny Lopez’s contest to the signatures and disqualified the signatures and has removed Russ Casey from the race.