Louisiana Serial Counterfeiter Sentenced to Federal Prison After Guilty Plea

Louisiana - A Louisiana man has pleaded guilty to passing and attempting to pass counterfeit Federal Reserve notes in exchange for goods and products in Louisiana in early 2022 and has now been sentenced to prison.

On Thursday, January 12, 2023, United States Attorney Ronald C. Gathe, Jr. announced that Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick sentenced Trenton Underwood, age 32, of Denham Springs, Louisiana to 36 months in federal prison following his convictions for conspiracy to manufacture and possess counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes, manufacturing counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes, and the possession of counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes. The Court further sentenced Underwood to serve three years of supervised release following his term of imprisonment and ordered all instrumentalities used in the scheme be forfeited.

According to his guilty plea admissions, Underwood and others made and attempted to pass counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes in exchange for retail and food products in the Middle District of Louisiana in early 2022. Law enforcement recovered over $1,240 in cut counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes, 66 pages of uncut counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes in various denominations, and items used to manufacture counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes, including a printer with a $20 Federal Reserve Note taped to the glass, boxes of linen paper, printer cartridges, paper cutters, and dryer seats, on February 3, 2022.

This was Underwood's fourth conviction for counterfeiting. He had three prior state counterfeit convictions and was on parole for one of them when he committed the aforesaid federal violation.

The United States Secret Service and the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jessica M.P. Thornhill.