Three teenagers were arrested Oct. 29 after passing counterfeit currency at businesses in John’s Pass and planning to travel out of state with nearly $20,000 in fake bills, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n
Detectives began investigating Oct. 24 after business owners in John’s Pass reported two people were using counterfeit money, deputies said.<\/p>\n
James Perry and Benjamin Warshowsky, both 18, walked into the Spice & Tea Exchange at 110 129th Ave. E. in Madeira Beach and asked an employee to break four $20 bills, according to deputies. The owner later discovered the bills were fake, deputies said. Several nearby businesses also reported fraudulent bills.<\/p>\n
Detectives learned that Myles Dorris, 19, was also involved, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Detectives said the three altered the bills and planned to leave in a rental car to pass them in Georgia and Tennessee.<\/p>\n
When detectives tried to make contact, Warshowsky fled on an electric bike and Dorris ran away on foot, deputies said. Both were caught shortly after.<\/p>\n
All three were arrested and taken to the Pinellas County Jail, deputies said. Detectives found almost $20,000 in counterfeit currency during the arrests, according to the Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n
Perry, of Largo, faces one count of possession of counterfeit currency and two counts of uttering forged bills, deputies said.<\/p>\n
Warshowsky, who is listed as transient, was charged with one count of possession of counterfeit currency and two counts of uttering forged bills, according to deputies.<\/p>\n
Dorris, of Seminole, faces one count of possession of counterfeit currency, deputies said.<\/p>\n
Businesses that believe they received counterfeit currency can contact Detective Bereznay at 727-582-6015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three teenagers were arrested Oct. 29 after passing counterfeit currency at businesses in John’s Pass and planning to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[11181,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-33332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-john","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}