Elvis Pres Lee accused of counterfeiting bills

A 30-year-old man whose legal name is Elvis Pres Lee was in U.S. District Court Tuesday, accused of passing counterfeit $100 bills.

It was Lee’s initial court appearance on the charge of uttering counterfeit obligations or securities. He agreed to remain in custody pending further prosecution.

Authorities in California arrested Lee last month and kept him in custody until they transferred him to Hawaii.

The Secret Service said Lee admitted in two separate interviews, one at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and the other at its Honolulu field office four days later, to making counterfeit $100 bills, told agents how he did it and showed them the printer he used to make the counterfeits.

In the first interview on March 3, the Secret Service said Lee told agents he flew to Hawaii from California to use methamphetamine with a local drug dealer and to teach the drug dealer how to make his own counterfeit money, in exchange for the drug dealer paying for his travel.

In the second interview Lee told the agents in greater detail how he made counterfeit $100 bills and showed them a text exchange between him and his girlfriend in which he told her he was considering getting a fake ID to leave Hawaii to avoid charges. After the interview the Secret Service told Lee he was free to leave. The Secret Service did not file a criminal complaint, which would give them the authority to arrest him, until March 21.

A week after the second interview Honolulu police responded to a report that a suspect, later identified as Lee, used four counterfeit $100 bills to purchase items at an Ala Moana Center clothing store. All of the fake bills had the same serial numbers as counterfeit bills that had been used in the Sacramento area or bills that the Secret Service found in Lee’s wallet in the first interview. Lee’s residence is in the Sacramento metropolitan area.

The Secret Service said the same day Lee made the purchases, he returned them at the clothing store’s Pearlridge Center location for cash and, as required for returns, showed his actual identification with his California address.

At the time of his arrest last month the Secret Serv­ice said the state of California had two active $50,000 warrants for Lee’s arrest. He had been on probation since August 2017 for grand theft and possession of narcotics with the intent to distribute.