Indiana woman arrested after 3-year fraud investigation

So let's get started with Indiana State Police. They've made an arrest in a three-year-long fraud investigation. They say a 37-year-old woman is facing more than 40 felonies. Brittany Toulas is there with all the details. Good morning, Brittany. Yeah, good morning, Taryn. So the woman in the center of this, Heather Texter, was 37 when this investigation started. She is now 41 and is in the Lake County Jail, arrested yesterday, accused of kind of being the center of a scheme. She was a receptionist at a law firm here known for expunging traffic records and it's alleged that she was intercepting people as they were walking in hoping to be a client of this law firm and instead kind of had this whole scheme where she would accept payments from them and give them counterfeit documents saying that the record was expunged. This is all alleged right now as well and they wouldn't find out until they were making violations they didn't even know they were making. Now here live with me to talk about it are some of the investigators, lead investigator on it, Sergeant Joe White and Sergeant Glenn Fifield here with the Indiana State Police. So first, just give me kind of the nuts and bolts. She's facing 40 charges, 45 charges, 42 of them felonies. Just give me the nuts and bolts right now of this investigation. So a three-year investigation by Sergeant White resulted in these charges and her going to jail yesterday. She was arrested by the Lowell Police Department, and she's in jail now, as you said. Yeah, it started off with people trying to do the right thing, correct their record, their criminal record, driving record, whatever it was, and trying to get these expungements processed legally through the court. And she took advantage of them, never let those individuals see an attorney, handled stuff, issued fraudulent documents, forged judges' signatures on documents, and gave these folks false paperwork, thinking that they were going to have the records expunged. And some of these individuals, unfortunately, wound up going to jail because of her actions, thinking that they had done the right thing. And she's in jail now as a result of this investigation. And Sergeant White, there was an instance in 2023 when a man tried to buy a firearm that kind of really tipped off investigators. Just talk about that instance. Yeah, real briefly, he went to the law firm seeking a criminal expungement through a process with our suspect. she provided him fake expungement orders. There were three fake expungement orders. When he received those expungement orders, he left the law firm and then tried to go buy a handgun. Fortunately, the handgun owner, when the background check is run at the gun shop, and because his criminal record was still active, he was prohibited from buying that handgun. He didn't understand why he was prohibited, because he did have, and he showed the gun shop owner, hey, I've got these expungement orders. It says my record is clean. and the gun shop owner stuck to to the rules of a federal firearms license dealer and said no you can't have it because our system is saying you're still prohibited that person drove those expungement orders from Gary, Indiana to Indianapolis to our expungement unit we have a specialized unit at our general headquarters in Indianapolis that every expungement order they all go through our expungement unit to be finalized and and check for accuracy and so he drove those documents down to Indianapolis they immediately recognized those documents as as false and that's where the organized crime and corruption unit of the Indian State Police got involved and talk about how these payments were being accepted because they were cash payments allegedly how was were they being transferred so she would accept cash at the window of this law office and later Later on, as she became more comfortable with things, she started using PayPal, Cash App, and the law firm never used those forms of payment. We want to stress, and Sergeant Whitewood also wants to stress, that this law firm in no way was involved in this. They're victims as well. They were absolutely cooperative with this investigation. They opened their doors to us. They assisted at every possible moment, and this individual was terminated literally immediately upon them learning of this criminal activity. So we want to thank the law firm for their cooperation and, again, stress that they had no knowledge of this, and this should not be reflected upon them whatsoever. And from the press conference, you guys said that she was charging allegedly $800 to about $1,500. There's potentially over 40 victims. is there any idea what that money was used for? We don't. It could be anything from lifestyle to making car payment or truck payment. We did look at their financials and they seemed like they had a decent family income, but there's really no telling what she was using the money for. And can you just talk about how in-depth this investigation is? The probable cause affidavit is 14 pages single spaced alone. How do you plan to tease through a potentially years long scheme? I'll let the investigator talk on that. This is one of those things that between the two of us we've got 60 years of law enforcement between us and we just mentioned we've never seen it. He's never seen I've never seen a case with 42 felony charges. The work and the time that went into this I can't imagine the dedication that Sergeant White put into this investigation and to see it end in an arrest is very rewarding. I know we've talked personally, and I know he takes great satisfaction in that. I'll let him speak to that. You know, as law enforcement, I guess we wish that we didn't have to arrest anybody. I mean, in a perfect world, we wouldn't arrest a person, but that's not the case. So in a case of this magnitude, you take it day by day, victim by victim, bank account by bank account. It's just a tedious process, attention to detail, you check it, you go back and check it. It's just a process that, and I also have great help, I didn't do this by myself. There's not an investigation, large or small, that one person does by themselves. I supervise a group of detectives in the Organized Crime and Corruption Unit, they all lent a hand to me. We had great people from our Cyber Crimes Unit, the Expungement Unit in Indianapolis, our Indiana Fusion Center, Indiana Department of Revenue, there's no investigation, no matter how large or small, that gets finished, start to finish, just by one person. And you mentioned attention to detail, and when we were talking after this press conference, you mentioned even down to the color of the paper of the fraudulent expungement allegedly matched. And the people that were possibly targeted or allegedly targeted also may have not had an inner working or inner knowledge of the legal system or just how this process works. do you believe at all that um she was using her inner working and knowledge to commit these crimes or to keep the scheme going absolutely absolutely um i don't know so much uh now but in years past uh criminal