The charges were filed by the state's Attorney General Office and Police Bureau of Gaming Enforcement

Pennsylvania: four people accused of using 150 fake bills at five casinos

The charges were filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, led by Josh Shapiro.
2020-12-22
Reading time 1:44 min
The four each face charges of forgery, theft by deception, possessing instruments of crime and conspiracy in Bucks County Court. They allegedly passed a total of 150 fake bills in the spring of 2019 at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem (now Wind Creek Bethlehem), Parx, SugarHouse (now Rivers Casino Philadelphia), Valley Forge Resort and Harrah’s casinos.

A group from Philadelphia is accused of using thousands of dollars in counterfeit money last year at five Pennsylvania casinos.

Kiara Kristin Purnell, Mahagany White, Nieem Johnson and Marcus Davis allegedly passed a total of 150 fake bills in the spring of 2019 at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem (now Wind Creek Bethlehem), Parx, SugarHouse (now Rivers Casino Philadelphia), Valley Forge Resort and Harrah’s casinos, as reported by lehighvalleylive.com.

Three have been arrested, and authorities are still looking for Purnell. The four each face charges of forgery, theft by deception, possessing instruments of crime and conspiracy in Bucks County Court. The charges were filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Gaming Enforcement.

Surveillance video showed the four using the counterfeit money at various gaming tables, investigators said, but authorities also discovered the printing setup in a Philadelphia hotel room, where evidence showed $1 bills were bleached then printed to look like $100. The bills all had the same serial number, authorities said.

Authorities said they first learned about the fake money in early April 2019, when a man and woman used fake $100 bills with the same serial number over a weekend at the Parx, SugarHouse and Harrah’s casinos. Surveillance video showed Purnell and White first using the fake bills at blackjack tables at SugarHouse, and that they arrived and left the casino together in a Pontiac Aztec with a “dead” license plate number, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Video also showed Johnson using the fake bills around the same time at Parx, Harrah’s and Valley Forge, and using the same car as Purnell and White, state police said. Later in April, Johnson and Davis allegedly used the fake bills at the Sands, which was purchased in May 2019 by Wind Creek Hospitality.

On April 20, 2019, Johnson, White and Purnell traveled to Atlantic City’s Hard Rock Casino, investigators said. Johnson tried to use the counterfeit $100 bills to cash in at a blackjack table, court papers say. A dealer became suspicious and called for a supervisor, who called security, authorities said. Johnson gave security his ID, but tried to grab it before fleeing the casino, the documents allege. New Jersey State Police said they reviewed security footage, and saw White and Purnell play “minimally” at the Hard Rock gaming tables and then cash out.

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