Is he secretly a Bexar County Democratic Party operative?Okay that was unfair of me to say that.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximus culpa.
Man pays courthouse with fake $50, arrest records say
Quad City Times-(Iowa) - Yancy Terrell Cochran tried to bail a friend out of jail, but now he’s facing charges himself for his effort.
Cochran, 35, of Davenport, went to the Scott County Courthouse on April 21 to post bail for a friend, but he used a counterfeit $50 bill, according to arrest records and officials.
Scott County criminal court clerk Angelica Kent first spotted the fake bill. She said Cochran gave her $300 worth of $50 bills.
When she marked them using a special pen — as she does all $50 and $100 bills she receives — the mark on one of the $50 bills turned black, she said. The mark is supposed to turn golden yellow.
Kent immediately called the Scott County Sheriff’s Department, and Deputy Tara Dinneweth investigated the fake bill.
Dinneweth compared all of Cochran’s $50 bills and found two with the same serial number, she said.
“At first glance, it looked real,” Dinneweth said. “At closer inspection, it proved to be counterfeit.”
The bill was confiscated.
Cochran told the clerks he got the fake bill from a check-cashing place, Kent said.
He later admitted to deputies that he made the counterfeit money at his home, Dinneweth said.
The sheriff’s department searched Cochran’s home and found a printer, scanner and paper used in making counterfeit money, Dinneweth said.
Cochran was charged April 23 with forgery, a felony that is punishable by up to five years in prison.
He has been at the Scott County Jail since Sunday night on unrelated charges of first-degree harassment and simple assault, both misdemeanors. He was booked into the jail Wednesday on the forgery charge.
He used the counterfeit money to bail out Marcella Payne, who was in jail for unpaid traffic tickets.
Cochran was asked to hand over another, real $50 bill after the fake one was confiscated.
“It’s not advisable bringing that in to pay fines,” Dinneweth said of counterfeit money.
