Woman Gets Caught Counterfeiting Money, But It's Okay Because Obama Told Her She Could

Times-  A Kingsport woman told police she was counterfeiting money because she read online that President Barack Obama made a new law allowing her to print her own money, according to a police report.

Police were called to a local grocery store on Sunday night in regards to a complaint about counterfeit money. When the reporting officer arrived, he spoke with a gas station clerk who said that just prior to the officer's arrival, a white female had handed him a $5 bill, which he suspected to be counterfeit.

The clerk handed the officer the bill and immediately recognized the bill had been printed on regular computer paper and each side had been glued together but was falling apart.

The officer asked Downs about the currency and she reportedly said she had received the money from a gas station in Bristol a few days ago. She told the officer the bill was folded over and she never inspected it.

Downs was asked by the officer if her purse could be searched, to which she agreed. Inside her purse, the officer found a $100 which was also counterfeit, according to the report. The bill was printed in black and white and the backside of the bill was upside down.

A couple of receipts from Walmart were also found inside the purse, showing Downs had purchased copy paper and a printer.

Downs was then placed in handcuffs. Downs then reportedly said, "I don't give a ****, all these other bitches get to print money so I can too."

She then told officers she read online that President Obama had made a new law that permitted her to print her own money because she is on a fixed income, the report stated.

Downs then signed a consent to search waiver, which officers executed at her apartment. Inside they found several items consistent with being used to print counterfeit currency including paper, scissors, glue and a printer. All the items were seized and put into evidence.

Several more counterfeit bills, both cut and uncut, were located at the apartment. Officers estimated the total to be around $30,000 to $50,000.



Oh, come on. Are we really going to give this lady a hard time? Who hasn't read some dumb shit on the internet and been convinced of it's legitimacy. Hell, I have taken new articles that were complete nonsense, and formed opinions on them that consisted of even more nonsense. No one really, truly pays full attention to news anymore. You know a lot of time you find yourself discussing something you read or saw on television with a few friends. How often does that conversation start "Didn't I see that ______ did ______ over the weekend?" No one is ever sure of anything anymore. No one pays close attention to every detail of every story. It's 2015, almost everyone is just a headline reader, and not even a good headline reader at that. Should this women have known that people on fixed income aren't allowed to just start printing their own money at home? Sure, that seems pretty obvious. However, not everyone is great at weeding through the bullshit. This woman probably only got the internet like a month ago. Of course she didn't know that half the crap on it is exactly that. I bet you if I Google 'Obama Says You Can Print Your Own Money' you can find at least one satire article on the internet that says exactly that. Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.....

I am not saying that this woman isn't a complete moron, but at least she's not a liar. Criminals that counterfeit money get rid of the evidence. They don't keep every counterfeiting supply that you can find at WalMart in their purse. That's a move reserved for people that counterfeit under false pretenses. This women may be guilty of stupidity and over a dozen counts of terrible craftsmanship, but she's not guilty of illegally counterfeiting money, at least not knowingly anyway. The overcrowding of prisons is already a problem, can you imagine if we start locking people up for lack of intelligence or an abundance of gullibility? We'll need more prisons per township than McDonald's. 

P.S. There's a 'Down's Syndrome' joke somewhere in this story about Pamela Downs acting mentally handicapped, but I don't feel like stooping that low before noon.

P.P.S. This has got to be Obama's fault. No, he never said such a thing, and the article was clearly written in jest without his knowledge, but he's been such a fantastic scapegoat the last 7 years so why stop now?