Chatsworth : 2nd Man Sentenced for Counterfeiting

A Chatsworth man who manufactured phony cash at a Ventura print shop started a one-year jail sentence while his Thousand Oaks counterfeiting partner was sentenced to eight months in jail Friday.

James F. Hanson, 31, of Chatsworth, had teamed up with co-worker Jeffrey David Sevier, 28, of Thousand Oaks, to make counterfeit money at the print shop where they worked, said Mark Aveis of the Ventura County district attorney’s Major Fraud Unit.

Sevier had pleaded guilty to 17 counts of counterfeiting, drug possession, burglary and grand theft.

Hanson, who had pleaded guilty to three charges, was sentenced Aug. 10 to one year in Ventura County Jail, the maximum possible term under a plea agreement that promised he would not be sent to prison for his crime.

Sevier was spared the maximum sentence because “he is married, he has a child, he is working, he has ties to the community and he has no prior criminal record,” Aveis said.

Without the plea agreements, Sevier could have been sent to prison for eight years and Hanson for five years.

The investigation began earlier this year when about $80,000 in bogus bills were found in a Ventura recycling bin and in a Malibu creek, Aveis said. Federal investigators linked the fake currency to a Ventura print shop.

In April, Sevier had been stopped for a traffic violation and Ventura police found $322,000 counterfeit bills in his car. Authorities linked the men to the phony money found in the recycling bin and creek.