Orange police sergeant indicted for forging ticket dismissals

🚔 Orange police sergeant indicted for forging signatures in ticket scheme
📝 Forgery to dismiss motor vehicle tickets meant to benefit a friend, police say
⚖️ Sgt. Yolanda Holmes now faces 12 criminal charges and is suspended without pay

An Orange police sergeant has been indicted by an Essex County Grand Jury on multiple counts of official misconduct and falsifying public records.

Sgt. Yolanda Holmes, of Somerset, was charged with forging the signatures of an officer and a sergeant on two requests to dismiss or void complaint forms.

Holmes has been suspended without pay, police confirmed to New Jersey 101.5.

Forged forms submitted to Orange municipal court

Forms dated March 24, 2023, were used to try and dismiss two motor vehicle tickets issued to a friend of the 44-year-old Holmes, Essex County Prosecutor Theodore Stephens II said.

The phony forms were submitted to the City of Orange Township Municipal Court, which processed one ticket and dismissed the other ticket.

The second ticket, however, had already been paid and could not be dismissed.

Holmes indicted on 12 charges, faces misconduct counts

So, police uncovered the scheme when the municipal court returned one of the forms, prompting the ticketing officer to realize that he had not tried to void it.

Both that officer and a sergeant whose names appeared on the ticket confirmed they had not signed the document.

The officer also said he did not authorize anyone else to dismiss the tickets on his behalf.

Holmes has been charged with six counts of fourth-degree forgery, two counts of fourth-degree falsifying or tampering with records, and two counts each of third-degree tampering with public records, and second-degree official misconduct.

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