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Lisle woman charged with forging petitions to get on College of DuPage ballot

A Lisle woman has been charged with submitting forged petitions in her quest to run for one of two available 6-year seats this spring on the College of DuPage board of trustees.

Rafath Waheed, of the 6000 block of Hickory Drive, turned herself in to authorities Wednesday night and was released after posting the necessary $1,000, or 10 percent of her $10,000 bond, authorities said. She is charged with two counts of forgery, two counts of issuing a forged document and four counts of perjury. All the charges are felonies.

The DuPage County state's attorney's office is alleging that Waheed collected signatures before Dec. 19 on nominating petitions to run for the COD board.

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 then notarized those fraudulent petitions as authentic and filed them along with the originals.

Her scheme was uncovered, the state's attorney's office said, when she testified truthfully during a hearing on an objection that was filed against her petitions.

"The bedrock of our entire system of government is free and fair elections," DuPage State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in a written statement. "It is alleged that Mrs. Waheed, in an effort to win a seat on the COD board of trustees, attempted to circumvent one of the basic requirements for candidacy - filing petitions with the correct number of authentic signatures."

Waheed's next court appearance is scheduled for April 12 in front of Judge Liam Brennan.

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