A federal grand jury has indicted an Indiana man on five counts after he allegedly forged Chief Justice John Roberts' signature on a counterfeit Supreme Court order, posed as an NSA agent, and threatened local officials, all to make his own criminal cases disappear.
Joshua M. Culver didn't just try to beat the system. He tried to become the system. The federal indictment handed down in Indiana charges Culver, who authorities say also used the alias "Maverick A. Young", with four counts of falsely impersonating a U.S. officer or employee and one count involving the use of a forged federal judge's signature and court seal. He was arrested in Colorado on August 21, Fox News Digital reported.
The scheme, as laid out by prosecutors, stretched from September 2025 through February 2026 and targeted sheriff's deputies, court clerks, a superior court judge, and at least one private citizen across multiple Indiana counties. Culver's alleged goal: get his own pending criminal cases thrown out, track down his biological daughter, and bully anyone who stood in his way by claiming the full weight of the federal government stood behind him.
The centerpiece of the indictment is a document Culver allegedly filed on September 24, 2025, in Grant County Superior Court, where he had a criminal case pending. He titled it "Order of Dismissal With Prejudice." It bore what prosecutors say was a forged signature of Chief Justice John Roberts and a counterfeit seal of the United States Supreme Court.
The document purported to order the dismissal of Culver's own case, permanently, with prejudice, meaning it could never be refiled. He filed it directly with the court.
Five days before that filing, on September 19, Culver allegedly contacted the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office in Indiana while posing as a National Security Agency agent. He requested a welfare check on his biological daughter and demanded information about her location. He also sought the names and personal information of sheriff's office employees and claimed he could take "adverse action" against the department.
The next day, September 20, he allegedly called the workplace of a person identified in the indictment only as "Individual A." He falsely identified himself as a federal agent, accused the person of "obstructing a federal investigation of a child kidnapping," and told the employer he could have the individual arrested for a federal felony.
The forged Roberts order was not the end. In January 2026, Culver allegedly sent a communication to the Lake County clerk's office, directed at a Lake County Superior Court judge. This time he styled himself as a "Special Master enforcing orders of the United States Supreme Court." He claimed authority to issue orders and warrants, the New York Post reported, and demanded the judge and court personnel make changes to vital records and dismiss cases and judgments against him.
Culver allegedly warned that if officials refused to comply, he and U.S. Marshals would make arrests for "impeding a federal agent, lying to a federal agent, and conspiracy," Fox News reported.
By February 2026, the alleged impersonation had grown more elaborate. Culver portrayed himself as the "Director of Tailored Access Operations" and filed a document in Lake County Superior Court titled "OFFICIAL SENSITIVE: TAILORED ACCESS OPERATIONS (TAO) COMPLIANCE DIRECTIVE." The document described Culver as a "federal asset" involved in multiple investigations.
Its demands were sweeping: dismiss the case against Culver with prejudice, quash outstanding warrants, and require Lake County officials to cooperate with a purported "federal audit."
Culver was arrested in Colorado. The Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Colorado was appointed to represent him. Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court's Public Information Office, the Federal Public Defender's office, and the Justice Department for comment. None had responded at the time of publication.
The indictment does not specify the nature of the underlying Indiana criminal cases Culver was allegedly trying to eliminate. It also does not say whether any of the officials he contacted, the sheriff's deputies, the Lake County clerk, the superior court judge, complied with his demands before discovering the fraud. Those remain open questions as the case moves forward.
What the indictment does make clear is the range of Culver's alleged impersonations. Over roughly five months, he allegedly posed as an NSA agent, a Special Master of the Supreme Court, and the director of what prosecutors describe as "a purported intelligence agency." He forged the signature of the highest-ranking judge in the country. He affixed a counterfeit seal of the nation's highest court to a document filed in open proceedings. And he threatened local law enforcement and court personnel with federal arrest if they did not do what he told them.
The audacity is almost difficult to process. But the charges are straightforward, and they carry real consequences, the kind that no forged signature can make disappear.
