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Berfield pleads guilty to forgery, gets six months’ house arrest

LOCK HAVEN — Beth Berfield, 52, of 361 Susquehanna Ave., pleaded guilty to felony forgery and was sentenced to serve six months’ house arrest followed by 60 months’ probation.

Clinton County Judge Michael Salisbury took Berfield’s plea and handed down the sentence in Clinton County Court on Wednesday, just days after Berfield was released from the county jail after serving 60 days for writing her 11th bad check.

Berfield was initially charged with five counts of forgery, accused by Bonnie Haines, former owner of Bonnie’s Hair, Nails and Tanning Salon, and her husband, Foster Haines, who owned Simply Formal.

One charge was dropped by District Judge Frank Mills at Berfield’s preliminary hearing and the remaining four counts of forgery were moving on through the court system to trial.

In the meantime, a plea agreement was reached that Berfield would plead guilty to one count of forgery, a felony three.

Evidence discussed in open court revealed that Berfield had clearly forged the signature of her employer on credit applications, but there was no evidence that Berfield had financially or personally profited from the forgery, District Attorney David Strouse said. The commonwealth argued that clearly it was her intention to personally profit, otherwise why commit the forgery in the first place.

Judge Salisbury sentenced Berfield to a total term of county supervision of 60 months with six months total house arrest on an electronic ankle monitor.

The forgery charges were filed by Lock Haven City Police Officer Elizabeth Gregory after an investigation into allegations by Bonnie and Foster Haines, who allege Berfield forged Bonnie Haines’ name on credit applications for several clothing companies and intended to purchase clothing, sell it and keep the money herself. Both Bonnie and Foster said they did not authorize any of the lines of credit and Bonnie did not author any of four applications.

Gregory testified that lab tests indicated Bonnie Haines was not the author of any of the signatures in question and that a lab technician would be available for trial to testify to that. On one of the documents, Berfield admitted signing Bonnie’s name, telling police she accidentally signed Bonnie’s name… and that it was a name, not a signature.

Meanwhile, Berfield is now completing the final 30 days of her 90-day bad check sentence handed down in January on house arrest. In that case — where she failed to make good a check to Service Garage of Renovo, she was also fined $1,000, ordered to pay $788 restitution to Service Garage and be supervised by probation for 24 months.

This was the 11th bad check Berfield had written in recent years, according to court documents.

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