Prison term for BEP bills thief
A former Bureau of Engraving and Printing employee was sentenced in a federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, to 41 months in prison for transporting stolen sheets of money marked for destruction.
Authorities believe Donald Edward Stokes Jr., age 40, may have taken more than $700,000 in potential face value from the BEP’s Fort Worth paper money production facility, where his job was to verify bills with imperfections on their way to be destroyed.
Only $80,000 was found in Stokes’ car when he was arrested in April after a high-speed chase and he said most of it was won during gambling sprees. It was determined that $29,900 was from the Fort Worth plant.
Because the sheets of notes were not issued by the Federal Reserve, they were not legal tender. The court had to decide how to value the material stolen, and U.S. District Court Judge Terry Means assessed a value of $128,240.
