Use $2 bills, go to jail?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Blackjack, Jan 29, 2008.


  1. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]I found this interesting story.... I did some searching and found lots of instances of it, and nothing saying it was fake. I'm not 100% that it's true yet, but it kinda looks like it is.


    A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency's legitimacy and called police
    . [/FONT][FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]According to an account in the Baltimore Sun, 57-year-old Mike Bolesta was shocked to find himself taken to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, Md., where he was handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service was called to weigh in on the case. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]<script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-9952085791529017"; google_ad_width = 300; google_ad_height = 250; google_ad_format = "300x250_as"; google_ad_channel =""; google_color_border = "006633"; google_color_bg = "CCFF99"; google_color_link = "0000CC"; google_color_url = "0000CC"; google_color_text = "333300"; //--></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> [/FONT][FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Bolesta told the Sun: "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole – and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating." [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]After Best Buy personnel reportedly told Bolesta he would not be charged for the installation of a stereo in his son's car, he received a call from the store saying it was in fact charging him the fee. As a means of protest, Bolesta decided to pay the $114 bill using 57 crisp, new $2 bills. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]As the owner of Capital City Student Tours, the Baltimore resident has a hearty supply of the uncommon currency. He often gives the bills to students who take his tours for meal money. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'" [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Bolesta explained what happened when he presented the bills to the cashier at Best Buy Feb. 20. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]"She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money – like she's doing me a favor." [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Bolesta says the cashier marked each bill with a pen. Other store employees began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?" [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender." [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]According to the Sun report, the police arrest report noted one employee noticed some smearing of ink on the bills. That's when the cops were called. One officer reportedly noticed the bills ran in sequential order. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Said Bolesta: "I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank.' I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.' [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'" [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Bolesta was taken to the lockup, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called. [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer." [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Secret Service agent Leigh Turner eventually arrived and declared the bills legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear." [/FONT]
    [FONT=Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times]Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world." [/FONT]
     
  2. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    "nervous in the post 911 world"... yeah that's it; he certainly constituted a threat to public safety..
    false arrest lawsuit? Boththe cops and best buy??Surely there's more pain and suffering there than hot cofee on yourthighs. He's lucky he didnt get a spot on the weekly taser video show.taser1taser1taser1[beer]
     
  3. hartage

    hartage Monkey+++

    I sure hope the cops AND best buy get sued for false arrest. No crime has been commited and he goes to jail. Amazing.
     
  4. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    Best Buy has some pretty lousy customer relations. It remains the only busines that I have ever personally been asked to leave (as they were calling the cops).
     
  5. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Back in the 60's (1960's, not 1860's for those of you how think I'm really really old), a local bank had a promotional product that my Dad bout me for Christmas - a red velvet booklet with 20 ea $2 bills. Valid U.S. currency. You would pull the bills out like a coupon book. The front cover says - Printed specially for XXXXXXXX" I still have the booklet with the $2's that I saved as a keepsake. Guess they won't be any good if I get a yen for something special from Best Buys.
     
  6. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    HE may well have been arrested and screwed over because some minimum wage clerk decided to try to hassel him or may have actualy thought they were fake but $2 bills are still totaly OK to use. You can get them from the bank just like the $1 coins, they just are not used much.

    Sounds to me like te store could well be sued especialy if it can be shown that they most likely (burden of proof lower in civil cases) called out of spite rather than truely thinking they were counterfit. As far as the PD I dont think there would really be any way to sue them. They recieved a call that a person was trying to commit a felony (passing counterfit money and might be able to add theft by deception) so they came out and investigated, apparently there MAY have been something odd about a bill or some of the bills so they detained him long enouph to find straighten it out and figure out if the bills were good or not then as I understand it, once it was cleared up that they were good they let him go. They basicly had witnesses telling them he was commiting a crime and may have some apparent evidence to make it seem plausable so they did their job. The store on the other hand might well be able to be sued for slander, deffimation of charicter, and punitive damages since it sounds like the clerk already had an attitude before she decided it was fake and probably did so just to cause him problems.
     
  7. hartage

    hartage Monkey+++

    My thinking on that is this. He was arrested by the cops when no crime was commited at all. Not just a crime that cannot be proven adequately in court but a crime that has not occoured at all. Sure hold a guy at the store, chit chat with him about football, have a doughnut whatever while waiting for SS. But I draw the line at slapping handcuffs on a guy and shoving him in the back of a squadcar then to jail for no crime at all. When no crime has occured, just give the guy a summons and leave it at that.

    I mean what is next ? Holding a guy because he MIGHT commit a crime ? "I'm arresting you because you look like a perp" ??? No crime = no arrest. Establish that someone has commited a crime first then drag him through the coals (arrest) not before.
     
  8. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    [shrug]Yes...:) unless there's more to it than we have here[shrug]..
     
  9. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    There may not have BEEN a crime commited but the LEOs had reason to believe there had been (complaintants and apparently something 'strange' about some bills aside from the denomination) and so they had a duty to investigate. Given the circumstances (assumeing the report is right in that there was some indication the bills may have been fake) they would need to detain him untill it could be sorted out (they can do that up to 24 hours without charges) and if they detain someone, especialy over a suspected felony, then they cuff them for safety and to make it harder for them to run off.

    Fact is if the bills had been fake and they let him go while they figured it out he would have been long gone and passed a lot more screwing a lot of folks and everyone would have brought up what idiots they were to let the criminal go. So they held him for a bit and straightened things out then let him go. Sobriety check points would be a stronger case for false arrest than this since then they dont even have cause to think you have commited a crime and detain you for a brief investigation.
     
  10. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    The woeful part of this is the level of ignorance in the masses. Who would think that here, in the most advanced economy in the world, that the very people who worship money don't even know what it looks like? Wonder what the average Best Buy clerk would do if presented a Susan B. Anthony dollar.

    5th grade lesson, counting out change. Bet anyone under 30 can do it right?
     
  11. BAT1

    BAT1 Cowboys know no fear

    I got one in change this week, it was an old one with a tear in it. I didn't get arrested. I hope he sues every body in the process, especially Best Buy. That is total stupidty, pathetic idiots!
     
  12. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    I got a $5.00 bill silver certificate a few months ago in my change back from a store purchase, you don't see those much anymore.
     
  13. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Now if you could just get change for it in the way of $5 face of silver coin. lol I know when I was working at the gas station someone came in (on a shift I wasnt working) and bought about $8-10 of stuff all with silver quarters.
     
  14. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    I wonder how many stores it would take to get the same reaction [booze]

    I could use some free room and board taser1
     
  15. kckndrgn

    kckndrgn Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member


    Free R&B would be OK, being "Bubba's" overnight companion :shock: would be a different story[booze]
     
  16. ozarkgoatman

    ozarkgoatman Resident goat herder

    [do-it] :shock: [ROFL] [ROFL] [ROFL]

    OGM
     
  17. Tracy

    Tracy Insatiably Curious Moderator Founding Member

    Wrong! Not only can they NOT do it, but they are told not to do it (at least, I was). I've taken a job as a retail cashier at night. I count money back to my customers.

    The manager told me not to. "Just give them their change in a lump sum like the register tells you." Silly girl.

    I still count change to my customers. They thank me for it. "Wow. No one does that anymore! Thank you." :)

    She's never asked me not to do it again. Maybe she knows it won't matter, I'll still do it. :D
     
  18. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    I should have seen that coming [lolol]
     
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