$49,000 in Bogus Bills Prompts Investigation

A 24-year-old Cypress College employee is being investigated for suspected counterfeiting after $49,000 in phony $20 bills were found in a campus print shop and at his home, authorities said Tuesday.

Stephen Scott Sebastian, who for more than two years has run the print shop where faculty handouts and tests are reproduced, was arrested there Friday on suspicion of manufacturing and possession of counterfeit currency, violations of federal law.

U.S. Secret Service agents seized the fake greenbacks from the print shop and Sebastian’s home Friday after two janitors reported finding some in trimmed form and in trash cans in the print shop the night before, Cypress police said.

“There’s no doubt (somebody) printed up a lot of money; as to just what his motive and intent were, that’s a big question mark,” Cypress Police Lt. Bob Bandurraga said Tuesday. “How sloppy it was--you know your janitor crew’s going to come in and clean up, so leaving trimmings in a trash can seems not too smart--left you thinking it couldn’t really be a serious counterfeiting operation,” Bandurraga said.

Federal agents said they believe that none of the phony bills had been passed. The college’s public relations director said she thinks that the whole case is a mix-up that has been “blown out of proportion” and that “Steve just got carried away.”

Sebastian declined comment Tuesday.

“I’m on my way to see a lawyer,” he said from the doorway of his Garden Grove home.

Sebastian was released on his own recognizance the same day he was arrested, pending the outcome of an investigation, said Irwin Michael Cohen, assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles Secret Service office.

A total of 2,450 bills were confiscated--$28,000 worth from the print shop, said Cohen, who also is supervisor of the Secret Service counterfeit squad in Southern California. He said results of the investigation will be delivered this week to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles for a decision on whether to seek a federal grand jury indictment.

Cohen would provide only sketchy details of the case because no charges have been filed, but Bandurraga filled in some of the blanks.

Bandurraga said janitors cleaning the print shop Thursday night called Cypress police and said they had found part of a counterfeit $20 bill in a trash can. Friday morning, Cypress police detectives notified the U.S. Treasury Department, and officers from both agencies went to the 13,000-student campus.

Bandurraga said the officers found that someone “had run these sheets of paper through the printing press, both sides, and they hadn’t been cut yet. And they weren’t hidden under a lot of . . . or hidden away. But they weren’t open to public view. They were in stacks between other stacks of paper.

“About this time, Stephen Scott Sebastian came in, and he’s our prime suspect, and he was taken into custody.”

‘Blown Out of Proportion’

Gail Taylor, Cypress College public relations director, said: “Steve had been fooling around with the color on one of our new presses. We hadn’t had color before. I have a feeling Steve just got carried away.”

Did she mean printing fake money for fun to test the new equipment, and someone misunderstood the joke?

“That’s exactly what we think--what I think,” she said. “It’s been blown out of proportion. He was real proud of what he could do with that press, and he had been showing things off to everybody. There are two people on campus that he showed it to. I think most of us know it’s illegal to reproduce money. I don’t think you leave them in the campus trash can if you’re trying to keep a big secret. He just did it on Xerox paper. That doesn’t look real, does it?”

“Does $49,000 sound like ignorance or a mix-up or fun? It’s not Xeroxed,” Cohen said. “We don’t just go out and arrest just anyone for counterfeiting.”

Elma Clamp, vice president in charge of administrative services at the college, said, “As you can understand, it’s a sensitive situation, and I don’t want to venture a personal opinion on what it all means.

“Our personnel office is currently investigating the charges, and at this time he is suspended with pay.”