Hope resident sentenced for counterfeiting

By Cameron Rasmusson
Reader Staff

A Hope man is facing hard time in federal prison for printing several fake $50 bills.

The Spokesman-Review reports that Keith Daniel Snyder, 51, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for using phony $50 bills in stores throughout Sandpoint and Ponderay. Afterward, he’ll serve three months of home confinement, three years of supervised release and pay $1,150 in restitution to affected businesses.

Snyder pulled off his crime by using a simple Hewlett-Packard printer to ink a $50 bill face over treated $1 bills. Prosecutors were able to prove 46 counts of the crime between November 2015 and January 2016.

Defense attorneys for Snyder said his actions were spurred by a methamphetamine addiction that began in 2012. They argued for a lenient sentence based on Snyder’s previously clean record. While Snyder will face prison time despite their arguments, it’s a sentence far shy of the maximum 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Spokane office of the United States Secret Service, Bonner County Sheriff’s Office and Ponderay Police Department teamed up on a joint investigation of the crime.