Man Could Get 20 Years for Forging 'Not Guilty' Verdict After Conviction

Boston, MA - A Brighton man could have spent 90 days in prison on theft charges, or avoided jail time altogether, but now faces a potential 20-year sentence for allegedly altering his own jury slip, doctoring the verdict to read "not guilty."

David Scher, 33, was arraigned Wednesday on charges of perjury, after he allegedly went back to the courthouse, swapped the clerk's file on his larceny conviction, and replaced it with a forged verdict slip.

According to a Suffolk County District Attorney's office press release, Scher has since presented the doctored slip in court and to officials at his former university as genuine. If the charges stick, he could be indicted on five counts: perjury, tampering with a court document, forgery and two counts of uttering a false document.

An official testified in court that Scher was previously convicted in Boston Municipal Court for stealing a laptop from Suffolk University Law School, where he had been a student. He was given a 90-day prison sentence, which a judge delayed for a two-year probationary period.

During that time, Scher returned to the court clerk's office, the press release said, and asked on multiple occasions to view his verdict slip, which is a public record. On one of those visits, he allegedly replaced the copy with a forgery which checked the "not guilty" box.

A later charge of operating a vehicle without insurance brought Scher back before the Brighton Municipal Court, where an attorney presented the allegedly forged slip as evidence against the previous larceny conviction. All this was in 2014.

On Dec. 31 of that year, Scher allegedly filed a complaint with the state’s Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, claiming that the verdict at his trial was "not guilty" and that he had notified the court of the alleged error, according to the release.

In May of last year, the same complaint surfaced in a letter to Suffolk University, which had denied Scher's degree based on his theft conviction. A scanned copy of his forged verdict slip was attached in an email from Scher's attorney, according to the release.

Scher returns to court to face the list of new charges May 4. If convicted, he could spend up to 20 years in state prison.