Man sentenced for counterfeiting $50 bills
A 27-year-old Kalispell man was recently sentenced on a charge of using counterfeit $50 bills in Columbia Falls in 2009.
Flathead County District Court Judge Ted Lympus sentenced Max Stout on Jan. 22 to five years with the Montana Department of Corrections, all suspended and concurrent to other charges Stout faces in California.
Stout had faced up to 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine and restitution if convicted of a single count of felony forgery. The case was investigated by a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service.
According to court records, police learned about counterfeit money being used at Ferk’s Casino and Town Pump in Columbia Falls in September 2009. Ink on one dollar bills had been removed with Easy-Off oven cleaner, and then $50 bill markings were printed on the paper. The perpetrators were recorded on surveillance video.
Sonya Pitkin was identified as the person using the counterfeit bills. Waiting for her in the getaway vehicle, a Cadillac, were Stout, Amanda Wyatt, Joshua Robson and Curtis Chapman. A fifth person, Adam Canen, later was identified by the others as the man who taught them how to make the counterfeit bills.
In addition to counterfeiting charges, Wyatt and Pitkin also faced charges linked to prostitution at a Whitefish motel and forging blank checks stolen from their Trego customer. Both pleaded guilty and were given deferred sentences, but the county attorney’s office later petitioned to revoke Wyatt’s sentence.
Stout signed a plea agreement in April 2013 but was unable to attend his sentencing hearing in September because he was in an Idaho correctional facility. He apologized to Lympus in a letter.
In the plea deal, the state agreed not to seek a designation for Stout as a persistent felony offender and agreed to his request that the Montana sentence be concurrent with any California sentences so he could move his life in a “positive direction,†as he wrote Lympus.
]]>A 27-year-old Kalispell man was recently sentenced on a charge of using counterfeit $50 bills in Columbia Falls in 2009.
Flathead County District Court Judge Ted Lympus sentenced Max Stout on Jan. 22 to five years with the Montana Department of Corrections, all suspended and concurrent to other charges Stout faces in California.
Stout had faced up to 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine and restitution if convicted of a single count of felony forgery. The case was investigated by a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service.
According to court records, police learned about counterfeit money being used at Ferk’s Casino and Town Pump in Columbia Falls in September 2009. Ink on one dollar bills had been removed with Easy-Off oven cleaner, and then $50 bill markings were printed on the paper. The perpetrators were recorded on surveillance video.
Sonya Pitkin was identified as the person using the counterfeit bills. Waiting for her in the getaway vehicle, a Cadillac, were Stout, Amanda Wyatt, Joshua Robson and Curtis Chapman. A fifth person, Adam Canen, later was identified by the others as the man who taught them how to make the counterfeit bills.
In addition to counterfeiting charges, Wyatt and Pitkin also faced charges linked to prostitution at a Whitefish motel and forging blank checks stolen from their Trego customer. Both pleaded guilty and were given deferred sentences, but the county attorney’s office later petitioned to revoke Wyatt’s sentence.
Stout signed a plea agreement in April 2013 but was unable to attend his sentencing hearing in September because he was in an Idaho correctional facility. He apologized to Lympus in a letter.
In the plea deal, the state agreed not to seek a designation for Stout as a persistent felony offender and agreed to his request that the Montana sentence be concurrent with any California sentences so he could move his life in a “positive direction,” as he wrote Lympus.