expungements were sometimes printed on green paper and only somebody who had knowledge of that would know to give some of these expungements to some of the victims with green paper you know printed on green paper so it would take somebody of some sort of knowledge of the criminal justice system to know that sometimes courts print things on green paper and and and to have certain numbers on these documents and fraudulent numbers and to take the time to forge judges signatures uh that takes a lot of guts to do i i can't imagine forging a judge's signature on a document um the the criminal intent behind this is pretty clear And how many judges may have had their signatures forged by this person? We would have to go back and look at every document, but we were talking after just a few minutes off to the side there that we were able to find two judges in the Lake County criminal court system that did not have their names forged. Because obviously the folks, the judges who did have their names forged on these documents, they can't be involved in the case. they're also a victim of forgery so in order to get this charge we had to find a judge who was not part of this case and we found two out of the entire court system in lake county indiana and there's dozens of judges in lake county's court system and you guys just touched on it briefly and this is my second to last question what are your thoughts on just the scope of this alleged scheme here scope as far as the number of victims is it scope just magnitude of of the alleged crimes here um like i said just being a receptionist at a window and allegedly intercepting people hoping to be actual clients of the law firm but instead kind of being detoured down this trail so i i think about the tangible consequences that could have happened here we had a couple of people who were prohibited from purchasing firearms try to purchase firearms um the there were people who went to jail because they thought they had a legitimate expungements They thought their driving record was clear, so they go out and drive and commit a traffic violation and get pulled over. They get their license ran by the police officer, and it comes back that they could be an habitual traffic violator. When they thought they had all of that stuff taken care of, and now they have to go to jail. We had one person that spent the entire weekend in jail because she believed that her record, her driving record, her record had been expunged. She has the documents. She talked to our suspect who told her she was all good. Gets in her car, maybe to go to the grocery store, and spends the weekend in jail. So there's real tangible consequences to what our suspect is alleged to have done. And you said there may also be possibly more victims out there. Is there anything people can do to maybe see if they are a victim of this? Well, if you have had any dealings with this individual, Heather Textor, by going into this law firm and if you gave her money for any type of legal assistance and you have documentation of an expungement that you thought was done properly, you need to contact Sergeant White here at the State Police Post. That phone number is 219-696-6242, and he will be returning your call and moving forward. And, you know, this case is not closed by any stretch of imagination. If a victim comes forward and he's going to pursue charges against that victim, or against Heather with additional charges. I would say that if you went to that law firm and you actually sat down with attorney Amanda Hires, you have a legitimate expungement. If you actually talked to attorney Hires, the expungement you have in your hand is legitimate. If you went to that law firm and was giving multiple excuses on why you can't talk to attorney Amanda Hires, I would take that expungement to the law firm to be verified or bring it right here to the Indiana State Police and I would meet you at the Indiana State Police Post to take a look at it myself. And last question for the people who did think they had their records expunged and are finding out that they may not be expunged, do they have to go through the entire court system again to get it expunged? Yes, they do. If it turns out that you have a fraudulent expungement, it's just that. It is not valid. You have to start at the very beginning and do the entire process all over again. And last one, we also were talking, the type of payment, the way that the payment was accepted is also a red flag for anyone trying to get this type of service can you just expand a little more on that well in 2026 probably in the next 10 minutes we're all going to get a text message saying you know click on something and give cash or something and the scams that are out there anytime you're dealing with cash you should be extra precautious before turning your cash over people are looking to take advantage of that and it's so hard to get that back you know it's anytime anyone asks you for cash i would recommend of being suspicious especially a law firm especially a law firm especially a law firm and you know we mentioned earlier if you don't have typical from from our experience with attorneys when you hire an attorney you have an initial meeting with them a consultation oftentimes those are free you know you don't have to give money for an initial consultation oftentimes if you're not if you're not meeting with an attorney literally immediately that should be a red flag. Is there any final thoughts you want to say just about this case or anything for anyone watching? My kudos are to Sergeant White and his detectives are standing over here behind out of camera view. They did an incredible job. This takes a lot of patience to work a case like this from start to finish and you know they say the wheels of justice are slow. A case like this is so involved and so in depth that once you go down the rabbit hole it just keeps going and going and going. And when you find a victim, there's another victim. Okay, and if this happened, this happened, this happened, it just keeps going and going and going. And as he said, he's never seen 42 felonies. I have not. He did probably a 150 page case report, a 14 page probable cause affidavit. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of man hours, a lot of time that this detective and his other detectives put into this case, and I think it's just a phenomenal job by them in getting justice for these victims. Same thoughts. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. We really appreciate it. Thank you. So yeah, just a very, very almost prolific investigation here. Three years long, resulting in 40 charges, 42 of those charges felony for now 41-year-old Heather Texter. Again, she is in the Lake County Jail right now, still waiting on word for when She will be appearing in court next, but guys, just extremely prolific. I'm almost at a loss for words for what we heard here. It's just kind of a wild case. I'll send it back to you, Terrence. Yeah, more than 40 felony charges and talk of more victims out there, so that charge list might increase. Brittany, wow, stunning details there. Thank you so much.