Kristen N. Kanatzar 2nd of Mountain Home now faces charges of fraudulently obtaining a credit card and faking court papers having to do with his divorce. He pled not guilty during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday to faking the divorce documents to allegedly stop his wife from asking him about the paperwork.
According to investigative records, the 28-year-old Kanatzar said he did not have the money to pay an attorney to finalize the paperwork so he faked the documents, forged a judge’s signature and sent the papers to his soon to be ex-wife.
Unfortunately, what Kanatzar did is illegal and he now faces felony forgery charges.
In mid-July, the Mountain Home Police Department received a report from Samantha Kanatzar in which she said she believed that her husband had given her fake divorce papers.
The documents, which were titled “In the Circuit Court of Baxter County, Arkansas, Domestic Relations Division,” were marked as if they had been filed in the Baxter County Clerk’s Office and appeared to bear the signature of Judge Van Gearhart.
The soon to be ex-wife discovered that the documents had not been filed as they indicated, and when Judge Gearhart examined a copy of the documents, he said the signature was not his.
When Kristen Kanatzar was interviewed at the Mountain Home Police Department on July 19th, he admitted to copying the judge’s signature and lifting a facsimile of the stamp that indicates that the paperwork had been filed with the County Clerk from legitimate documents.
He said he was hoping that the faked paperwork would stop his wife’s questions about when their divorce would be finalized.
Judge John Putman ordered Kanatzar to reappear September 1st on the divorce papers case.
Kanatzar has now been arrested on charges of obtaining a credit card in the name of another person, and using that card to run up almost $1,700 in purchases. According to the Mountain Home Police Department, the victim in the case was once a friend of Kanatzar’s.
Kanatzar was jailed on charges related to obtaining and using the credit car on Thursday — the day he made his first appearance and entered his plea in the fake divorce papers case. He is currently free on $10,000 bond.
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