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PAUL ANTONIO LACY,
08.06, Federal Public Defender's Office (OKC), won a federal jury trial in May in a counterfeiting case and then won another one last week(!) In the first one, the client had received some coins from his father but it turned out the coins were not genuine old, rare, gold coins. However, mere possession of counterfeit money is not a crime; the person must possess with the intent to defraud. In this case, the Secret Service contacted client about selling the coins and during these conversations all parties knew about the coins being fake and client made no effort to hide that fact. Client testified that he just tried to sell fake coins, as fake coins, which is not a crime. In the second case, client and a bunch of his friends printed some bills in their apartment for the purpose of playing craps because the money, even fake, made it more exciting. Tony reports that he was pleasantly surprised when some government witnesses collapsed and told mis-matched and contradicting stories--clearly off-script and divergent from what was in the police reports. Apparently one of the kids went off the reservation so to speak and tried to purchase something with the fake money, but the craps story apparently carried the day. Excellent trial work by Tony and he told me that more federal cases such as these should probably be tried. Good work, Tony!
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