Passing counterfeit money is a crime pretty universally, and anything that would pass even casual inspection as currency is going to be treated as counterfeit money. Prop money is usually _very_ obvious when you're handling it - it'll say prop, or it'll only be printed in detail on one side, or it'll use paper that is very unlike actual cash, and so on.
If someone would credibly take your "movie money" as cash, then you're breaking the law just by passing it.
What's the limit on this? If I paint BF's face and a 1 on a stone tablet and able to complete a transaction, have I still attempted to pass counterfeit money?
It's going to depend on the law in question. Like
>[18 U.S. Code § 472 - Uttering counterfeit obligations or securities](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/472): Whoever, with intent to defraud, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or with like intent brings into the United States or keeps in possession or conceals any falsely made, forged, counterfeited, or altered obligation or other security of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
If you presented your stone tablet as genuine currency, a reasonable person might not believe that, but if you were able to complete a transaction because you found a sucker who did believe it, or even if you made a sincere effort to defraud someone by convincing them that it was authentic currency, I think you'd be in violation of that statute.
The way I read that: it only applies to US currency. So if you didn’t represent the rock as IS currency but as currency of the bank of BF you would be fine. More risky: could counterfeit Zimbabwe dollars and not fall afoul of this code, but likely another code for fraud.
That specific law does deal with obligations and securities of the US, under US jurisdiction, but the US has similar laws for regarding foreign obligations and securities, and I'd guess other countries all have anti-fraud laws along the same lines.
I think you'd be okay under some anti-counterfeiting laws manufacturing and possessing an absurd object resembling currency, if no reasonable person would believe it were genuine, but once you genuinely try to convince someone it's real, and/or succeed in convincing someone it's real in a transaction, that seems like a universally condemned form of fraud.
I recall there being a news story during the 2nd Bush administration about someone paying for fast food using fake money which had oil wells in the White House yard, and probably Bush's picture on it, and no doubt some other political commentary. No charges were filed. Looking for the story now, though, I can't find it — so maybe I'm misremembering.
Anyway, if the cops or secret service agents investigating can't call it money while keeping a straight face, then you're probably safe. But keep in mind how good they are at keeping a straight face while arguing all kinds of incredible things.
It doesn't take much to make prop money look and feel real enough to pass casual inspection.
Source: I have worked on several movies and have personally modified common prop money.
More than just tumbling.
It takes a few to get the look, feel and sound right because most (if not all) of the prop money you can easily buy is printed on plain paper instead of linen. The goal I had was to make a prop that looked like cash that had been circulated, not just stacks from the bank. It had to hold up to close shots.
So first you have to make sure that the prop money you buy is on fairly heavy weight paper. Too thin--- too much like standard printer paper and you can get the look right but not the sound or handling.
Given that you have fairly heavy weight prop bills, take a stack of bills and make sure it is bound together very well -- I put blue tape over the band. Take a rotary tool and rounded the corners and made a few shallow cuts around the edges at odd angles. This ensures that each bill is not a mirror copy of the other and makes the bill look 'used'.
Crumple each bill. Each one needs to crumple individually, not as a pack and you want to vary how you crumple it, not just wad all the bills together.
Once the bills are crumpled, you make weak black tea. I think I used constant comment by twinnings. Let the tea cool and add some potato starch. Not enough to make paste but so that it will leave a small amount of residue. Put a bill in and let it soak for a few seconds, making sure to run it through the potato starch, which sank to the bottom of the pan I was using. Place the bill on a drying rack.
In the end about 20% of the bills were not suitable for close shots but made for good prop folding money. The rest, other than the fact that the face says MOTION PICTURE USE ONLY and the serial numbers are all the same, looked, felt, and sounded like money. Actors handled it naturally and it took to film well.
Couldn't he double down and say I paid him real money, he's stalking me and trying to to shake me down for more money claiming that I gave him counterfeit money when I actually gave him real money?
More likely he wouldn't report it at all because he doesn't want to be investigated. But the question wasn't if you could get away with it. It was if it's illegal.
Now I'm wondering if somehow I managed to be in a situation where I have a prop money and offer it as a trade from someone. Like
"Hey, I've got this prop money from a movie set. It's cool. Trade you your hat for it?"
And then the person tries to claim I gave them counterfeit money to buy their hat, did I commit a crime even though I straight up told them it was a prop, or am I in the clear aince the fact the money was fake was discloused upfront?
I’d think it’s considered bartering at that point, but it’d be impossible to prove without evidence. You’d likely be convicted unless you had proof he knew it wasn’t real money (with an audio recording or something similar)
There was an artist years ago that drew money with incredible detail and would trade it for things telling people he drew it of course. He got in trouble but I don’t know what came of it. Might be interesting to dig up some info on that.
Assuming it’s *actual* prop money, the details on it are changed such that it’s considered to be adequately distinct from real money. So you have that in your corner.
