Former Chesapeake police officer pleads guilty to forging name on court summons
A former Chesapeake police officer pleaded guilty Monday to forging a signature on a court summons after failing to get the person who was charged in the case to sign the document.
Skysha Nettles had faced a felony forgery count but reached a deal with prosecutors that allowed her to plead guilty to the misdemeanor offense of maliciously affixing another person’s signature to a document, according to Chesapeake Commonwealth’s Attorney Matthew Hamel. She was given a suspended jail sentence and ordered to remain on good behavior for a year.
Nettles had only been a Chesapeake police officer for about eight months when the incident occurred late last year. She was suspended without pay afterward and later decertified as a law enforcement officer, Hamel said.
According to court documents, Nettles issued a summons to a man accused of shoplifting from a Food Lion on New Year’s Eve. She gave the man a copy of the summons but failed to get him to sign it. When a supervisor discovered the mistake, he gave Nettles the document back and told her she’d have to locate the man and get him to sign it. If she wasn’t able to find him, she was told she’d need to get a magistrate’s summons issued.
Nettles returned the summons the next day with a signature on it, but the supervisor thought it looked suspicious and initiated an investigation, the court documents said. After police located the suspect and he confirmed it wasn’t his signature. Nettles admitted to forging it.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
