Ex-Trooper Forges Dead Judge's Name in Pension Dispute With Wife: Prosecutors

A retired Pennsylvania state trooper forged a dead judge's signature on a bogus court order in trying to keep his ex-wife from receiving part of his pension, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Steven Grados, 51, of Monongahela, mailed two letters to the State Employees Retirement System in early 2014 along with a court opinion supposedly signed by U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster, according to the indictment charging him with mail fraud and forging and counterfeiting a federal court seal.

Grados declined comment when reached at home Wednesday. His defense attorney, Alexander Lindsay Jr., also had no comment.

Lancaster presided over a lawsuit Grados filed in 2011 that, among other things, sought to bar his ex-wife from collecting the "premarital portion of his PA State pension." Lancaster dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice in December 2011 — meaning it could not be re-filed. Lancaster died while still on the bench April 24, 2013.

According to the indictment, Grados "created a two-part document purporting to be a Memorandum opinion and Order of court dated April 1, 2013" but he did that in early 2014.

The document, supposedly signed and sealed by Lancaster, was mailed to the State Employees Retirement System in February 2014 and again in May 2014, according to the indictment. The charges don't include a copy or describe the allegedly bogus court order except to say it was created "for the purpose of causing SERS to discontinue sending a portion of his pension benefit to his former spouse."

Grados' 2011 lawsuit, which he filed without an attorney, alleged that his ex-wife, her attorney, and various court officials in Illinois, where she now lives, conspired to falsely accuse him of falling behind in child support payments, deny him custody of their two children and wrongly grant her part of his pension. Lancaster dismissed it for a lack of jurisdiction, among other reasons.

The mail fraud counts each carry up to 20 years in prison upon conviction, and up to five years for the forgery count.