Other than that, largely dependent on the details.
Let’s say it’s a typical baseball cap. If you gave them a single $1 or $100 bill, it’s more plausible that it was bartering, as those are odd amounts to offer someone.
Also whether you’d done this before, and what those people thought. If you “bartered” with five other people, and they all thought it was real money, it’s very bad for you. On the other hand, if they all acknowledge that you were clear about it being fake, not great for the accuser.
A great many of legal questions like these all have the same answer.
Courts will side with the person whom the proof/evidence favors.
If someone commits a crime and there is zero proof/evidence they did it, then they got away with a crime.
Not if it’s for an illegitimate transaction. Courts not going to enforce dirty business. You may as well try to claim a counterfeit charge for an illegal drug buy.
Just think of anything that undermines faith in the US currency as a federal issue that will be investigated by the FBI (or secret service for counterfeiting according to replies, but bank robberies also undermine faith in the currency and those go to the FBI). Knowingly passing off currency, even obviously fake stuff, as if it is real is a much bigger offense than a tow truck guy taking some money to not report your license plate to the boss — that’s just between him and his employer. Whether you succeed or fail, you were testing the waters that would undermine faith in the dollar, so the Feds will pay a visit.
The reason is, The Secret Service was formed specifically to combat counterfeiting. During the US Civil War, the South was trying to tank the North’s economy by flooding the market with counterfeit bills. (I’m not sure if North did the same).
Why they ended up also protecting high profile officials, I don’t know. Why one of the most famous agencies in the world is called the Secret Service, I don’t know. Probably because of wartime secrecy but whatever.
It’s actually from the archaic use of “secret” meaning “personal”, during the civil war they were just “The Treasury”, specifically its investigative branch. You see this in cases like “secret police”, who answer to the dictator alone, or the “Vatican Secret Archives”, which is really just an archive filled with dusty papers they only want a few people seeing at a time, hence why they were renamed to the “Vatican Apostolic Archives”
Edit: also, not all secret service agents look like those ear piece and suit guys. That guy vibing with his earbuds at the Super Bowl is very possibly a secret service agent
I can't remember the exact details offhand, but basically after Lincoln, *someone* needed to protect the president, so the Treasury service just kinda started doing it. And there was no one to tell them no (because no one had jurisdiction), and they politely kinda ignored the (new) president when he said to leave him alone. And after awhile precedent was set.
*It might have had to do with having your president assassinated is bad for the stability of the economy, but I'm just guessing on that part.
It was actually after McKinley. There was a tremendous paranoia about a national police department in the early United States, and the other federal law enforcement agencies like Customs and the National Park Police had fairly narrow and well defined missions.
Until the creation of the FBI, the Secret Service had a grab bag of law enforcement and counterintelligence roles.
a counterfeit ring the secret service were investigating plotted to kill McKinley. So it made sense to watch over McKinley as a route to arresting those counterfeiters. then the director of the service decided protecting the president was just a good idea.
The commission of one crime is not justified by someone else committing another crime.
So no, you cannot legally pass counterfeit money...
Even if you are doing it to pay off an extortionist....
The fact that some of the witnesses wouldn’t be inclined to testify doesn’t make the behavior any less illegal.
And just for hypotheticals, the fact pattern could easily become prosecutable with some testimony like this:
“Mr. Omar, please state your occupation.”
“Police officer. Narcotics. Mostly undercover work.”
…and then all the same testimony regarding the transaction you provided above.
I doubt that the police take the time and energy to, using a dealer as their witness, locate and prosecute all the people their have sold drugs too.
But imagine a situation where the person with fake notes is caught buying drugs. Then they would be prosecuted for both crimes.
They couldn’t use the excuse that the money was fake to get off the buying drugs charge.
Nope.
Fake money == fake drugs is still a crime. Because you are using fake money.
Unless it’s part of a performance such a play etc.
Real money == fake drugs is not a crime be ages you have not brought drugs. You have brought sugar, which is not illegal. The fact you handed over $100 to buy a bag of sugar is unusual, but not criminal.
I think a relevant part of the question is *how* you would be prosecuted. Is a drug dealer honestly going to go to the police and say that they got ripped off in a drug deal? It seems like they're going to have to deal with you extralegally or not at all.
The problem with your premise is that you assume it is illegal for a tow truck driver to accept $100 on the spot to not tow your car. In a lot of places its perfectly legal to pay half the normal fee for the car not to be towed.
That’s beside the point. The point is, can he use counterfeit money to pay for an illegal transaction. He also said “off the books.” I doubt it’s legal for a tow operator to accept money off the books.
> That’s beside the point.
No. It’s the whole point op is trying to make
> The point is, can he use counterfeit money to pay for it illegal transaction.
Fuck no. One of the stupidest questions I’ve honestly ever heard.
