A Valparaiso resident was arrested Saturday on a charge of theft after Chesterton Police said that he used counterfeit $20 bills to purchase food at several restaurants on Indian Boundary Road.

Jason Clark, 31—who gave police an address of 304 Michigan St. in Valparaiso but was booked into the Porter County Jail with a Schererville address—was charged with three counts of theft, a Class D felony punishable by a term of six months to three years.

In fact, police said, an investigation began on Friday at 9:32 a.m. after a man in a dark green Cadillac purchased hash browns and coffee for $2.14 in the drive-through at McDonald’s and paid with a $20 bill and 14 cents. A clerk, suspicious of the bill because it didn’t “feel right,” applied a UV light test to the $20 and determined it to be phony, police said. When informed of that fact and asked whether he could pay for his food another way, the man fled the scene, police said.

Cpl. Dave Virijevich then took the precaution of visiting neighboring businesses and urging them to be on the lookout for a man in a dark green Caddie who may be attempting to pass counterfeit $20 bills. Virijevich’s warning appears to have paid off the next day, Saturday, police said, when at 5:15 p.m. a clerk at the White Castle took a $20 from a man in a green Caddie in exchange for three cheeseburgers and alerted by the memo notified the manager of the phony bill. The manager in turn contacted the CPD and advised that a man suspected of passing a counterfeit bill had just left the business.

A Porter Police officer subsequently located the suspect vehicle, driven by Clark, and stopped it in the area of Ind. 49 and 1050N, police said. When asked where he was coming from, police said, Clark stated that he had just purchased two Whoppers at the Burger King and was going home to Valparaiso. Recovered from Clark’s vehicle was a Burger King bag with two Whoppers, police said, while a description of the suspect provided by the White Castle employee “matched” Clark himself.

Meanwhile, the drive-through clerk at the Burger King advised that since 5:10 p.m., when he pulled his register, he had had only three transactions and clearly recalled taking a $20 bill and 28 cents from a man for two Whoppers. A counterfeit $20 was found in his cash drawer, police said.

Clark was later found to have $31 in his possession, police said, which equals the amount in change he would have received from White Castle and Burger King using two $20 bills to purchase three cheeseburgers from the first and two Whoppers from the second.

Police said that the counterfeit bills had no security thread and no watermark.

Clark was transported to Porter County Jail.

Posted 11/23/2009