2 honors students accused in fake bills

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Two honors students printed counterfeit 20 bills that looked so real they were able to pass them for months, police in suburban Middleburg Heights said.
The two students at Midpark High School were suspended, but they haven't been criminally charged.
They printed the fake bills on a home computer and spent them on chocolate milk at school, funnel cakes at the county fair and snacks at fast-food restaurants, police said Tuesday. The money looked so authentic that it went undetected for months.
"I've seen counterfeit bills, and these kids did a heck of a job," Middleburg Heights Police Chief John Maddox said.
One of their classmates who knew about the alleged scam told her mother, who reported the boys to school administrators. Once police found out about the scam, the students turned over the phony money, Maddox said.
"I think it was more of an adventure than it was a crime to them," he said.
School officials have suspended the two alleged ringleaders and four friends the school says were parties to the scam. The two leaders face expulsion, Assistant Principal Vincenzo Ruggiero said.
Police are still investigating and will present the case to the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court for possible criminal charges. The two leaders are straight-A students, Maddox said.
They reproduced an old 20 bill because they knew that new currency has telltale markings that are supposed to be impossible to reproduce, Maddox said. Their store-bought paper was remarkably similar to real currency.
The teens would spend the phony 20s on small purchases as a way to obtain real money in change, Maddox said.