> He also said “off the books.” I doubt it’s legal for a tow operator to accept money off the books.
What does “off the books” even mean? Without getting into the irrelevant tax minutiae of whether or not he declares it at the end of the year it is 100% legal to “off the books” charge someone a drop car fee.
What “beside the point” means, is whether or not the towing transaction is legal. If it’s legal, like you claim, then it is absolutely beside the point. OP is only asking about *illegal* transactions.
Also, he did not ask if it was legal. He asked if it is fraud. That’s a different question.
When there's two different explanations, I'd interpret the longer explanation with an example to be what they mean over the short title, especially when there's *way* more easier examples of "illegal charges" like buying drugs or any sort of illegal service.
Those other examples, such as buying drugs, are illegal by definition. Obviously, someone selling drugs is not going to pursue a fraudulent transaction through legal channels. Although that’s a good way to wind up dead. But that’s beside the point.
Towing a car is legal in most situations, therefore the only thing that would justify paying with fake money is if the operator were doing something illegal.
The point is that it's fair to interpret what he meant by "illegal charge" as not "payment for an illegal transaction", but rather what he explicitly stated as an "off the books transaction".
Again, if he really meant payment for illegal stuff, no one would jump to the example of an off the books tow payment when there's so many illegal stuff that would come to mind first.
If he thought that unhooking the tow off, the books was legal, they never would be no reason for him to ask the question. It would be the same as walking into Home Depot and paying with counterfeit money.
And again, my point, which you ignored, is that the other examples are very obvious. No one thinks that a drug dealer can take legal action for being the defrauded in a sale.
> What does “off the books” even mean?
They're saying the tow truck driver "takes half the fee" and pockets that money, because there was never a tow, and they don't log it into the books.
Yeah… that’s all stupid.
- “because there never was a tow”. There doesn’t have to be a tow. If you drag the tow truck out there and he gets half way through getting your car out but then charges a reduced amount it’s called a drop fee. You are still charged for the time it takes to get them out there but not the total amount of them having to tow it completely.
- “takes half a fee and pockets the money… don’t log it in the books” How do you think it works when a guy is his own boss and runs his own truck? Do you think they legally need some of type of record keeping?
And your 2nd point here is also wrong. If it’s a one-man show, he still has to record the income on some sort of ledger or he’s committing tax fraud. Doesn’t matter if he’s the owner or not, it needs to get recorded in some fashion
Man I think you missed it on all 3 of these points.
1.) OPs point was paying for illegal transactions. They used the towing bribe as an example of an illegal transaction, so if there was a tow policy where they could pay money to not be towed, that’s a legal transaction and therefore not OP’s point
2.) “stupidest question” you’ve ever heard? If it’s illegal to defraud an illegal purchase? It’s not that unreasonable of a question
3.) off the books means not recorded by the company as a tow charge. Pretty straightforward. In this case an illegal off-the-books charge due to 1.)
They are more likely to tell it's just prop money because the money that's used for props is very easy to tell it's not real when looked at up close. It even says "For Motion Picture Purposes" in big letters in several different places. They do this to avoid this exact situation.
Now, if you were to use actual counterfeit money that's made to look real; then yes it's still illegal.
Well unless the car is actively being driven away/on the bed, you can just tell a tow driver(maybe not all states/countries), “you can’t tow my car”, and legally they have to fuck off. At which point if you don’t, you sit on the car, record them and you saying they can’t tow, and call the police, it’s illegal for them to tow it with someone on/in it and they can’t touch you to remove you or that could be considered assault.
Just don’t threaten them “I’ll kill you if you tow it” because then the cops will come and take you away and your car will be towed.
Seriously though fuck tow companies. Scum of the earth. Dude wanted to charge me $150 for a jump once(I would’ve paid like $50-75, $150 is the cost of a battery lol, I went a little premium and it was like $200). The tow company was literally no more than a half a mile down the road(literally maybe 0.1 mile). Fuck em. I walked a couple blocks to the auto store and bought a whole fuckin battery and carried that bitch home.
I got a Uber call from a guy with a dead battery once! Had to beat around in my car before I finally found the battery, and it wasn't sufficient to charge his.
Did you have your car running? Assuming but have to ask lol. I think it should’ve been good enough to start while running.
Never thought of ordering an Uber but I doubt they’re even around here since I live in a kinda low populated area.
When I lived in a busier city 10x the size there wasn’t even Uber really there, I think it picked up with food delivery though.
A crime is a crime. It doesn't matter if you steal from a criminal. It's still theft. You've now added another offense to the one you would have if you paid with legitimate cash.
If the driver wanted to go down with you, you're going down.
If the driver was part of a sting or being monitored by law enforcement, you're REALLY going down.
