A Shelton man who police say manufactured counterfeit money out of his Shinnacock Trail home was sentenced to three years in prison Friday.
The man, Kyle Ouellet, 22, pleaded guilty to first-degree forgery before Judge Karen Sequino at Superior Court in Derby.
Police first became involved with the case May 8, after two fake $20 bills were passed at the Cumberland Farms on River Road three days earlier.
The man who passed the bills was eventually identified as Ouellet’s father, Gary. The store manager told police he was a regular customer and that he easily recognized him on the surveillance video.
The manager said Ouellet had tried to pass three counterfeit bills in the store three weeks earlier but an attendant realized the money was fake and kicked him out.
Gary Ouellet pleaded guilty to first-degree forgery Wednesday (Dec. 12), according to court records, and was sentenced to a suspended one-year jail sentence and two years of probation.
When a search of the police department’s database found that Gary Ouellet’s son, Kyle, had been arrested for passing counterfeit money in Trumbull in 2010, they acquired search warrants for the family’s home.
Inside they found $6,000 in fake money — 85 counterfeit $20 bills and 53 counterfeit $100 bills — all of which was in Kyle Ouellet’s bedroom, according to an arrest warrant in the case.
“Also taken were several printer/scanners, paper trimmers and white linen paper” and other pertinent items, the warrant said.
Two detectives and a Secret Service agent then tracked down Ouellet at his job at a Hamden supermarket and arrested him. Back at the station, the warrant says he gave a statement admitting to producing the phony bills.
He told police he had $3,000 worth of fake money stashed in his room but recently noticed it was missing. Suspecting his father took it, he confronted him, and he told police that his father said he took the phony money and burned it to keep his son out of trouble.
“Kyle stated that he suspected his father did not burn the money and in fact was passing the bills because he was coming home with items he has purchased as of late and his father is unemployed and has no income,” the warrant says. ​“Kyle stated his father was buying small items that cost under $20 so he could get genuine money as change.”
“Kyle stated he is familiar with this tactic because when he was passing $20 counterfeit bills he was doing the same thing,” the warrant says.
In court Friday, Judge Sequino handed down a five-year prison sentence in the case, to be suspended after Ouellet serves three years, followed by three years of probation.
Those terms were in accordance with a plea offer prosecutors had made to Ouellet.
Ouellet was also charged with a violation of probation in connection with the 2010 Trumbull case. Court officials said Friday that Ouellet would be getting a 35-month sentence in that case.
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Warrant: Shelton Counterfeiter Had $6,000 In Fake Bills