A statewide grand jury yesterday accused a former Erie legislator and her chief of staff of forging the signatures on her 2006 nominating petitions.

Linda Bebko-Jones, a Democrat who served seven terms in the state House, and Mary Fiolek, who ran Mrs. Bebko-Jones’s office and oversaw her campaigns, face arraignment in Harrisburg next week.

A statewide grand jury sitting in Pittsburgh said the pair combed an Erie telephone directory as well as Mrs. Bebko-Jones’s personal address book to put together 300 signatures needed to get on the primary ballot.

Special Agent Jack Brickner of the state attorney general’s office told grand jurors that he questioned persons whose names appeared on the petitions.

“Agent Brickner was unable to find a single individual who stated that they had signed the petitions,” grand jurors wrote in their presentment. “A number explicitly stated they had not signed and stated the signatures thereon were not their own. In one case, an individual who purportedly signed one of the petitions on March 3, 2006, had been deceased since April 15, 2000.”