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Police Capt. Richard Conklin and Officer Steve Lopez, while working extra duty at the Stamford Town Center Mall, were contacted by an employee of Zumiez, who had just made a sale and received a $100 bill in the transaction just after 8 p.m. Friday, police said.
The bill was tested by a security pen and appeared to be legitimate. However, the employee still had a question about it. The officers examined the bill and determined it to be fake, police said. A description was gathered of the two black females who had used the bill, police said.
Soon after, an employee of the Godiva chocolate store called police to say two black females had attempted to use a $100 that the store didn't accept. Officers got a description of the suspects and located one of the women near the Mac store, police said. She was detained at the scene, police said.
Officers discovered four counterfeit $100 bills in her possession, police said. She had passed counterfeit $100 bills at Zumiez and Lids, police said, and those bills were recovered by officers.
The woman gave police several different names and addresses, said police, and also claimed to be 16 years old.
However, after she was fingerprinted at police headquarters, officers learned her name was Faith Sellers, 18, of 1250 Redfern Ave., Far Rockaway, N.Y. Officers discovered she has a criminal history that includes robbery and criminal use of stolen credit cards in New York and New Jersey, police said.
She was charged with six counts of first-degree forgery and one count each of larceny and criminal attempt at larceny.
Bond was set at $200,000, and she was held in custody to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford on Tuesday. The second suspect has not been located, police said.
The counterfeit bills appear to be $1 bills that were chemically washed and then imprinted with $100 bill information made in the 1990s, police said. This process makes it difficult to determine whether the bills are counterfeit because the paper is U.S. treasury paper and the 1990s $100 bills do not have the updated security features that later bills have, police said.
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