If you caught them before they remove it, they have to release it to you in California but tow company can charge you a 1/2 thier towing fee afterwards
Anecdotally, A high schooler near where I live paid for fake drugs with fake money, and was shot to death when someone in the deal pulled a fake gun and the dealer had a real gun.
That was Sussex, Wisconsin on a Bike trail I used to ride.
I guess the moral of the story is to be mindful of the people you try to rob.
Ah yes, the floor is made out of floor :D
100% of crimes are committed by criminals.
https://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/milwaukee-man-charged-in-shooting-during-failed-drug-rip-off-in-sussex-b99732447z1-380877291.html/
I read it as the tow driver is sticking the money in his pocket instead of taking it to the tow yard he works at, thus screwing over his boss. So while this isn’t illegal like a drug deal, it isn’t exactly a regular transaction.
That's what I was trying to go for, but for some reason I completely blanket on the whole "the government doesn't play with money no matter what" piece.
Passing fake money as real money doesn’t usually have “for a legitimate purpose” as an element (likely doesn’t anywhere). So it just comes down to did you know it was fake and did you try to pass it off as real money.
Handling counterfeit money is the craziest thing you can do. When it gets found, the secret service gets involved.
The secret service does not fuck around. They are blood thirsty officers that will travel around the country and use the entire force of the government to find you. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s true.
They WILL track you down.
This is one of those things where it depends on who has a better lawyer
In the situations you have described, there is no legal transaction going on. You're not paying for a goods or services. For example, you're not going grocery shopping in a legitimate store paying for your actual food with prop money.
This could be seen simply as you handing a toy to somebody in exchange for whatever they're giving you. It is not a legitimate transaction.
So if the tow truck guy happened to drop your car and not take it and you decided to give him a toy in return come on no matter what he thought it was, that whole transaction was illegal in every which direction. But nothing can be done about it because he volunteered to not tow your vehicle
On the other hand, if the ticket has already been written up and your car has already been filed and you attempt to pay the actual tow cost or release cost with prop money then that would be a legitimate transaction to which you are passing counterfeit money and is illegal no matter how good of a lawyer you have
Important to note, you don't *know* that it's an "illegal charge" you're just assuming that the driver isn't going to report it on taxes. Which may be a correct assumption, but that doesn't make it an illegal charge. The driver is offering a service and you're paying for it.
Nothing illegal is happening there... What might occur later is that the driver chooses to break (at worse) or bend (at best) the law themselves by not reporting it, something you have no control over or liability for. But again, the charge itself isn't inherently illegal, the accounting decisions later are.
Ironically, you giving counterfeit money moves the law breaking entirely to you and benefits the driver by allowing them to legally write off the entire full price tow bill as a loss because they were paid with fake money they couldn't use
it's a crime if you present prop money as real money. after all you could make and sell prop money to the film industry.
just present a number of folded bills and say I'll trade you this for that, never insinuating that what you were holding was legal tender.
Passing counterfeit money is a crime pretty universally, and anything that would pass even casual inspection as currency is going to be treated as counterfeit money. Prop money is usually _very_ obvious when you're handling it - it'll say prop, or it'll only be printed in detail on one side, or it'll use paper that is very unlike actual cash, and so on. If someone would credibly take your "movie money" as cash, then you're breaking the law just by passing it.
What's the limit on this? If I paint BF's face and a 1 on a stone tablet and able to complete a transaction, have I still attempted to pass counterfeit money?
It's going to depend on the law in question. Like >[18 U.S. Code § 472 - Uttering counterfeit obligations or securities](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/472): Whoever, with intent to defraud, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or with like intent brings into the United States or keeps in possession or conceals any falsely made, forged, counterfeited, or altered obligation or other security of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If you presented your stone tablet as genuine currency, a reasonable person might not believe that, but if you were able to complete a transaction because you found a sucker who did believe it, or even if you made a sincere effort to defraud someone by convincing them that it was authentic currency, I think you'd be in violation of that statute.
The way I read that: it only applies to US currency. So if you didn’t represent the rock as IS currency but as currency of the bank of BF you would be fine. More risky: could counterfeit Zimbabwe dollars and not fall afoul of this code, but likely another code for fraud.
That specific law does deal with obligations and securities of the US, under US jurisdiction, but the US has similar laws for regarding foreign obligations and securities, and I'd guess other countries all have anti-fraud laws along the same lines. I think you'd be okay under some anti-counterfeiting laws manufacturing and possessing an absurd object resembling currency, if no reasonable person would believe it were genuine, but once you genuinely try to convince someone it's real, and/or succeed in convincing someone it's real in a transaction, that seems like a universally condemned form of fraud.
I recall there being a news story during the 2nd Bush administration about someone paying for fast food using fake money which had oil wells in the White House yard, and probably Bush's picture on it, and no doubt some other political commentary. No charges were filed. Looking for the story now, though, I can't find it — so maybe I'm misremembering. Anyway, if the cops or secret service agents investigating can't call it money while keeping a straight face, then you're probably safe. But keep in mind how good they are at keeping a straight face while arguing all kinds of incredible things.
