A Houston eighth-grader was reportedly investigated for forgery after she tried to use a $2 bill to pay for lunch at school.
Danesiah Neal, a student at Fort Bend Independent School District’s Christa McAuliffe Middle School, said she was trying to buy some chicken nuggets with the $2 bill her grandmother gave her, but school officials confiscated the bill and said it was fake, a local ABC News affiliate reported.
14 year old Danesiah Neal tried to pay for lunch, at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Houston, with a $2 bill.
The 8th grader had no idea that she was doing anything wrong. "I went to the lunch line, and they said my $2 bill was fake," she said in an interview. "They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble."
The police called Sharon Kay Joseph, the girl's grandmother, to find out if it was she who gave the bill to her granddaughter, and informing her that the bill was counterfeit.
The Fort Bend School District at first told Kay that forging money was a felony, but later found that the bill was legitimate and returned it to the grandmother, who said, 'he didn't apologize. He should have, and the school should have because they pulled Danesiah out of lunch, and she didn't eat lunch that day because they took her money./
Two dollar bills have been in circulation since 1953, yet 40 cases of reporting these bills as counterfeit have been reported between 2013 and 2014 in the Houston school district.