Counterfeiting nets prison sentence

COEUR d’ALENE — A Hope man who pleaded guilty to counterfeiting U.S. currency was sentenced Monday to 12 months and one day in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson.

Keith Daniel Snyder will also have to serve three months of home confinement followed by three years of supervised release. Snyder was also ordered to pay $1,150 in restitution to victims in the counterfeit scheme.

A federal grand jury indicted Snyder in January of using a computer equipment to re-purpose $1 notes into $50 bills in late 2015 and early 2016.

Snyder, 51, was initially charged in Idaho’s 1st District Court with forgery, although the prosecution subsequently gave way to federal proceedings. Snyder was arrested at a mobile home park in Clark Fork following an investigation by the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Secret Service.

Authorities did not disclosed what led them to Snyder.

A search of the residence Snyder was located in turned up jars of bills being soaked in solvent, more than a hundred legitimate $1 bills and a scanner/printer with a legitimate $50 note, according to documents filed in state court.

Federal court records indicate Snyder had a nonexistent criminal background until becoming addicted to methamphetamine.

Snyder was serving a 60-day sentence for possession of drug paraphernalia when a fellow inmate told him how to convert $1 notes in to $50 ones, according to a sentencing memorandum in the case.

The memo emphasized that Snyder had achieved nine months of sobriety and built a business selling chainsaw parts online.

“This was no accident: He intended to prove to the court that a harsh sentence was unnecessary,” federal Public Defender Colin Prince said in the memo.

Prince recommended 10 months of home confinement, but federal prosecutors disagreed.

“A sentence of home confinement is not just punishment and will not act to deter others who would consider this crime,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Mitchell said in the government’s recommendation, which sought 18 months of incarceration.

The sentencing guideline for counterfeiting is 18-24 months, U.S. District Court records show.

Judge Edward Lodge imposed the year-and-a-day sentence in Coeur d’Alene.

“This conviction is the culmination of a collaborative effort by the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, Ponderay Police Department, U.S. Attorney’s Office and U.S. Secret Service,” said Greg Ligouri, the resident agent for the Spokane office of the Secret Service. “The secret service truly believes in the partnership approach to policing. By working together, law enforcement has a greater impact on our communities and in stopping those who prey on them.”

The bills Snyder introduced into circulation were not revealed as fakes with iodine-based counterfeit detection ink pens because the paper they were printed on was genuine.

However, authorities said the doctored notes don’t hold up to close scrutiny because the alteration process stripped them of their security thread, a clear polyester strand woven vertically into the bills.