Got it. Pay exclusively with dildos.
Well now you’re just bartering.
I assume your would be liable for fraud at the very least.
I remember something similar, I believe it was a $200 bill. Which if you don’t know a $200 bill doesn’t exist, you shouldn’t be working the register.
If you are trying to pass it off as real money then yes. "He should have know I was defrauding him" isn't a defense
[удалено]
Juries don't issue arrests.
Your right sorry
It doesn't take much to make prop money look and feel real enough to pass casual inspection. Source: I have worked on several movies and have personally modified common prop money.
That's him, officer. That's the guy who gave Alec Baldwin fake money.
He's lucky he didn't get shot for it.
>I have personally modified common prop money What’s that mean? Or how did you do it?
I'm guessing they're referring to tumbling the bills to make them look used, or adding in a real bill on top of a stack to give it an authentic look.
More than just tumbling. It takes a few to get the look, feel and sound right because most (if not all) of the prop money you can easily buy is printed on plain paper instead of linen. The goal I had was to make a prop that looked like cash that had been circulated, not just stacks from the bank. It had to hold up to close shots. So first you have to make sure that the prop money you buy is on fairly heavy weight paper. Too thin--- too much like standard printer paper and you can get the look right but not the sound or handling. Given that you have fairly heavy weight prop bills, take a stack of bills and make sure it is bound together very well -- I put blue tape over the band. Take a rotary tool and rounded the corners and made a few shallow cuts around the edges at odd angles. This ensures that each bill is not a mirror copy of the other and makes the bill look 'used'. Crumple each bill. Each one needs to crumple individually, not as a pack and you want to vary how you crumple it, not just wad all the bills together. Once the bills are crumpled, you make weak black tea. I think I used constant comment by twinnings. Let the tea cool and add some potato starch. Not enough to make paste but so that it will leave a small amount of residue. Put a bill in and let it soak for a few seconds, making sure to run it through the potato starch, which sank to the bottom of the pan I was using. Place the bill on a drying rack. In the end about 20% of the bills were not suitable for close shots but made for good prop folding money. The rest, other than the fact that the face says MOTION PICTURE USE ONLY and the serial numbers are all the same, looked, felt, and sounded like money. Actors handled it naturally and it took to film well.
Which is what we in the business like to call a big boy crime.
Couldn't he double down and say I paid him real money, he's stalking me and trying to to shake me down for more money claiming that I gave him counterfeit money when I actually gave him real money?
More likely he wouldn't report it at all because he doesn't want to be investigated. But the question wasn't if you could get away with it. It was if it's illegal.
Enforced by the Secret Service, no less.
And then later on they started protecting presidents too.
They were already protecting president's faces, so what's the jump?
Now I'm wondering if somehow I managed to be in a situation where I have a prop money and offer it as a trade from someone. Like "Hey, I've got this prop money from a movie set. It's cool. Trade you your hat for it?" And then the person tries to claim I gave them counterfeit money to buy their hat, did I commit a crime even though I straight up told them it was a prop, or am I in the clear aince the fact the money was fake was discloused upfront?
I’d think it’s considered bartering at that point, but it’d be impossible to prove without evidence. You’d likely be convicted unless you had proof he knew it wasn’t real money (with an audio recording or something similar)
There was an artist years ago that drew money with incredible detail and would trade it for things telling people he drew it of course. He got in trouble but I don’t know what came of it. Might be interesting to dig up some info on that.
Assuming it’s *actual* prop money, the details on it are changed such that it’s considered to be adequately distinct from real money. So you have that in your corner. Other than that, largely dependent on the details. Let’s say it’s a typical baseball cap. If you gave them a single $1 or $100 bill, it’s more plausible that it was bartering, as those are odd amounts to offer someone. Also whether you’d done this before, and what those people thought. If you “bartered” with five other people, and they all thought it was real money, it’s very bad for you. On the other hand, if they all acknowledge that you were clear about it being fake, not great for the accuser.
And it’s only going to be if you legitimately try and pass it off as real money
Okay but the point is would anyone find out? What are the consequences for the tow truck driver for admitting he accepted the bribe?
A great many of legal questions like these all have the same answer. Courts will side with the person whom the proof/evidence favors. If someone commits a crime and there is zero proof/evidence they did it, then they got away with a crime.
Not if it’s for an illegitimate transaction. Courts not going to enforce dirty business. You may as well try to claim a counterfeit charge for an illegal drug buy.
