Funny Money: A Fraud By Any Other Name...

"O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to decieve..."

Walter Scott referred to lustful dealings, rather than passing counterfeit cash, but there may have been a bonafide bit of both going on in this instance, if Tosa police are correct, as they often are.

A man who passed at least three counterfeit $100 bills through the same cashier, on subsequent days, just minutes apart on the second occasion, claimed when he was arrested that he was just spending cash he'd made on the sale of a car.

The cashier at Kmart, who accepted the bogus Benjamins from the same man for sales of packs of gum, soda and pairs of socks, insists she just wasn't well trained.

The bring-down: Kmart just isn't that dumb.

When fake $100s started cropping up on Sunday, loss prevention agents at the store at 3201 N. Mayfair Rd. started comparing time-stamped security video of sales at cashier counters with time-stamped receipts from the registers.

They discovered that on Saturday, two men had come through the cashiers' line and passed rather obvious counterfeits, one for a pack of gum and another for a pair of socks.

On Sunday, security was watching when one of the men returned and went to the same cashier, buying a pack of gum with a poorly made fake 100 and pocketing the change. Just minutes later, he came back in, went to the same cashier, and bought a soda – with another phony 100.

Police were able to quickly track down the paper-hanger in the Kmart parking lot, who tried to run when surrounded by three officers.

"I postioned (him) to have his back to the driver's side of his car while I stood in front of and apart from him," the arresting officer wrote. "While I was speaking to (him), I observed that he kept looking around nervously, as if looking for a an escape route. He also appeared to be unknowingly shaking his left leg.

"Due to my training and experience with violent and combative suspects I recognized that these were the precursors to a possible outburst of violence or an attempt to flee...."

And how – however brief.

The suspect "darted forward the moment (Officer E.) placed his hands on (his) arm. I immediately intercepted (him) before he could take more than a few steps and our momentum took us into the side of his car. I had my arms around his torso in a secure hold while his active struggling propelled us over the hood of his car."

Oh, but it wasn't over.

"I used my body and grasp to to bring him down to the ground where he landed front-side first. I landed with my left knee striking and dragging across the asphalt parking lot."

Score: Police, one fraud suspect; suspected criminal element, one ripped pair of police-issue pants.

The suspect, of course, said he tried to flee because he was worried about the probation violation he would be facing. He told the tale that he'd sold a car a few days before, for cash, and he was just breaking all those bills. He wasn't believed and was arrested for forgery and violating probation.

The cashier at Kmart said she'd just been hired about four or five days before and nobody had told her anything about how to recognize counterfeit cash.

Police officers asked her how it was that, even without training, she would not think it odd that the same man would several times in short succession offer bad $100 bills for miniscule sales? Especially, in the second instance, they asked, wouldn't it have made sense for the man to use smaller bills he had just received?

She blamed it on Kmart's training – and was arrested for being party to the crime of forgery, police saying that "the totality" of evidence suggested she and he were in cahoots.