Honolulu man, 67, is indicted over forged court documents

A 67-year-old Honolulu man accused of forging a federal court order in the name of a sitting judge and using it to trick an Ewa Beach woman into paying him thousands of dollars for fake legal services was released on bail Thursday.

Edmund Abordo allegedly told the senior that he was a “nonlicensed attorney” and could help pull her home out of foreclosure. FBI agents were alerted to the apparent scheme after the Clerk’s Office of the District Court, District of Hawaii, found a forged court order containing the signature and seal of U.S. Chief District Judge Derrick K. Watson.

Watson declined a Honolulu Star-Advertiser request for comment.

Abordo was arrested Monday by the FBI in connection with a federal grand jury indictment. He faces two counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of forgery of seals of courts. If convicted on all counts, he faces more than 25 years in federal prison, up to a $250,000 fine and restitution to the victim. Abordo has entered pleas of not guilty to the charges.

“Trust in our court system is paramount to our society,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Steven Merrill in a news release. “When individuals forge court documents and victimize our kupuna, the FBI will aggressively pursue those individuals to maintain the public’s confidence in the court system and protect the vulnerable.”

Abordo appeared by way of Zoom videoconference Thursday from the Federal Detention Center Honolulu before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman of the Eastern District of California.

Newman released Abordo on a $50,000 unsecured bond and imposed certain conditions. Among them: Abordo must remain on Oahu, wear an electronic monitoring device and stay at his residence from 6 p.m. until 8 a.m. He is allowed to go to work.

Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Mark Conover argued that Abordo should be detained pending trial because he poses a flight risk and a danger to the community based on his criminal history and the allegations that he was targeting seniors. Abordo was convicted in state court in 1994 on two counts of second-degree sexual assault and 10 counts of fourth-degree sexual assault. He was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison and had to register as a sex offender.

Speaking in court Thursday, Conover said the current set of charges signal that Abordo poses a “significant risk of danger … to the community,” and that it would best serve the community to detain him until his trial.

Abordo’s attorney, Jacquelyn Tryon Esser, countered in court Thursday that since Abordo’s release from prison in 2013, he has met every condition his sex offender status requires. Esser added that there are no allegations of violence in the case, and Abordo does not have a passport. “There are conditions that can be in place that would mitigate any risk of flight or danger to the community,” said Esser.

Starting on Dec. 27, 2017, and continuing until July 8, 2019, Abordo met and allegedly defrauded the Ewa Beach woman, according to the case’s indictment. Abordo allegedly claimed he had expertise on several legal subjects, including mortgages and adverse possession, and told the woman that he could get her house back in good standing.

Abordo directed the woman to file a federal lawsuit against the bank that had foreclosed on her property. He drafted all of the documents for the suit, including the initial complaint, and told the woman to file them. With each document he produced, Abordo allegedly required the woman to pay him between $1,000 to $3,000.

In July 2019, Abordo told the woman he had filed a motion in her case and that the federal judge assigned to the case had granted it and awarded possession of the Ewa Beach property to the woman. He told the woman he had a copy of the order but needed more money. In reality, the lawsuit had been dismissed months earlier, according to the indictment.

The woman allegedly met Abordo in person shortly thereafter and gave him $3,000 and agreed to give him more money soon in exchange for the forged order. Several days later the woman met with Abordo and gave him another $2,000 for the forged order.

The bogus document contained the caption of the federal lawsuit as well as a fake of Watson’s signature and the seal of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. Abordo allegedly assured the woman that the forged court order was a genuine court document and that the judge’s signature on the forged order was genuine, and that the forged court order gave her legal possession of the Ewa Beach property.

Abordo’s next court appearance, before U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill, for a motion hearing, is set for Jan. 19.