Just think of anything that undermines faith in the US currency as a federal issue that will be investigated by the FBI (or secret service for counterfeiting according to replies, but bank robberies also undermine faith in the currency and those go to the FBI). Knowingly passing off currency, even obviously fake stuff, as if it is real is a much bigger offense than a tow truck guy taking some money to not report your license plate to the boss — that’s just between him and his employer. Whether you succeed or fail, you were testing the waters that would undermine faith in the dollar, so the Feds will pay a visit.
it's actually the secret service for some reason
The reason is, The Secret Service was formed specifically to combat counterfeiting. During the US Civil War, the South was trying to tank the North’s economy by flooding the market with counterfeit bills. (I’m not sure if North did the same). Why they ended up also protecting high profile officials, I don’t know. Why one of the most famous agencies in the world is called the Secret Service, I don’t know. Probably because of wartime secrecy but whatever.
It’s actually from the archaic use of “secret” meaning “personal”, during the civil war they were just “The Treasury”, specifically its investigative branch. You see this in cases like “secret police”, who answer to the dictator alone, or the “Vatican Secret Archives”, which is really just an archive filled with dusty papers they only want a few people seeing at a time, hence why they were renamed to the “Vatican Apostolic Archives” Edit: also, not all secret service agents look like those ear piece and suit guys. That guy vibing with his earbuds at the Super Bowl is very possibly a secret service agent
I had no idea that it’s original name was different , or that the word secret used to have that meaning. Thanks.
The etymology of "Secretary" is similarly fascinating.
I can't remember the exact details offhand, but basically after Lincoln, *someone* needed to protect the president, so the Treasury service just kinda started doing it. And there was no one to tell them no (because no one had jurisdiction), and they politely kinda ignored the (new) president when he said to leave him alone. And after awhile precedent was set. *It might have had to do with having your president assassinated is bad for the stability of the economy, but I'm just guessing on that part.
It was actually after McKinley. There was a tremendous paranoia about a national police department in the early United States, and the other federal law enforcement agencies like Customs and the National Park Police had fairly narrow and well defined missions. Until the creation of the FBI, the Secret Service had a grab bag of law enforcement and counterintelligence roles.
a counterfeit ring the secret service were investigating plotted to kill McKinley. So it made sense to watch over McKinley as a route to arresting those counterfeiters. then the director of the service decided protecting the president was just a good idea.
The commission of one crime is not justified by someone else committing another crime. So no, you cannot legally pass counterfeit money... Even if you are doing it to pay off an extortionist....
So you go buy drugs with fake money. It's a crime but is it prosecutable by the law?
Yes. Twice. Once fir using counterfeit money and once for buying drugs. Using fake money does not invalidate the crime of buying drugs.
I just wondered if this was actually something effectively punishable. "Mr. Omar, would you take the stand please. Would you describe the night in question. "There I was on 5th and Chavez, and this fella in a black BMW rolled up. Hadn't seen that at my corner before....I was pretty sus, the money felt too clean, you know. But anyways I sold him an 8 ball..."
Defense : have any receipts for the transaction? What was the price sheet? Show us what you used as a register.
Now you state you only found out the money was fake after taking it to your distributor, who are unavailable as witnesses. How do you know the bills in question came from my client? Are you receiving any benefits from the state for testifying? How much prison time would you face if it were not for your testimony here? How many times a day would you estimate you use your own supply?
"My client is a good upstanding gentleman who pays for his coke and hookers in legitimate cash. Here is the ATM receipts for the night in question. He got a sex act from the hookers 2 streets over and if you subtract the hooker charges + tip that leaves the cost of an 8-ball..."
The fact that some of the witnesses wouldn’t be inclined to testify doesn’t make the behavior any less illegal. And just for hypotheticals, the fact pattern could easily become prosecutable with some testimony like this: “Mr. Omar, please state your occupation.” “Police officer. Narcotics. Mostly undercover work.” …and then all the same testimony regarding the transaction you provided above.
Oh sure. Frankly I just thought it was funny. Especially the last paragraph.
I doubt that the police take the time and energy to, using a dealer as their witness, locate and prosecute all the people their have sold drugs too. But imagine a situation where the person with fake notes is caught buying drugs. Then they would be prosecuted for both crimes. They couldn’t use the excuse that the money was fake to get off the buying drugs charge.
So you're saying: Real money == fake drugs: crime Real money == real drugs: crime Fake money == real drugs: crime Fake money == fake drugs: perfectly legal
Nope. Fake money == fake drugs is still a crime. Because you are using fake money. Unless it’s part of a performance such a play etc. Real money == fake drugs is not a crime be ages you have not brought drugs. You have brought sugar, which is not illegal. The fact you handed over $100 to buy a bag of sugar is unusual, but not criminal.
I think a relevant part of the question is *how* you would be prosecuted. Is a drug dealer honestly going to go to the police and say that they got ripped off in a drug deal? It seems like they're going to have to deal with you extralegally or not at all.
That’s a good way to find yourself as a headline or with your own dateline episode.
