ROCK HILL, S.C.,None — It was just a plain white trash bag. However, the Rock Hill Compost Center is not a dump, and that bag made city workers there suspicious when they spotted it last month.
The contents of the bag ended up helping police crack a large counterfeiting ring.
The city worker who found it didn't want to be interviewed on-camera, but told Eyewitness News he opened the bag and saw ten, twenty and hundred dollar bills. He said he quickly realized they were fakes and called police.
In the days before the bag was discovered, Rock Hill police were already working two counterfeit cases and looking for a connection.
The trash bag was the clue they needed.
The owner of Bar 2 on East Main Street told police about a woman who had used two counterfeit twenty dollar bills there.
He knew her as Shannon Phillips. At the same time, police looked at surveillance video from the McDonald's on East Main. Investigators said it shows Phillips trying to use a phony twenty there as well.
Once the trash bag was discovered, the Secret Service found fingerprints on the phony bills that led police to 27-year-old Chris Taybron.
Detective Keith Dugan said Taybron admitted making $5,000 in counterfeit money to sell in Rock Hill. One of the buyers, police said, was Phillips.
"Some of it was passed at area businesses and some traded for drugs," Dugan said.
Police said Taybron sold $100 of counterfeit money for $40 of real money.
Officers said 20-year-old Mercedes Rawlinson also sold his counterfeits, and instructed her buyers about how, where and when to use it without getting caught.
"Things like avoiding certain stores where they knew what counterfeits look like. You don't want to use it in the day time, but use it at night, in bars where it's dark," Dugan said.
In addition to Taybron, Phillips and Rawlinson, Logan Wilson, Jennifer Coursey, Joshua Mayton, Jennifer Freeman and Janet Ferrell are charged with forgery and uttering. All of them could face five years in prison.
Police said most of them have known each other for years.
Dugan said any business employee or clerk paying attention would quickly see the bills were fakes, because they were poorly printed and cut from standard printer paper. Many of the bills had the same serial number on them.
"The paper's really shoddy," he said. "It's very rare that we see a counterfeit come through town that's done properly."
Dugan said police still expect to make more arrests.
Police said after his arrest, Taybron said he tried to get rid of the bills by discarding them at the Rock Hill Compost Center because things were getting out of control. He told police the people he sold them to were spending them in too many places and not being careful enough, so he worried about getting caught.
WSOC
