Printer, fake $30K found in couple’s Florida hotel room, feds say. Woman gets prison
A woman and her partner spent fake cash at Florida businesses, then authorities found a printer and $30,000 in manufactured money inside their Comfort Inn hotel room, federal prosecutors said.
Now, the woman is going to prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
The Panama City couple’s spending spree resulted in authorities tracing the serial numbers on the fake bills and finding the pair at a Comfort Inn in Palm Bay in November 2022, according to court documents, McClatchy News previously reported.
The woman is accused of using the fake Federal Reserve notes to buy gift cards, food and other items at shops in Brevard, Clay, Duval and Seminole counties, prosecutors said.
During the execution of a search warrant, Palm Bay police officers found about $30,000 in fake bills and a printer used to create the cash inside the man and woman’s hotel room, where the woman was arrested, a plea agreement says.
Her partner is accused of creating the counterfeit cash with the printer and other tools found inside the hotel room, according to prosecutors.
After officers arrested the man at a nearby restaurant and asked if he created the fake cash, he told them “counterfeit currency just prints itself,” his plea agreement says.
He was sentenced to one year and six months in federal prison, the attorney’s office announced Sept. 27.
Now, a judge has sentenced the woman to one year in prison on charges of passing counterfeit Federal Reserve notes, the attorney’s office said in a Nov. 3 news release.
The woman’s defense attorney, Patrick K. Korody, told McClatchy News on Nov. 6 that his client “apologized to the court and her victims” and “is thankful for the fair treatment she received from” U.S. District Judge Brian J. Davis and Assistant United States Attorney Kevin C. Frein, who prosecuted the case.
“She waived her right to appeal” and “plans to serve her sentence and 3 years on supervised release focused on rehabilitation and making positive changes,” Korody said.
A federal public defender representing the man declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Nov. 6.
In a sentencing memorandum submitted on the woman’s behalf, Korody described her relationship with her partner as “tumultuous” and said she spent fake cash he manufactured during a time of financial hardship.
“Her life spiraled out of control and she wishes she could go back and choose a different path,” Korody told McClatchy News on Sept. 28.
As part of her sentencing, she must pay restitution to the businesses she defrauded, according to prosecutors, who didn’t specify the restitution amount.
Waffa Hanania, who represented the woman’s partner in the case, wrote in a sentencing memo submitted on her client’s behalf that the man accepted responsibility for his actions, has expressed remorse and regret, and created the fake cash to provide for “subsistence needs,” McClatchy News previously reported.
“Much of the counterfeit currency that (he) was manufacturing was of such poor quality that they were almost immediately recognized as counterfeit by the persons to whom they were presented,” Hanania said, adding that the man’s actions were “unsophisticated and poorly thought out.”
The couple previously served state sentences after they were accused of violating probation on “multiple charges related to passing counterfeit Federal Reserve notes,” prosecutors said.
Panama City is about 100 miles southwest of Tallahassee.
This story was originally published November 6, 2023 at 8:27 AM with the headline "Printer, fake $30K found in couple’s Florida hotel room, feds say. Woman gets prison."
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