Florida Man Caught Replacing State Historical Documents with Hand-Drawn Forgeries Featuring Dragons and Dinosaurs

<p>TALLAHASSEE — State archivists were horrified to discover that a janitor had been systematically replacing historical documents in the state archives with elaborate hand-drawn forgeries &#8220;to make history more interesting.&#8221;</p> <p>Leonard &#8220;Lenny&#8221; Briggs, 58, had been working as a night janitor at the Florida State Archives for seven years when curators noticed something odd about a Civil War letter: it contained a detailed recipe for &#8220;Confederate BBQ Ribs&#8221; and a sketch of what appeared to be a dinosaur.</p> <p>Further investigation revealed Briggs had replaced or &#8220;enhanced&#8221; over 200 historical documents, adding dragons to land surveys, giving historical figures dialogue written in modern slang, and inserting himself into photographs using remarkably poor Photoshop skills.</p> <p>&#8220;He replaced a letter from a Spanish conquistador with one describing an encounter with &#8216;Big Foot Steve, who was super chill,'&#8221; said head archivist Dr. Patricia Morrison. &#8220;He also added lightsabers to several Civil War photographs.&#8221;</p> <p>Briggs&#8217;s modifications ranged from subtle to absurd. He had added a completely fictional &#8220;Florida Pizza War of 1887&#8221; to municipal records, created an elaborate backstory about mermaids founding Tampa, and inserted a fake governor named &#8220;Reginald Toothington III&#8221; who allegedly served from 1923-1924 and &#8220;really liked turtles.&#8221;</p> <p>Most notably, Briggs had replaced the state seal in dozens of documents with his own design featuring a flamingo riding an alligator while wielding a fishing pole, with the motto &#8220;Yeet or Be Yeeten.&#8221;</p> <p>&#8220;In my defense, actual history is pretty boring,&#8221; Briggs said. &#8220;Nobody wants to read about agricultural reform. They want to know about the Great Emu Uprising of 1912, which I thoroughly documented.&#8221;</p> <p>Archivists spent three weeks identifying and removing all of Briggs&#8217;s forgeries, though they admitted some were &#8220;surprisingly well done&#8221; and had fooled several researchers who cited the &#8220;Florida Pizza War&#8221; in academic papers.</p> <p>Briggs faces charges including destruction of state property, fraud, forgery, and what prosecutors describe as &#8220;creative vandalism of historical record.&#8221; He was released on $10,000 bail and has been banned from all state archives, museums, and &#8220;any building containing documents older than him.&#8221;</p> <p>The state is now conducting a full audit of its historical records. Briggs has offered to help identify his forgeries, but only if he can &#8220;keep the mermaid stuff because that was really good.&#8221;</p>