Diversion program ordered for Lisle woman who forged COD signature
A Lisle woman charged with submitting forged petitions to run for a seat on the College of DuPage board of trustees has entered the state's attorney's pretrial diversion program.
Rafath Waheed, 62, of the 6000 block of Hickory Drive, pleaded guilty Thursday to felony forgery and perjury charges. But the plea will be vacated and charges dismissed as long as she doesn't receive another misdemeanor or felony conviction within the next year.
The program was created in 2012 to help nonviolent first-time offenders keep felony convictions off their records.
Prosecutors allege Waheed collected signatures before Dec. 19, 2016, on nominating petitions to run for the COD board in last spring's election.
At some point, prosecutors said, Waheed made photocopies of two completed signature portions of the petitions and cut and pasted them into the body of actual petitions. They said she then completed the candidate information by hand to make the pages look like they were completed at different times. She notarized those fraudulent petitions as authentic and filed them along with the originals.
Her scheme was uncovered, they said, when she testified truthfully during a hearing on an objection that was filed against her petitions.
Waheed has been free on $10,000 bail.