Posted on 05/03/2016 6:18:59 AM PDT by Rusty0604
A Texas teenager faces a felony forgery charge all because the $10 bill he found on the floor of his high school came up as fake cash on the lunch lady’s counterfeit testing pen when he used it to pay for a ham sandwich and chips.
...the lunch lady turned the $10 bill over to a campus police officer, who later wanted a statement from the teen. The officer called his mother and she said “not without me present,” according to Hunter.
The family also received a “Consent to Deferred Prosecution” form to sign, which essentially places a minor into the juvenile justice system through probation. If probation is successfully completed, the court dismisses pending charges. In March, the Hunter family declined to consent to deferred prosecution.
Alec’s chemistry teacher wrote: “I hope and pray you will please not punish a 15-year-old so harshly that this offense will keep him from obtaining a future career. A teenager often reacts without thinking about the consequences.” She added: “In the corporate and educational careers, one serious offense can make a person unemployable.”
This is likely because college and career ready applications no longer ask if a youth was ever convicted of a crime, they ask if one has ever been charged with a crime other than a traffic offense. A juvenile’s brush with the criminal justice system creates a paper trail ...
In an April 29 email to Hunter, obtained by Breitbart Texas, Fort Bend ISD Superintendent Charles Dupre explained the charge to prosecute Alec was accepted by the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office through an administrative referral process apparently triggered when the teen’s mother refused to have her son questioned without a parent present.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“Wasn’t his money. He should have turned it in to lost and found.”
Once it is dropped, and no one is immediately looking for it, it is a case of finders-keepers. Do you memorize or list the serial numbers of every bill in your wallet? Because that is the ONLY way to ID that a bill is yours. NO ONE does that.
Wasn't their money either.
A loose lost bill is nearly impossible to identify.
“1. That a parent demanding their right to be present if police want to question their child triggers prosecution”
I don’t have an issue with that. They way I see it, if a parent sends their kid to a public school, the school can do whatever it wants - as public schools answer to politicians, not parents. The only thing wrong here is the parent sending the kid there in the first place - should have known better.
“...that college applications don’t ask if the person has been convicted of a crime but whether they have been charged with one.”
This one I don’t like. It’s like asking if the kid has ever been in a Walmart - it’s none of their damn business.
I think the bottom line, in this case, is that they strongly suspect that the kid knows where the money came from and he’s not squealing. They want him to sing.
Put all kids on the free school lunch program!
“One thing I would believe is that this kid knew it was fake and tried to use it as a joke. “
When did our society lose its sense of proportion, its good judgment?
I think it was the police that wanted to question the kid.
“Why won’t the mother let the kid tell his story to the police?”
She was willing just not without her or his father being there.
Totally reasonable.
“I don’t have an issue with that. They way I see it, if a parent sends their kid to a public school, the school can do whatever it wants - as public schools answer to politicians, not parents. The only thing wrong here is the parent sending the kid there in the first place - should have known better.”
Oh, and “the school can do what it wants”???? Like strip search your 14-year-old girl, without letting you know or have the mother be present?
Get a grip. Its called “Law AND Order,” not just “Order.”
Who expected to find common sense in a public school house?
I take that as a sign of how bad the economy is, that people are counterfeiting five and tens.
...
It’s also an indicator that technology is making counterfeiting cheaper.
As a parent you are with a school doing whatever they want to a child because it answers to politicians and not parents? That’s bizarre.
A lot more parents would be able to afford private school if they weren’t forced to pay taxes to support public school.
I was taught the same thing, if you found some money underfoot it was yours. Finding a wallet or a purse, however, was an entirely different situation of course, and then you were to return it to the owner or turn it over to the police or other authority figure, intact. If the boy found a $10 bill on the ground, then it was his, and he did nothing wrong by picking it up and spending it.
While I’d certainly LIKE schools to answer to parents, the bottom line, as demonstrated OVER AND OVER again, is that nothing makes them answer to parents.
AND THEY DON’T.
I found a $100 bill on the sidewalk outside of a convenience store. There were three young dudes inside paying for their chips and beer with messy wads of large bills they had crammed in their pockets. Hereabouts that is a mark of petty drug dealers. I asked if anyone was missing any money meaning to request that the amount be identified. No one could tell and they all ended up saying no they guessed not. I put the bill in the poor box at church. That is where all found money goes if there is not a verifiable or credible owner, including coins. It is not mine.
Forget a kid, if I found a $10 bill I would pocket it. Now, if it was a #100 bill, then I would have to consider what to do.
It got “blown out of proportion” because some petty officials saw their chance to look effective and important. There is much of railroad work predicated on that sort of happenstance.
That is a good policy for found money, I will have to do that from now on.
Yes, as a matter of fact. The last one to hold the bill before it gets identified is ipso facto the forger or the utterer of a forged instrument.
Fifty five years ago I found two dollars in front of a high school. Now, how would one go about fining the owner of that since there were over a thousand teens going to school there?
But then I also later found a billfold with money and ID in the same area. All were returned since there was a drivers license with address on it.
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