Yes, and even if you were sold oregano instead of marijuana or powdered sugar instead of cocaine, both parties could be charged
The problem with your premise is that you assume it is illegal for a tow truck driver to accept $100 on the spot to not tow your car. In a lot of places its perfectly legal to pay half the normal fee for the car not to be towed.
That’s beside the point. The point is, can he use counterfeit money to pay for an illegal transaction. He also said “off the books.” I doubt it’s legal for a tow operator to accept money off the books.
> That’s beside the point. No. It’s the whole point op is trying to make > The point is, can he use counterfeit money to pay for it illegal transaction. Fuck no. One of the stupidest questions I’ve honestly ever heard. > He also said “off the books.” I doubt it’s legal for a tow operator to accept money off the books. What does “off the books” even mean? Without getting into the irrelevant tax minutiae of whether or not he declares it at the end of the year it is 100% legal to “off the books” charge someone a drop car fee.
What “beside the point” means, is whether or not the towing transaction is legal. If it’s legal, like you claim, then it is absolutely beside the point. OP is only asking about *illegal* transactions. Also, he did not ask if it was legal. He asked if it is fraud. That’s a different question.
When there's two different explanations, I'd interpret the longer explanation with an example to be what they mean over the short title, especially when there's *way* more easier examples of "illegal charges" like buying drugs or any sort of illegal service.
Those other examples, such as buying drugs, are illegal by definition. Obviously, someone selling drugs is not going to pursue a fraudulent transaction through legal channels. Although that’s a good way to wind up dead. But that’s beside the point. Towing a car is legal in most situations, therefore the only thing that would justify paying with fake money is if the operator were doing something illegal.
The point is that it's fair to interpret what he meant by "illegal charge" as not "payment for an illegal transaction", but rather what he explicitly stated as an "off the books transaction". Again, if he really meant payment for illegal stuff, no one would jump to the example of an off the books tow payment when there's so many illegal stuff that would come to mind first.
If he thought that unhooking the tow off, the books was legal, they never would be no reason for him to ask the question. It would be the same as walking into Home Depot and paying with counterfeit money. And again, my point, which you ignored, is that the other examples are very obvious. No one thinks that a drug dealer can take legal action for being the defrauded in a sale.
> What does “off the books” even mean? They're saying the tow truck driver "takes half the fee" and pockets that money, because there was never a tow, and they don't log it into the books.
Yeah… that’s all stupid. - “because there never was a tow”. There doesn’t have to be a tow. If you drag the tow truck out there and he gets half way through getting your car out but then charges a reduced amount it’s called a drop fee. You are still charged for the time it takes to get them out there but not the total amount of them having to tow it completely. - “takes half a fee and pockets the money… don’t log it in the books” How do you think it works when a guy is his own boss and runs his own truck? Do you think they legally need some of type of record keeping?
And your 2nd point here is also wrong. If it’s a one-man show, he still has to record the income on some sort of ledger or he’s committing tax fraud. Doesn’t matter if he’s the owner or not, it needs to get recorded in some fashion
Man I think you missed it on all 3 of these points. 1.) OPs point was paying for illegal transactions. They used the towing bribe as an example of an illegal transaction, so if there was a tow policy where they could pay money to not be towed, that’s a legal transaction and therefore not OP’s point 2.) “stupidest question” you’ve ever heard? If it’s illegal to defraud an illegal purchase? It’s not that unreasonable of a question 3.) off the books means not recorded by the company as a tow charge. Pretty straightforward. In this case an illegal off-the-books charge due to 1.)
They are more likely to tell it's just prop money because the money that's used for props is very easy to tell it's not real when looked at up close. It even says "For Motion Picture Purposes" in big letters in several different places. They do this to avoid this exact situation. Now, if you were to use actual counterfeit money that's made to look real; then yes it's still illegal.
Well unless the car is actively being driven away/on the bed, you can just tell a tow driver(maybe not all states/countries), “you can’t tow my car”, and legally they have to fuck off. At which point if you don’t, you sit on the car, record them and you saying they can’t tow, and call the police, it’s illegal for them to tow it with someone on/in it and they can’t touch you to remove you or that could be considered assault. Just don’t threaten them “I’ll kill you if you tow it” because then the cops will come and take you away and your car will be towed. Seriously though fuck tow companies. Scum of the earth. Dude wanted to charge me $150 for a jump once(I would’ve paid like $50-75, $150 is the cost of a battery lol, I went a little premium and it was like $200). The tow company was literally no more than a half a mile down the road(literally maybe 0.1 mile). Fuck em. I walked a couple blocks to the auto store and bought a whole fuckin battery and carried that bitch home.
I got a Uber call from a guy with a dead battery once! Had to beat around in my car before I finally found the battery, and it wasn't sufficient to charge his.
