For counterfeiting U.S. Federal Reserve notes, an Orange County con artist and convicted drug addict faced as much as 20 years in prison.
Costa Mesa's James Peter Perraie, a past part-time Rancho Santiago Community College student with a history of methamphetamine and heroin abuse, originally pleaded innocence after his December 2011 federal indictment and arrest, according to court records.
But in March 2012, a federal prosecutor obtained a plea agreement from Perraie, who acknowledged that he washed genuine $1 and $5 bills with an oven cleaner and, after drying the paper, used a consumer computer printer to convert the bills into $100 notes that he sold for $30.
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An October 2011 raid on Perraie's home found $1,000 in counterfeit bills, chemicals used to alter the currency and numerous credit cards belonging to other individuals.
Because Perraie, a native of Redding who was raised a Mormon and is now the father of an infant, cooperated with the government after his arrest and promised to clean up his life, prosecutors backed a relatively light 18-month prison trip.
On Feb. 11, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford sentenced Perraie to the 18-month term, plus three years of supervised probation after his release.
Guilford ordered the 29-year-old counterfeiter to surrender to U.S. marshals by noon on April 19.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
