Two phony $20 bills passed at a Shelton gas station last month eventually led police to a Shinnacock Trail home where they found $6,000 in funny money and a number of printers, scanners, and other equipment used to make fake bills.
Those details and others are in a five-page arrest warrant written by Detective Richard Bango for Gary Ouellet, charged last month with first-degree forgery and sixth-degree larceny.
Ouellet, 48, who posted $5,000 bond after being arrested last month, appeared at Superior Court in Derby Thursday (June 7), and his case was continued to June 29.
Police say Ouellet used two fake $20 bills to buy gas at the Cumberland Farms at 819 River Road May 5.
Police were dispatched to the store three days later after the manager reviewed the surveillance video and called in police.
A Regular Customer
The manager told cops he recognized Ouellet, a regular customer, on the video.
The warrant, which is posted below this story, says the manager told police Ouellet had gone into the store and given a $20 to an employee, then walked out and pumped gas in his truck.
A couple minutes later, the manager told police, Ouellet returned to the store, gave the clerk another $20, and pumped more gas. Later that day employees at the store discovered they were fake when preparing to deposit it, the warrant says.
The manager said Oullet had tried to pass three counterfeit bills three weeks before but an attendant realized the bills were fake and kicked him out of the store.
When police examined the two phony twenties from the May 5 incident, they realized that they had the same serial number, the size of the bill was smaller than a genuine one, and “the shade of green and texture of paper was also different from real U.S. currency,” the warrant says.
A search of the Police Department database found that Ouellet’s son, Kyle, had been arrested for passing counterfeit bills at the Trumbull mall in 2010.
During the subsequent investigation into that incident, the warrant says a Secret Service agent recovered various counterfeiting equipment from the Ouellets’ Shinnacock Trail home.
The Search
After learning of the previous probe, police acquired search warrants for the home and Ouellet’s pickup truck last month.
About 6:30 a.m. May 14 a sergeant, four detectives, two Secret Service agents, and a patrol officer executed the search warrants.
Inside the home they found $6,000 in fake money — 85 counterfeit $20 bills and 53 counterfeit $100 bills — in Kyle Ouellet’s bedroom. “Also taken were several printer/scanners, paper trimmers and white linen paper” and other pertinent items, the warrant says.
Gary Ouellet refused to speak with police without a lawyer, but said that his son was worked at a Hamden supermarket, the warrant says.
Bango, Detective Ben Trabka, and one of the secret service agents then went to the supermarket and arrested Ouellet on a first-degree forgery charge based on the items they found in his room.
Back at the police station, the warrant says Kyle Ouellet gave a statement in which he admitted producing counterfeit $20 and $100 bills.
Burned?
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 did take the phony money and burned it “so (Kyle) would not get in trouble again,” the warrant says.
“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.
Kyle Ouellet, 22, has been jailed since his arrest. He is currently being held at Bridgeport Correctional Center in lieu of $30,000 bond and is due back at Superior Court in Derby June 26.
During the investigation police learned that a fake $20 had been passed at a Dunkin Donuts in Oronoque Plaza, less than a mile from the Cumberland Farms on River Road.
Trabka said Wednesday that the investigation is still open.
“We’re working with the Secret Service to see if there’s any more connections throughout the area,” he said.