[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak|remove link|no_popup[/img]I was finishing with a client when I received a call from an attorney asking if I would be available for a forensic handwriting analysis.
Yes, with a cautionary note. I had no FBI forensic graphology training. My only training stemmed from a 40-hour course when I was preparing to become a hypnotherapist.
Add to that 21 years of applying the science I learned 22 years ago. I apply this science daily when helping clients. I ask each to write what he or she wants to accomplish in cursive writing. Ot helps me to identify their suggestibility, to some extent their possible behaviors under many different circumstances, their self-confidence and self-esteem levels. Almost 200 characteristics are visible in a person’s handwriting.
Add a personal diary of random people I have met at social gatherings, who were willing to have me analyze their handwriting. Afterward, I have asked them to grade my accuracy. With zero exceptions, the score offered is 80 percent and above. Pretty good.
The attorney showed me three signatures, as her first matter. She believed the same person had written all three and was using two different last names. Two signatures were one name; the single one the other.
When I examined the signatures with a magnifying lens, I agreed that the two with the same last name were the same. The third, although similar, was not the same person.
My Findings
It all hinged on two ells and two dots. The double signature showed two dots, one dot over one I, one dot over the second I, one ell loop going higher than the other next to it. The single one showed no dots and two ells identical in height. Had it been the same person, the fluidity of the person writing the name in question would have been broken. The person would have had to consciously stop to make this change of not putting in the dots and changing how he writes the ells. That stop would reflect in whether the flow of the writing were broken. That the flow was not broken, led me to believe they were not written by the same person.
The attorney asked if I would testify to that in court. Yes, I would.
Guilty, as Suspected
Next, she showed a different sheet and said that in this matter, she believed the notary public –the wife of the man whose document she was verifying – had forged her husband’s signature on the document she was notarizing.
That being the case, she, and possibly her husband, may have been guilty of a crime. The attorney showed me three other samples of the husband’s signature. Clearly, the signature was not the husband’s. I said the signature was a forgery by the notary public.
I say this authoritatively because I was shown samples of the notary’s signature. It was inarguably her handwriting.
Again, I agreed to testify in court. “Even though they are going to rip you to pieces?” the attorney asked. I have learned from experience over many years that when testifying, it is best to tell the truth.
When I speak the truth, no personal attacks or objective questioning can shake or change truth as I see it to be.
Reluctantly, I would testify.
As unpleasant as a court appearance may be, the attorney is asking me for my professional opinion on a matter for which she has no training.
At bottom, the court appearance was better than the fiction we watch or read every day. There is a backstory to this case I cannot share. But let me tell you, it is a doozy. All the elements of a best-selling book and movie.
I love my profession.
Do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net
