Edward Botwick, 50, former attorney, Woodbridge, Connecticut, was arrested and charged with one count of Forgery in the Second Degree, a felony carrying a maximum prison term of five years.

Botwick is accused of forging another attorney’s signature on a release of a lis pendens filed against the property that Botwick’s client was attempting to sell. The client had been unable to sell the property for several months because it was encumbered by the lis pendens because of a pending lawsuit involving the owner of the property. As a result of the alleged forgery, the buyer purchased the property without knowing that the property was in fact encumbered by the lis pendens, the arrest warrant states.

Botwick, who practiced law in Hamden, Connecticut resigned as an attorney effective August 30, 2005. He was arrested in March 2006 for allegedly embezzling $190,000 from a client he represented in a mortgage refinancing and falsely representing that he had a $1 million Lawyers Professional Liability Coverage policy.