Crime & Safety

N.Y. Man Passed Fake $50 Bills at Sands, Police Say

Counterfeit bill was spotted by alert food court employee, police say.

By Jack Tobias

A New York man was arrested after he tried to use a counterfeit $50 bill to buy a soda at the Sands Bethlehem Casino Resort food court early Saturday morning, police said. 

Hector R. Padin, 36, of Troy, N.Y., which is near the state capital of Albany, tried to pass the fake $50 to buy a Sierra Mist at the Market Gourmet Express, police said.

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But the alert cashier “immediately realized” the bill was fake “due to its texture,” the market employee told police, according to court records.

Padin admitted to one officer that he tried to pass the counterfeit bill. And he told another officer—Lawrence Meo III—that he “was suspicious that the bill may have been fake and that he tried to use it at the market anyway.”

He also admitted that the counterfeit bill was “not working on the machines.”

A criminal complaint filed by Meo also says Padin apparently passed another counterfeit $50 bill at Market Gourmet sometime before the incident with the soda.

Police found Padin and another man in a fifth-floor room at the casino-hotel. The room was registered under the name of a third man.

The man who was with Padin gave police permission to search his wallet, where they found a counterfeit $100 bill. Nothing in Padin’s file says anything about police charging the other man. The file does note, however, that Padin is currently on probation from a 2005 drug case.

Padin was charged with forgery—a level-two felony—as well as theft by unlawful taking. He was arraigned later Saturday morning by on duty District Judge Todd Strohe of Bangor and committed to county prison in lieu of $15,000 bail.

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