By Cathy Locke
clocke@sacbee.com
A Lodi man has been sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for producing and attempting to pass counterfeit money.
U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb Jr. today also sentenced Clinton Earl Irons, 33, to a 36-month term of supervised release, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release. Irons pleaded guilty Feb. 8 to attempted passing and uttering a counterfeit United States obligation and possession of a counterfeit United States obligation.
According to court documents, between January 2006 and July 2008, Irons, along with co-defendants Tami Kishi Deanda, Holly Armada Haworth, Shelie Radotic and others made and passed counterfeit $100 bills throughout the Central Valley.
To manufacture the bills, Irons and others used a degreaser along with other tools to "wash" the ink off crisp $5 bills. Irons then used a laser printer to print images of $100 bills onto the washed $5 bills. The counterfeit bills looked authentic except for various security features that remained on the washed bills, including the $5 embedded strip and the watermark of Abraham Lincoln, the news release said.
Irons possessed computer hardware and software that allowed him to manipulate digital images of United States currency to produce realistic looking counterfeit $100 bills. Irons sold and gave these digital images to others so that they could counterfeit their own currency.
Between January 2006 and July 2008, Irons counterfeited a series of bills with serial numbers that were passed throughout the Central Valley. Since the first counterfeit bills in this case appeared, more the $277,000 in counterfeit currency has been recovered, the news release says. Some was in Mexico and Iraq.
The bills recovered in Iraq were passed by Joseph Deanda, who acquired them from Tami Kishi Deanda.
Joseph Deanda pleaded guilty on April 27, 2009, to passing counterfeit currency and was later sentenced to 18 months imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release.
Tami Kishi Deanda pleaded guilty Nov. 9, 2009, also to possessing counterfeit currency, and is to be sentenced on June 28.
Co-defendant Holly Haworth pleaded guilty on June 1, 2009, to passing counterfeit currency and was later sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and three years of supervised release.
Call The Bee's Cathy Locke, (916) 321-5287.
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