As I've noted so often over the years, I am not a fan of regulatory
double-speak -- which is that twisting of English into something that
is bloated and obtuse but always sounds oh so precise. For example, is
it just me or what but doesn't this strike you as a classic:
[P]atrick altered public customers’ Withholding Certificate for Pension or
Annuity Payment Forms (IRS Form W-4P) by affixing invalid copies of the
customers’ signatures . . .
Apparently, all that this registered person did was "altered" an IRS
form by "affixing invalid copies" of signatures. Altered? Affixing?
Whatever happened to the old-fashioned "fraud" or "forgery"?
When I think of "altering" something, it means that I take something
that exists and shorten/lenghten it. For example, you alter a hemline.
However, you are not altering someone's signature when you forge it or
when you submit a prior iteration of that signature as if it were new
and authorized. That may be fraud or forgery but it sure as hell isn't
a mere alteration -- nor is it simply
affixing an invalid copy.
I mean, seriously, if I make a copy of the Mona Lisa and sneak into the
Louvre and remove the original and replace it with my forgery, would
anyone suggest that all that I had done was altered the original and
affixed an invalid copy onto the museum wall?