Suspect Held After Phony $1 Bills Fool Machine

A 20-year-old San Fernando man was arrested early Thursday after he used 42 one-sided photocopies of a dollar bill to steal $42 in quarters from a change machine at a Granada Hills self-service laundry, city attorney’s officials said.

Patrick Doyle Patton was taken into custody by Los Angeles police shortly after midnight after a witness allegedly saw him repeatedly insert the photocopies into the change machine at Rosen’s Coin Laundry, 16143 Devonshire St., said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office.

Patton was charged with one misdemeanor count of circulating counterfeit money.

The Secret Service, which investigates counterfeiting cases, declined comment on the case. But Goldstein said similar forms of counterfeiting are “a very popular crime” in Los Angeles as photocopying machines become more sophisticated.

Older Coin Machines

“The duplicating machines are far more sophisticated than the older coin machines you would find in Laundromats,” Goldstein said. “The older coin machines can no longer distinguish between the real thing and counterfeit.”

Patton was taken to Devonshire Division Jail, then transferred to Parker Center Jail, where he was being held Thursday afternoon in lieu of $500 bail, Goldstein said.

Goldstein credited Patton’s arrest to an alert customer who was doing his wash in the laundry and reportedly watched as Patton fed the photocopied dollar bills into the change machine.

When Patton left the laundry in a 1984 Pontiac, the witness followed him for several blocks, then flagged down a police car.

Arrested While Buying Gas

Patton was arrested as he was putting gas into his car at a nearby service station, Goldstein said.

Police found $37 in quarters and $52 in photocopied bills in the car’s center console. The laundry’s owner later found 42 photocopies inside the change machine and turned it over to police as evidence, according to Goldstein.

Goldstein said the Secret Service requested only a misdemeanor filing because it was Patton’s first criminal arrest.