North Idaho man sentenced to federal prison for counterfeiting $50 bills on his home printer

A Bonner County man has been sentenced to federal prison for printing up and passing fake $50 bills at businesses in Sandpoint and Ponderay.

Keith Daniel Snyder, 51, of Hope, Idaho, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, followed by three months home confinement and then three years of supervised release; plus $1,150 in restitution to those he defrauded with the counterfeit bills.

Snyder, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in Coeur d’Alene in January and pleaded guilty in July, printed the fake $50 bills on his Hewlett-Packard all-in-one printer at his home in Hope, using treated $1 bills, according to court documents. He was convicted of passing 46 of them in North Idaho between November of 2015 and January of 2016 before his arrest.

The case was investigated by the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, Ponderay Police Department, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the Spokane office of the United States Secret Service. Greg Ligouri, resident agent in charge of the Spokane office of the Secret Service, said, “This conviction is the culmination of a collaborative effort. … The Secret Service truly believes in the partnership approach to policing.”

Snyder pleaded guilty to 46 felony counterfeiting charges. He could have faced up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

In court documents, his attorney, Colin Prince of the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, argued for home detention rather than prison time, saying Snyder was a previously law-abiding citizen, a Coast Guard veteran and former fishing guide and boat-builder, who was introduced to methamphetamine in 2012 by a “lady friend,” and “began spiraling downward.”

He learned how to counterfeit from a fellow inmate while serving a 60-day jail sentence on a drug paraphernalia charge in 2015, Prince wrote. Snyder tried it, and “was caught almost immediately.”

Since his arrest, he has met all conditions of release, passed every drug test, and started a small business. “On his own, he worked through a drug-treatment course and has been sober for nine months,” Prince wrote. “He is rapidly rebuilding his life.”

Deputy U.S. Attorney Mike Mitchell argued for an 18-month prison sentence, which he noted would be at the low range of federal sentencing guidelines. “A sentence of home confinement is not just punishment and will not act to deter others who would consider this crime,” he wrote in documents filed with the court. “Indeed, it would send the wrong message to counterfeiters, that they face minimal risk and light punishment and great potential reward.”

He added, “The defendant impacted numerous people in the northern Idaho community. His counterfeit notes were spread to numerous businesses, causing broad losses. … There was a general fear of counterfeit currency until the defendant’s apprehension.”

The crime that Snyder committed “is serious, because it engendered a distrust of United States currency in the area and cheated so many people,” Mitchell wrote.

Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge sentenced Snyder to the year-and-a-day prison term followed by home confinement and supervised release. He also ordered Snyder to forfeit his computer printer and other items used in the crime, which were seized by the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office and the Secret Service during a January search of his home.