An Athens woman was arrested in California and later booked into the Limestone County Jail this week after investigators say she forged a document claiming her arrest warrants were dropped.

Limestone County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Dept. Stephen Young said Melanie Renae Farmer, 43, of 16340 Travertine Drive, used a falsified letterhead from the office of Limestone District Attorney Brian C.T. Jones and also forged his signature in a note to her California employer confirming her outstanding warrants were recalled in Alabama when, in fact, the warrants were still active.

Farmer faces a charge of second-degree forgery and a charge of criminal impersonation. She was booked into Limestone County Jail on Tuesday and later released on $3,500 bond, a jail official said.

The DA’s Office contacted investigators June 1 after being notified the company had received the document, which the DA’s Office had not sent, Young said. Investigators obtained warrants for Farmer’s arrest, and she was arrested and held in the Los Angeles County Jail in California before being extradited to Limestone County.

Jones said Farmer, a travel nurse, was looking to renew her contract as a travel nurse and sent in the documents when confronted about “multiple outstanding warrants” for failure to attend court on charges of negotiating a worthless negotiable instrument. When confronted, Jones said Farmer allegedly copied and pasted the department’s logo into a document and added the falsified signature and a bar code used when the office files documents.

“It wasn’t very good,” Jones said of the facsimile.

The director of the company then contacted Jones’ office to see if he had sent it. Jones said that aside from the letterhead not looking official, the filing barcode has been out of date for a long time.

Since the DA’s office is technically the victim in this case, Jones said he will contact the local branch of the state attorney general’s office to handle the prosecution.