The following occurred in New Jersey. An immediate family member of mine had driven to a gas station to fill up and paid the attendant with a $50 bill. After five minutes or so, the attendant had not come back out to give him his change. Instead, a police cruise pulls up, lets my relative know that there is reason to believe he has passed fake money, and proceeds to arrest and book him.
My question is two-fold: (1) Does the attendant have to check the bill for legitimacy in front of my relative, where he can see the check being performed? For all we know, the employee went inside and switched the bill with a bill he knew to be fake. Why, you ask? Gas stations around here are frequently getting in trouble for selling alcohol to minors, and we suspect that this was some sort of play to suck up to the police. Nevermind the fact that the attendant could have simply denied the cash and asked for another form of payment. At any rate, I suppose that's not something we can prove, unless the surveillance tapes of the store are checked, but even then, I doubt they would be stupid enough to swap the bills on camera. (2) Obviously, my relative had no idea that he was carrying a fake bill. He's a college student on the Dean's List and is in no way dumb enough to engage in that sort of behavior. Even if you have your doubts, let's go under the assumption that he didn't know. It's not like he's printing out 50s in the cellar - so what gives? What kind of a defense does he have? He's not even sure where the bill came from, so he has no idea what to tell the judge when he returns for his court date.
This sort of thing is just another example of the justice system attacking the symptoms and not the problems. It's common sense that this kid had no idea he was passing along funny money, and yet there seems to be no push to go after the wastes of life who are sitting around printing this stuff - the police and the courts are happy enough busting kids who unwittingly pass it on. On the record, they've done their job and they're fighting counterfeiting. In reality, it's a lazy approach and it ignores the real issues. I guess that's what happens when you overpay suburban cops with no real crime to fight - they're forced to do things like this so that they can fill out their report and justify the fat paychecks (read: OT) they take home.
Back to the point. What can my relative do? Thanks in advance for any help.
My question is two-fold: (1) Does the attendant have to check the bill for legitimacy in front of my relative, where he can see the check being performed? For all we know, the employee went inside and switched the bill with a bill he knew to be fake. Why, you ask? Gas stations around here are frequently getting in trouble for selling alcohol to minors, and we suspect that this was some sort of play to suck up to the police. Nevermind the fact that the attendant could have simply denied the cash and asked for another form of payment. At any rate, I suppose that's not something we can prove, unless the surveillance tapes of the store are checked, but even then, I doubt they would be stupid enough to swap the bills on camera. (2) Obviously, my relative had no idea that he was carrying a fake bill. He's a college student on the Dean's List and is in no way dumb enough to engage in that sort of behavior. Even if you have your doubts, let's go under the assumption that he didn't know. It's not like he's printing out 50s in the cellar - so what gives? What kind of a defense does he have? He's not even sure where the bill came from, so he has no idea what to tell the judge when he returns for his court date.
This sort of thing is just another example of the justice system attacking the symptoms and not the problems. It's common sense that this kid had no idea he was passing along funny money, and yet there seems to be no push to go after the wastes of life who are sitting around printing this stuff - the police and the courts are happy enough busting kids who unwittingly pass it on. On the record, they've done their job and they're fighting counterfeiting. In reality, it's a lazy approach and it ignores the real issues. I guess that's what happens when you overpay suburban cops with no real crime to fight - they're forced to do things like this so that they can fill out their report and justify the fat paychecks (read: OT) they take home.
Back to the point. What can my relative do? Thanks in advance for any help.
