Use this to get access to the whole sordid story:

 

User ID: "[email protected]"

Password: "bugmenot"

 

BALTIMORE SUN

 

PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta's place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher's car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta's idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.

 

For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.

 

Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.

 

Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.

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Basically he was arrested because he had a crapload of two dollar bills in sequential order and some of them smeared ink and so they thought he had fakes. The secret service was called in and he was let go. They overreacted to a suspicion of counterfeit...they didnt arrest him for spending money.

 

For those of you who dont want to read the whole article to find the catch, here it is:

 

 

But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

 

"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,'" Bolesta says. "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.'

 

"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.'"

 

Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called in.

 

"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."

 

Finally, Secret Service agent Leigh Turner arrived, examined the bills and said they were legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

 

This will be important news to all concerned.

 

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

New bills tend to be sequential and sometimes have smeared ink. BFD.

 

I've got about $200 worth of $2's on hand right now too.

 

Who the hell counterfeits $2 bills?

 

You should whine you applogia over at Kos - one of them is all over this too and sympathy isn't running with the PD or Best Buy at the moment.

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/7/144316/7760