A 50-year-old Oak Harbor woman was sentenced to jail for forging a legal document to falsely claim that her deceased mother had bequeathed the family farm to her, court documents indicate.

Shannan Marrs pleaded guilty in Island County Superior Court April 10 to one count of perjury in the first degree.

Marrs received a first-time offender waiver, under which a judge can sentence a person convicted of his or her first felony offense to less than the standard sentence range. The judge sentenced her to 60 days in jail and ordered her to pay $817 in fines and fees.

One of Marrs’ sisters wrote in a victim impact statement that she opposed the first-time offender waiver because Marrs’ actions had caused so much harm and tore the family apart.

According to the police report, Marrs had been involved in a heated legal dispute with her family over her mother’s will. After the mother died, Marrs produced a quit claim deed, allegedly signed by her mother and then notarized, that left the farm on Arnold Road to Marrs.

Marrs later filed the quit claim deed in Island County Superior Court.

But the legal dispute continued. An Oak Harbor attorney had the document examined by two independent forensic document examiners, both of whom concluded that the document was a fake.

In addition, an employee at Marrs’ graphics business said she witnessed Marrs creating the document on graphic design equipment, court documents state. The woman said Marrs threatened to fire her if she didn’t help forge the dead woman’s signature.