Police are calling it the “lowest of the low:” A man gave a fake $50 bill to a southeastern Michigan girl who was running a lemonade stand to raise money for Alzheimer’s disease research.
The Monroe News says the man on a bike didn’t buy anything last Sunday in Monroe. He presented a note that said he was deaf and wanted to break the $50 bill into smaller bills.
Maya Leachman says she was a “little mad” over the incident. She and her mother didn’t look closely at the phony bill until they counted donations later that day.
Police Cpl. Terese Herrick says, “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get him.”
Maya, a fourth-grader, raised slightly more than $1,100 after accounting for the $50 loss.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Hopefully they will find the thief. Counterfeiters aren’t stealing from the government. They are stealing from the person left holding the worthless money. This man probably didn’t catch the fake bill when somebody passed it to him. Rather than take the loss he decided to pass the loss on to someone else.
Yes Justin, the dude knew the bill was fake and chanced the kid wouldn’t recognize the fake bill and took advantage of the girl’s sympathy for his “plight” as a so-called deaf mute. He knew he couldn’t pass it on to anyone else because he probably tried to and failed.
I’m willing to bet that Maya has learned more from running this lemonade stand than what she learned in school this year. And the bad experience with this phoney $50 will add to this experience. I applaud Maya’s mother for allowing her to operate this lemonade stand, and to learn from the experience.