James L. Porter, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today, that Eric Rogers, 23, of St. Louis, Missouri, was sentenced on Friday, April 29, 2016, in the U.S. District Court in East Saint Louis, Illinois, on the charge of Conspiracy to Manufacture, Possess and Pass Counterfeit United States Currency. The district court sentenced Johnson to 30 months in federal prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release.
Rogers pled guilty to the charge on December 9, 2015. During his plea he admitted that he along with several others had engaged in an agreement to use counterfeit United States Currency to buy vehicles. Once in possession of the vehicles they would then resell them for genuine United States currency.
During August of 2013, the group contacted a person in Sandoval Illinois, who had listed his vehicle for sale on Craigslist. Johnson, along with the other conspirators then met with the seller in Sandoval, Illinois and purchased the vehicle for $2,400 in counterfeit $100 Federal Reserve Notes. Johnson and others involved in the conspiracy were arrested a short time after the fraudulent purchase by law enforcement from Carlyle, Clinton County and Sandoval.
The investigation in this case was conducted by the Carlyle and Sandoval Police Departments, the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office and the United States Secret Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ranley R. Killian.