Missouri Man Admits Forging Deeds to Take at Least 14 Properties
James L. Townes Jr. used notary seals to make forged owners’ signatures look real, and at least three of the owners were already dead, prosecutors say.
A St. Louis County man has admitted taking at least 14 properties that belonged to other people by filing forged deeds that made it look as if the owners had sold them to him or his relatives.
James L. Townes Jr., 51, of Berkeley, Missouri, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in federal court in St. Louis on Oct. 15, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said. The charge carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
How the scheme worked
A deed is the document that transfers ownership of a property, and it is filed with the local recorder of deeds. Townes admitted that starting as early as Sept. 25, 2018, he filed deeds in St. Louis and St. Louis County claiming that he or his relatives had bought properties that belonged to others.
To get the deeds accepted, Townes and a co-defendant, Charnay Bartlett, used notary seals they had obtained fraudulently to “authenticate” forged signatures of the real owners, prosecutors said. The two transferred at least 14 properties to Townes, his companies, or his friends and family, his plea agreement says.
Townes admitted the scheme used the names of 10 or more people and that the intended losses were more than $1.5 million. At least three of the owners whose signatures were “authenticated” were already dead, according to the office. In some cases, Townes forced his way through locked doors and squatted in the properties.
What it cost the owners
Some of the real owners had to spend considerable resources to get their titles back, prosecutors said. Others gave up their properties because they could not afford to take legal action.
The charges he faced
Townes was first charged in June 2025. In August 2025, a superseding indictment charged him with 25 counts, accusing him and Bartlett of using deeds to transfer, or try to transfer, 16 homes and a duplex between September 2018 and April 2025. That indictment also said Townes kept making transfers after his own notary license was suspended. His plea agreement covers at least 14 properties.
In July 2025, a magistrate judge ordered him held in custody while the case was pending, court records show.
In a separate indictment filed in August 2025, prosecutors accused Townes of falsely claiming to be disabled from February 2017 to August 2025. He said he could not walk more than five or 10 steps or do household chores, the indictment says, while he ran a company called Tied Tight Entertainment, acted as the registered agent of 13 other LLCs, became a notary and filed property deeds. The announcement of his plea does not say what happened to that case.
What happens next
Bartlett, 30, pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge in April 2026 and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 2, 2026. Townes is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 21, 2027.
The case was investigated by the inspectors general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Social Security Administration, the St. Louis County Police Department and the Hazelwood Police Department.
