Merchant stung by $100 counterfeit bill

Monroe - Tony Cardone figures he’s been lucky up to now. In 18 years of operating Fran’s Hallmark Card shop off Route 17M, he’s never been stuck with a counterfeit bill. Until this week. The phony $100 bill was discovered by a Bank of New York teller when Cardone was making a deposit. To most people, the bill looked like the real McCoy, or in the case of a $100 bill, the real Ben Franklin. But the teller told Cardone that the color on the “100” figure in the lower right hand corner was off. Plus, the teller told the merchant, he’d seen the serial number before: BB44017721A B2. As it must, the bank confiscated the bill and turned it over to the U.S. Secret Services, which investigates counterfeiting along with protecting presidents. The CVS Pharmacy in Monroe as well as the T.J. Maxx store in Harriman also have been stuck with counterfeit $100s in the last several weeks; the policy at both companies prevents employees from talking about such things. But Monroe Police said the bills passed at CVS and Fran’s Hallmark were of high quality. They also were identical. However, neither the Monroe Village Police nor the Secret Service office in White Plains said there were any indications of any unusual counterfeit activity in the area. Monroe Police said they get about a dozen cases a year from local businesses who get stuck with receiving phony money. Secret Service Special Agent Mike Giovanniello said his office, which covers Orange and five other counties, receives between 4,000 and 6,000 counterfeit bills a week. Giovanniello said it is commonplace for someone looking to pass counterfeit bills to make purchases in nearby stores. He also noted that a good computer printer is capable of making high-quality bogus bills. “But it could happen at the Yonkers Mall as easily as it could happen at a card shop in Orange County,” he said. The Monroe Police Department refers all its cases to the Secret Services. But Det. James Frankild noted that “even in the cases where arrests have been made by our department, the Secret Service has deferred prosecution to the Orange County DA’s office for the people to face state charges as opposed to federal. “For instance several months ago we arrested a person who presented $500 in counterfeit $20s to a local business,” Frankild added. “In that case, as with the others, we notified the Secret Service. They didn’t take over the case; they allowed the DA’s office to prosecute.” People arrested for possessing counterfeit bills can be charged under state law with first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a felony. Anyone caught making counterfeit bills is charged with first-degree forgery, also a felony. The police ask that any business in the Village of Monroe that receives counterfeit bills to call Monroe PD at 782-8644. That’s what Cardone did after leaving the bank. His purpose in publicizing the counterfeit bill, he said, was simply to alert his fellow merchants to the problem. “I’m not happy to be out $100,” Cardone said, “but I figure it averages out to less than $6 a year for the 18 years I’ve been in business.”