Notaries

Anyone needing something notarized used to go to the corner bank or savings and loan or maybe a neighborhood realty office. Now those places often say there is no notary public in the office. This may not be the case. They're there, "but they're hiding," says Charles Faerber, vice president of the National Notary Assn. in Canoga Park.

About 75 members of an immigrants' rights group marched in downtown Santa Ana Wednesday evening to protest what they said are fraudulent practices by notary publics purporting to help illegal aliens gain amnesty. "Amnesty yes! Swindlers no!," shouted one protester in Spanish as he marched past the office of a notary public and immigration lawyer on Broadway. Others held signs with slogans such as "Down with the despicable notaries" that were written in Spanish.

A well-dressed man hired a wedding chapel notary and two video cameramen to accompany him on a chartered late-night flight, then jumped out of the plane at an altitude of 10,000 feet as the horrified witnesses watched, police said today. "We are convinced he did this thing as a stunt," Las Vegas Metro Police Lt. Paul Conner said. "From watching videotape of the incident we feel this guy was some type of an entertainer."

The National Notary Assn. will hold its eighth annual conference Thursday through Saturday at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel, Costa Mesa. The theme will be "The Litigation Explosion: Protection Through Knowledge." Topics such as identification and document fraud, immigration and notary misconduct will be addressed in workshops and round-table discussions. Other sessions will offer principles of notarization that will protect notaries against lawsuits.