Police moved quickly to crack a counterfeiting case, taking an Indiana woman into custody Friday. Now, they’re advising business owners to watch for other phony bills that might still be in circulation.
There were three incidents, all of them involving businesses along Philadelphia Street in downtown Indiana. State Police were alerted shortly after 10 AM on Thursday by the manager of the 4th Street Sheetz who told them a counterfeit $100 bill had been passed earlier in the day. The suspect was identified as 27-year-old Madison Rachele Bruner.
Then at 10:30 on Thursday night Indiana Borough Police notified state police that another counterfeit bill bearing the same serial number as the earlier bill had been found at the Kim Moon restaurant, and on Friday, a third fake $100 bill was discovered at Fox’s Pizza.
Bruner was located and arrested Friday at a home along Third Street in White Township, where food deliveries had been made by both Kim Moon and Fox’s. Each of those transactions was paid for with counterfeit hundred-dollar bills. State troopers found nine more bogus hundreds at the home, and they say Bruner had prescription pills in her possession which had not been prescribed to her.
Bruner was arraigned before District Judge Christopher Welch and taken to the Indiana County Jail, where she’s being held on $10,000 bond. She is charged with twenty felony offenses: 11 for forgery and three each for theft, theft by deception, and receiving stolen property. She is charged with misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The counterfeit bills are hundreds, each of them with the serial number LCQ0322158. They each have pink foreign language characters on the front and back of the bill. Anyone finding one of these bills is asked to contact state police.
Bruner is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on November 5th.
