Counterfeit $100 No Lucky Break for North Providence Woman

WARWICK, RI — A North Providence woman who attempted to spend a fake $100 bill while Officer David Waddington waited behind her at the 3335 Post Road Cumberland Farms Sept. 24 at 11:44 p.m. told him she thought it was her lucky day.

The circumstances were not so fortunate, resulting in Waddington arresting her on a felony charge of passing counterfeit bills.

The woman’s luck turned against her as she attempted to use the bill to pay for items in line at the convenience store. According to Waddington’s report, he witnessed the attempted transaction as he waited in line behind the woman before starting his patrol.

As he waited, he reported, he saw the clerk pause to hold the bill up to the light. The woman, later identified as Jane Hall, 61, of 20 McQuire Road, Apt. 222, North Providence, asked the clerk, “What’s the problem? I just got that today.” The clerk told the woman that the bill didn’t look real.

“It’s not fake, I don’t do that,” Hall replied, according to the officer’s report. The clerk called over another employee to have a look at the bill, and Waddington himself offered to take a look, according to the report.

Waddington reported the bill was clearly counterfeit. The paper was not the right density and was washed out. It lacked a watermark and a did not have a security thread, and lacked other anti-counterfeiting security features, Waddington reported.

When the officer asked where she had gotten the bill, Hall said she had found it on the side of a Cumberland Farms store in North Providence. When Waddington asked if the bill had been passed to her from someone else, the woman insisted that she had found it on the ground against the curb at the North Providence Cumberland Farms and thought it was her lucky day.

When Waddington asked her if she had noticed anything weird about the bill, Hall said she had not.

Waddington called WPD Sgt. Matthew Higgins to the scene. Higgins asked the clerk. for a counterfeit marker, which revealed the bill as a fake.

Waddington asked again about where Hall had received the bill, but she repeated that she had found it. Waddington arrested her on a felony charge of passing counterfeit bills, and also arrested the woman’s friend, who was wanted on a Superior Court bench warrant.

Waddington transported both women to Warwick Police Headquarters, 99 Veterans Memorial Drive, where Hall was formally charged with passing counterfeit bills and secured in a cell for arraignment in the morning.

Her friend was transferred to the Adult Correctional Institutions to be held on the warrant.

Waddington contacted the U.S. Secret Service to apprise them of the crime.