The jury in the trial of state Sen. Jane Orie was ordered to suspend deliberations late this morning after the prosecution accused the defense of having submitted fraudulent documents among its exhibits.

Prosecutor Lawrence Claus showed three documents which he said showed evidence that the signature of Jamie Pavlot was cut and pasted from one document to another. Ms. Pavlot was Ms. Orie's top aide in the North Hills office and a major witness for the prosecution.

Defense attorney William Costopoulos said "these were not doctored."

A clearly irate Judge Jeffrey Manning rejected the protest.

"Ray Charles could see that signature was doctored," he said, pointing to an image of one document projected on the wall. The three documents are 101A, 101B and 110. They are part of a package of 50 documents introduced into evidence.

Judge Manning ordered deliberations halted and the documents retrieved from the jury room. He ordered that a forensic handwriting analyst be brought in to examine the documents.

Mr. Claus has not asked for a specific remedy to the situation. Judge Manning raised the possibility of a mistrial. Mr. Costopoulos said he does not want a mistrial, and that he wants the jury to go back to deliberations.

Ms. Pavlot had testified during the trial that she didn't recognize the documents, or some of the notations on the documents, though most were purported to be messages between the senator and herself.

Documents below.

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