Third person charged in Boyceville forgery/counterfeiting case

By Cara L. Dempski

MENOMONIE — An Arizona man was arrested in Trempealeau County last month in connection with counterfeit United States currency being produced in Boyceville and passed in three local communities.

Juan Antonio Campos, age 33 of Chandler, Arizona, was arrested by the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office at a home in Independence in late December on suspicion of forgery-uttering. 

He was seen in an initial appearance in front of Judge James Peterson on January 3, and a preliminary hearing was held on January 5. Campos remains in the Dunn County Jail on a $10,000 cash bond.

Boyceville Police Chief Greg Lamkin interviewed Campos in Dunn County Jail on December 28 after receiving notification that Campos was in police custody.

Campos is tied to an August 2016 counterfeiting and forgery case involving two Boyceville residents, Lori Klund and Zachary Morgan. Lamkin reported he was contacted on August 2 by an employee of People’s State Bank regarding a counterfeit bill. Staff at the bank informed him a counterfeit $20 bill was discovered while processing the bank deposit bag from Subway for July 29, 2016.

A criminal complaint filed by the Dunn County DA’s office states Lamkin examined the bill and noted it had the same deficiencies as were noted on the bills passed at the end of July and beginning of August at the Cenex store and Buckshot’s Bar. Lamkin made contact with the Subway staff member who accepted the counterfeit bill on July 29, and was able to get a description of the person who paid using the bill.

The Subway employee described the suspect as a good-looking, tall, dark-haired white male. The store manager informed Lamkin she would contact the corporate office to obtain a video of the transaction. Lamkin was able to identify the suspect, who was later discovered to be a teenage male from Bloomington, Minnesota, from the surveillance video.

The video offered a clear view of the teenage suspect driving a light-colored sedan with Minnesota license plates; he had one adult male in the passenger seat. Lamkin said the video showed the duo loitering around the Cenex station parking lot for over an hour before the adult passenger left the site and the teenage male went into Subway.

Lamkin was able to connect with the teenage male after running the vehicle’s license plates and speaking with the person to whom the car is registered. The vehicle owner identified the teenage male seen in the video as his son. Lamkin then spoke with the teenage male, who identified Campos.

The teenage driver said Campos had contacted him via the Internet to give him a ride to Boyceville from the Bloomington, Minnesota, Walmart store for payment. The price Campos and the teenage male agreed on was $120 for the trip.

Campos is alleged to have told the driver that he only had $100 cash on him, but he would be able to get another $20 from the friends he was meeting in Boyceville, Cheryl Riebe and Woodrow Piaskoski. Lamkin said during the preliminary hearing that Campos also reportedly informed the teenage driver that the money Riebe and Piaskoski had was likely fake.

The criminal complaint indicates Campos admitted to passing counterfeit money, and that Morgan, Klund and Riebe were involved in making the money with him. Lamkin later said Campos purchased the printer used to make the currency at Walmart to impress Riebe, and it was a printer Morgan and Piaskoski had picked out.

Campos further admitted a laptop was used to make the bills, and gel pens were used to color the metallic pieces of the bill to make them look authentic. The counterfeit bills were given a thin coat of nail polish to make their texture seem more “real.”

Defense attorney Richard Yonko argued there was no connection between Campos’ admission and the Morgan and Klund cases. He also stated there was nothing in the video to indicate money changing hands from Campos to the teenage male, so it could not be proven Campos had passed the bills.

Judge Peterson stated the proof provided in the preliminary hearing did not meet the legal burden of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt, but there was sufficient evidence to bind Campos over for trial.

Yonko requested a discussion on bond, and Peterson denied discussion at the January 5, hearing due to concerns over Campos’ travels and flight risk. An arraignment is scheduled for January 26, 2017 at 1:15 p.m. 

In addition to the bills discovered in Boyceville, one bill was discovered at a Glenwood City grocery store, and more were discovered in the admission money to the Dunn County Fair, held in Menomonie.

Forgery-uttering is a class H felony in Wisconsin. If convicted, Campos faces up to six years imprisonment, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.