I heard that there was a discussion in this forum a while back about the chronic nature of fraudulent documents (birth certificates, etc) from Mexico presented by defendants. Unfortunately, I missed this thread.
Can anyone fill me in on this topic? I'm filing a PDR next week which concerns, in part, a Mexican birth certificate that I suspect is a forgery.
Thanks.

We had a defendant claim to be a juvenile after he was arrested for pointing a gun at an officer (the officer shot him). In support of the claim, the Mexican Consulate brought us an alleged birth certificate faxed from a motel somewhere in Mexico. They alleged that the mayor of that city personally vouched for the birth certificate.

We declined to accept the document as authentic, causing me to receive many threatening phone calls from the consular office in Austin. Soon thereafter, I got a phone call from the consular office, apologizing. They had determined the birth certificate had been altered.

Defendant pled guilty and was sentenced.

I frankly don't know how one would verify that a document from a foreign country is authentic, but I doubt we will ever accept a faxed document. Does anyone have a story on how to authenticate these documents?

I had no idea that we were allowed to make up folksy, Cajun aliases for this forum! I've been using my real name, when all along I could have been calling myself "Crawfish Queen" or "Gumbo Gal" or something that ends with an "eaux"!! A.P., did you know this?

What makes you think it's an alias?

It is nice to see someone who can spell correctly.

In the past when sending documents from the U.S. to another country, I have taken the documents to the Secretary of State's office for an apostille. Which is, as I understand it, just a notorial act from a more powerful notary.

Surely, other countries have a similar set up.

To tell you the truth, Ms. Starnes, if it weren't for folksy, off-the-wall slobberings, I wouldn't appear here at all. You see, I'm so ignorant, I wouldn't have even thought an appostille had anything to do with fraudulent documents. I thought they were the Peters, James's, Johns, et. al.