Woman stole lawyer's identity and impersonated her in court, officials say
Attorney Karla Stirling doesn’t handle criminal defense matters, or litigate much. And, although she is licensed in Utah, she primarily practices in California.
So she was stunned to get a call from a court in Utah concerning a criminal case there she was told she had recently worked on, the Deseret News reports.
Stirling insisted there was no such case. The court said there was. Their discussion resulted in the arrest of a nonlawyer, Karla Carbo, who is accused of stealing Stirling’s identity to practice in Utah under the real attorney’s name and bar credentials. Carbo even hired a man who had recently passed the bar to work for her, Stirling told the Deseret News.
On Tuesday, Carbo was ordered by a Park City judge to stay away from legal work but allowed to post $25,000 bond for her release from jail, the Associated Press reports. Prosecutors and Stirling had sought to keep Carbo in jail.
Before she was charged with suspicion of fraud, forgery and identity theft, the 29-year-old Carbo negotiated a Summit County plea deal that will now have to be redone from scratch, officials say. An investigation is underway to determine how many such cases Carbo allegedly handled.
Lawyers in Utah have to provide their bar numbers but are not required to show photo identification to represent clients in court, the Deseret News notes.
Assistant Summit County attorney Matthew Bates says he was in 3rd District Court when Carbo signed documents for a client Dec. 23. Although he wasn’t positively impressed by her legal skills, he didn’t question whether she was a lawyer, he tells the newspaper.
“You know, there were a couple of things she said that kind of raised my eyebrows, things I would expect a defense attorney to know or questions you’d expect an experienced defense attorney to ask. But it wasn’t enough to make me dig any deeper because we get attorneys from other parts of the state or newer defense attorneys all the time,” he said.
Earlier Fox 13 News, New York Times (reg. req.) and Park Record stories provide more details.
