Men charged with passing counterfeit bills in county

Two Chicago men have been charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with passing counterfeit $50 and $20 bills at seven restaurants and stores in Saukville, Grafton and Port Washington last week before a gas station clerk caught on to the scam.

Christopher Pierce, 33, faces five felony counts of forgery. Dravone A. Page, 30, is charged with four counts of forgery.

According to a criminal complaint, at about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, an employee of the McDonald’s restaurant in Saukville told police officer Christopher Janich that she found a fake $50 bill in a cash drawer after a clerk at the adjoining Beck’s gas station told her two men had entered the store and one of them attempted to pay for items with a counterfeit $50 bill. The McDonald’s employee said that after being warned, she used a marker that detects counterfeit money and found a fake bill in the cash drawer.

Surveillance video from Beck’s showed the two men who entered the store as well as their car — a BMW sedan registered in Illinois to Page, the complaint states.

A countywide alert for the car was issued and, checking data from Flock automatic license plate reader cameras, Port Washington police Lt. Jerry Nye determined the BMW entered the city at 3:19 p.m. that day.

Nye later spotted the car leaving the parking lot shared by Piggly Wiggly, Dollar Tree and a Subway restaurant at the corner of Wisconsin Street and Highway LL on Port’s north side and, with the help of Janich and an Ozaukee County sheriff’s deputy, pulled the car over shortly after it got onto I-43.

Pierce, who was driving the BMW, and Page,  a passenger in the car, were the men seen in the video from Beck’s gas station, the complaint states.

When questioned by Janich, Page denied being at any Saukville businesses. He later said he was at one business where he flirted with an employee but denied knowing anything about counterfeit money, according to the complaint.

Pierce told officers that he and Page were driving from Green Bay when they stopped in Saukville, where he purchased a drink from Beck’s and Page bought food at McDonald’s. Pierce said that after the clerk refused to accept the $50 bill he gave him, he threw it away and gave him another bill, which the clerk accepted, the complaint states.

Page was searched and a large amount of cash was found in his pocket.

He and Pierce were arrested and taken to the Ozaukee County jail, where officers found six counterfeit $50 bills and two fake $20 bills in Pierce’s groin area, according to the complaint.

Officers also searched the BMW and found food and items from area restaurants and stores, which they then contacted.

An officer confirmed that a counterfeit $50 bill was used at a Subway restaurant and a fake $20 bill was used at Taco Bell, both in Saukville. Surveillance video showed the bills were passed by Pierce and Page, the complaint states.

Page and Pierce are Black, and when an officer asked an employee of the Dollar Tree store in Port Washington if any Black men had made purchases using cash that day, the employee said a Black man had used a $20 bill to make an $11.08 purchase after first providing a $50 bill that was rejected. The employee gave the $20 bill to the officer, who noticed it was missing a watermark of Andrew Jackson and did not feel like a legitimate bill, according to the complaint.

In Grafton, an officer was told by an employee of the Dollar Tree store there that she accepted a $50 bill at about 2 p.m. that day even though it felt different than real money, adding she didn’t have time to confirm it was counterfeit until after the sale. Surveillance images from the store showed Pierce handing a bill to the employee, the complaint states.

Officers also checked with the T.J. Maxx store in Grafton and were told that a fake $50 bill was found in a register, but when an officer followed up on the report, an employee told him that per upper management and the store’s loss prevention department, the store would not turn the bill over to authorities and did not want to be a complainant in the investigation, according to the complaint.

Two counterfeit $50 bills were also found at PetSmart in Grafton, but a manager said the store would not turn the bills over to authorities until a bank confirmed they were fake, the complaint states.

During an Aug. 28 court hearing, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Sandy Williams set bail for Page and Pierce at $15,000 each. A prosecutor had recommended $100,000 each.

Forgery is punishable by a maximum three years in prison and three years of extended supervision.