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Hollis Forteau, 38, formerly of Willingboro, NJ, already had an extensive criminal history when federal investigators arrested him for printing Benjamin Franklin and other $100 images onto bleached dollar bills that he distributed to at least six associates.
The crew members used the funny money to buy items at retail stores in Virginia, then returned the goods to other stores in the same chain for cash back, federal authorities said.
They then collected a "substantial" cut of the proceeds from Forteau, who drove them back and forth to the stores, a U.S. Secret Service complaint on file in the Eastern District of Virginia says.
The bills ended up being circulated across the country, said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica D. Aber and Matthew Stohler, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Washington Field Office.
Forteau used dollar bills “because the $100 counterfeit notes would feel genuine to the touch and could still appear genuine if store employees marked them with a counterfeit detection pen,” the federal complaint says.
The group avoided stores that used scanning machines that detect bogus bills, it says.
The plot unraveled after authorities in Virginia arrested three of Forteau's accomplices thanks to an employee at a Sunglasses Hut who called police with their license plate number.
Forteau called one of the women at the jail where they were taken and told her -- in a taped conversation -- that she was "definitely going to pay a price for this," the federal complaint says.
“What’s worse, me smacking the s--- out of you or being [arrested]?" he reportedly asked her.
Forteau picked the trio up following their release and drove them back to Pennsylvania, according to the complaint. On the way there, they used bogus bills to make more purchases, it says.
Secret Service agents arrested Forteau in Philadelphia last September after finding a public social media video showing him throwing dollar bills in the air near a printer.
They also seized a rental car that they said held 110 phony hundreds stashed in a package of cigars and stuffed behind the door panels, as well as a printer, a laptop and ink cartridges.
With several convictions already on his record -- including two for using counterfeit money -- Forteau took a deal from the government, pleading guilty to manufacturing counterfeit currency in exchange for a five-year federal prison sentence.
The father of three will have to serve just about all of the term because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
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