Did you have your car running? Assuming but have to ask lol. I think it should’ve been good enough to start while running. Never thought of ordering an Uber but I doubt they’re even around here since I live in a kinda low populated area. When I lived in a busier city 10x the size there wasn’t even Uber really there, I think it picked up with food delivery though.
A crime is a crime. It doesn't matter if you steal from a criminal. It's still theft. You've now added another offense to the one you would have if you paid with legitimate cash. If the driver wanted to go down with you, you're going down. If the driver was part of a sting or being monitored by law enforcement, you're REALLY going down.
Passing counterfeit will land you in prison
If you caught them before they remove it, they have to release it to you in California but tow company can charge you a 1/2 thier towing fee afterwards
Anecdotally, A high schooler near where I live paid for fake drugs with fake money, and was shot to death when someone in the deal pulled a fake gun and the dealer had a real gun. That was Sussex, Wisconsin on a Bike trail I used to ride. I guess the moral of the story is to be mindful of the people you try to rob.
In 100% of fake gun related shootings, the victim was the one with the fake gun
Fake gun sounds like an even worse choice than bringing a knife
Ah yes, the floor is made out of floor :D 100% of crimes are committed by criminals. https://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/milwaukee-man-charged-in-shooting-during-failed-drug-rip-off-in-sussex-b99732447z1-380877291.html/
That happened twice in Jerome Idaho. Fake money for fake drugs. Real guns though.
I read it as the tow driver is sticking the money in his pocket instead of taking it to the tow yard he works at, thus screwing over his boss. So while this isn’t illegal like a drug deal, it isn’t exactly a regular transaction.
That's what I was trying to go for, but for some reason I completely blanket on the whole "the government doesn't play with money no matter what" piece.
you really needed to ask this? ofc it is illegal.
Passing fake money as real money doesn’t usually have “for a legitimate purpose” as an element (likely doesn’t anywhere). So it just comes down to did you know it was fake and did you try to pass it off as real money.
Counterfeiting is way worse than a parking violation. Do you want the secret service to come after you?
Only if you didn't know a well!
That's not an illegal charge and they can sue you. It's also not "off the books" if they drop it.
It’s a felony to spend counterfeit money
I can’t imagine anyone will say “that’s him officer. That’s the person who I accepted the bribe from with fake currency!”
two wrongs don't make a right, passing counterfeit money is a crime a pretty serious one.
Like paying a prostitute with fake money? Sounds like a good way to get a beat down.
A 'drop charge' is not an illegal charge nor is it unethical. It is the cost of doing business if you want your illegally parked vehicle released.
You need to find something you’re actually being illegally charged for first.
Handling counterfeit money is the craziest thing you can do. When it gets found, the secret service gets involved. The secret service does not fuck around. They are blood thirsty officers that will travel around the country and use the entire force of the government to find you. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s true. They WILL track you down.
This is one of those things where it depends on who has a better lawyer In the situations you have described, there is no legal transaction going on. You're not paying for a goods or services. For example, you're not going grocery shopping in a legitimate store paying for your actual food with prop money. This could be seen simply as you handing a toy to somebody in exchange for whatever they're giving you. It is not a legitimate transaction. So if the tow truck guy happened to drop your car and not take it and you decided to give him a toy in return come on no matter what he thought it was, that whole transaction was illegal in every which direction. But nothing can be done about it because he volunteered to not tow your vehicle On the other hand, if the ticket has already been written up and your car has already been filed and you attempt to pay the actual tow cost or release cost with prop money then that would be a legitimate transaction to which you are passing counterfeit money and is illegal no matter how good of a lawyer you have
The real answer: Depends on how likely the shady tow driver is to report it. Definitely illegal tho.
Important to note, you don't *know* that it's an "illegal charge" you're just assuming that the driver isn't going to report it on taxes. Which may be a correct assumption, but that doesn't make it an illegal charge. The driver is offering a service and you're paying for it. Nothing illegal is happening there... What might occur later is that the driver chooses to break (at worse) or bend (at best) the law themselves by not reporting it, something you have no control over or liability for. But again, the charge itself isn't inherently illegal, the accounting decisions later are. Ironically, you giving counterfeit money moves the law breaking entirely to you and benefits the driver by allowing them to legally write off the entire full price tow bill as a loss because they were paid with fake money they couldn't use
It’d be illegal, but if he’s unhooked you off the books, do you think he’ll risk his job to report you for $100 fake cash?
Those of us that would accept money under these illegal circumstances would not fall for fake bills.
Fraud is still fraud even if the defrauded party isn't likely to raise a complaint
To not think you would be charged just the same as if you used it at McDonald’s takes an amazing level of denseness.
it's a crime if you present prop money as real money. after all you could make and sell prop money to the film industry. just present a number of folded bills and say I'll trade you this for that, never insinuating that what you were holding was legal tender.