Steve Patterson and Frank Main, The Chicago Sun-Times
Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
A Chicago Police officer is charged with passing counterfeit cash at a Northwest Indiana currency exchange after visiting a gambling boat.
Officer Larry Hood was arrested after he allegedly exchanged $500 in fake $100 bills for a money order and a roll of quarters on May 24 in East Chicago.
The bills looked like authentic $100s with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the front of each, police said.
But when a cashier held them to the light, they bore the watermark of a $5 bill -- a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A security strip on each bill read “USA five.”
Increasingly, Secret Service agents in Chicago are seeing counterfeit $100s manufactured with bleached $5 bills, the Sun-Times recently reported.
REASSIGNED TO 311 CENTER
Hood is facing felony charges of forgery, counterfeiting and attempted theft in Indiana.
He has been stripped of his police powers with the Chicago Police Department and assigned to the city’s 311 call-taking center pending the criminal investigation, department spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
The 39-year-old Calumet District officer has been on the force since 1994, Bond said.
Hood could not be reached for comment.
He told police he visited Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Ind., with a friend, played craps and lost around $500, according to an affidavit by East Chicago police Detective Juan Beltran.
BOUGHT IN, CASHED OUT
Hood said he and the friend then went to Resorts Casino in East Chicago, the affidavit said. He said he “bought in” to a game of craps for around $500 in cash. Hood said he played a few games, then cashed out for about the same amount.
Hood said he and the friend -- and a third man he doesn’t know -- drove to the PLS Loan Store about a mile away to get a money order for $445 and quarters, according to the affidavit.
In a later interview, Hood said the money order was to help pay for $320 of insurance for an acquaintance who was “strapped” for cash.
An East Chicago police officer and a Secret Service agent visited Resorts Casino and found that five phony $100 bills had been submitted by someone there and the bills had the same serial numbers as those recovered at the currency exchange.
Police said they found $1,001 in legitimate cash in Hood’s wallet.