He once called 88 times in a two-hour period. He repeatedly drove past her house in his black BMW. He sent rambling emails and countless text messages.FORT WAYNE – A couple of bar stools, some yard tools and a lamp – paid for at a yard sale with counterfeit money – have led to federal felony charges for a Fort Wayne woman.
Initially charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Wayne, Kwanya Hollopeter, 36, was indicted last week on two counts – making counterfeit money and possessing counterfeit money.
According to the complaint, Hollopeter and her husband were at a garage sale in Shipshewana in late June. The couple bought about $100 worth of merchandise using counterfeit money.
They then went to a business where she tried to use a counterfeit $20, but when the clerk questioned the currency, Hollopeter ran out of the store.
The LaGrange County Sheriff’s Department was called, and the couple were stopped by police.
Inside the car, police found a plastic bag containing $1,100 in counterfeit bills inside a door panel on the passenger side of the car. Additional bills were found in the sun visor and a notebook, according to court documents.
When questioned at the LaGrange County Jail, Hollopeter admitted to what she did.
“I know that karma was going to get me,” she said, according to court documents. “I shouldn’t have given those people at the yard sale the funny money.”
She told investigators her husband was not aware of what she had been doing, admitting to making counterfeit money June 22.
Police and a U.S. Secret Service agent talked to her husband, who said he had seen her making the money in the basement of their home on Dodge Avenue in Fort Wayne.
When investigators searched the house, they found two printers in the basement, along with 75 sheets of paper with counterfeit money printed on them, invoices for white and ivory paper, computer photo-enhancing software and blank paper, according to court documents.
If convicted of the charges, Hollopeter could face up to 40 years in prison.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Roger B. Cosbey ordered Hollopeter detained in the Allen County Jail until trial.
Her husband was not charged in the case.
