Family member forged deceased cousin's signature on will
An Edinburgh man has been jailed after forging a will partly bequeathed to the international aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
At the High Court in Edinburgh Paul Coppola admitted forging the signature of Desiderio Coppola before his death in October 2011.
The deceased had left his £7m estate to his family and the rest - amounting to several millions - to the charity.
Coppola was jailed for two years at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
The court was told that Coppola had known his second cousin, Desiderio Coppola, all his life.
In July 2010 Desiderio Coppola made a will bequeathing much of his estate to his friends and family, including £100,000 to Paul Coppola, and the rest to MSF.
However days before his relative's death, Paul Coppola presented a new will to the family that made no mention of the charity.
Fiscal Ann MacNeill said that the day after Desiderio Coppola's death, the accused contacted his goddaughter, Elvira Fearn, to tell her about the content of the faked document.
The fiscal said: "Although she had no knowledge of the wills or the deceased's intentions, she was suspicious of the will because she was aware that the deceased hated to pay tax and she did not believe that he would have omitted Medecins Sans Frontieres completely and left the residue to the accused as there would have been a large tax liability to pay.
"The accused explained that he found out that the deceased was due to leave the majority of his wealth to charity and that he had persuaded the deceased to change his will.
"He said the deceased had agreed to change the terms of his will."
When arrested Coppola eventually admitted to officers that he had forged the signature of his relative.
Sheriff Frank Crowe told him: "Your actions caused much grief, inconvenience and disappointment to the other legatees and your friends and uncertainty to the tenants of properties which were rented from the deceased."
The sheriff told Coppola he would have faced a three-year jail sentence if he had been convicted after trial, but it would be reduced in view of his early guilty plea.
