The Baltimore Sun has a story up about Mike Bolesta, a Baltimore County resident, who went to Best Buy to have a new radio installed in his son’s car and ended up in jail because of $2 bills.
According to the story, Bolesta purchased a radio that Best Buy’s installation team could not fit into the car due to its size, so the store offered to install another, cheaper radio for free. However, despite the store telling him that there would be no charge for the installation, the next day Bolesta received a telephone call at home demanding that he come in and pay the installation fee, the store would call the local police.
Obviously, Mike Bolesta got a little upset over this and decided that he would pay the $114 fee in rare $2 bills he gets from the local bank through his company which puts together nationwide tours for students to east coast cities. But when Bolesta showed up at Best Buy, the staff was convinced that he was attempting to defraud them with fake bills.
The police were called and the bills were marked with a special anti-forgery pen, which was never designed for the old and rare $2 bills, causing the ink to smear. Because of this, Bolesta was arrested and walked out in front of store customers in handcuffs and leg irons.
Eventually a Secret Service agent, responsible for investigating forged money claims, arrived and declared the bills legitimate $2 bills after a brief period of examination. Mike Bolesta was quickly let go, much to the embarrassment of both the Baltimore County police and Best Buy.