ROANE MEN SENTENCED FOR COUNTERFEITING SCHEME

(05/27/2011)

Two Roane County men have been sentenced for conspiring to pass counterfeit money. U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin says 32-year-old Roger L. Atkinson II, now of Ripley, received an eight-month sentence in federal court. Thirty-six-year-old Lawrence "BJ" Holbrook of Spencer was sentenced to four months in prison. Atkinson was convicted in February of passing counterfeit money and conspiring to possess and manufacture counterfeit money, said Goodwin. Holbrook pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in January. Atkinson, according to the court, passed fake bills at a livestock market in Spencer and elsewhere, with Holbrook conspiring in the scheme. Counterfeit money surfaced in Roane County and the Kanawha Valley area with eight people initially indicted by a federal grand jury on counterfeiting charges. Authorities said they used a scanner and printer to make fake $20 bills and went to Spencer to spend them, calling the copies "crude."

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