Crime
Cosey was later arrested several times for various crimes, ranging from motorcycle theft to forged checks and carrying a deadly weapon. Cosey used various false names. He served almost ten years in San Quentin State Prison and was released in the late 1920s.
Around 1929, Cosey began to forge documents based on United States history. He stole a pay warrant from Benjamin Franklin from the Library of Congress to practice Franklin handwriting, and sold the forgeries for small sums. He later expanded to other historical forgeries. He used old paper, brown ink and writing implements that the contemporary writer would have used at that time - this made his documents so convincing that they fooled several experts.
Cosey forged documents and signatures of such historical figures as George Washington, James Monroe, Button Gwinnett, and Mark Twain. Several fake letters from Abraham Lincoln were produced, as well as Thomas Jefferson's supposed draft of the Declaration of Independence. Cosey expressed pride in the fact that he never sold his work to amateur collectors.
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