Needham Woman Allegedly Tries to Pass Fake Money

A Needham woman was arrested last week allegedly attempting to purchase prescription drugs from a New Hampshire pharmacy with counterfeit $20 bills.

Robin Vasil, 29, of Needham Heights was arrested on Dec. 23, and charged with 12 counts of Forgery, 10 that were felony charges and two counts of Uttering A Forged Instrument. She was arrested at 6:40 p.m. at on South Main Street in Concord, NH, after a clerk there realized that she was using phony money.

According to a clerk named Andrea, Vasil came to the store and filled a prescription and then gave her money to purchase the order.

“She gave me a couple of $20s and one was fine, the other ones looked a little off in color,” the clerk said.

Andrea used a counterfeit bill detector pen to determine whether or not the bills were fakes. The pen is swiped on the bills to determine if they are real or not. The pen told her that two of the bills were in fact fake $20s.

“The good one was gold and the others were dark brown or black,” she said.

The clerk then spoke to the owner of the store, Marty Donovan, who informed Vasil that they would be calling the police. The clerk said after Donovan called the police, he told Vasil that the police wanted her to stay in the store until they arrived, which she did.

This is the first time in the store’s history that it has ever had this problem, according to Andrea.

“I’ve been here 20-plus years and I’ve never had a counterfeit,” she said. “If you saw them, you’d know. They were off in color and had the same serial numbers. Luckily we caught it and nobody else is going to get stuck with them.”

According to an arrest log, Vasil allegedly had $280 worth of fake $20 bills in her possession. More than $1,800 was taken into evidence at the time of her arrest. Vasil was released on $70,000 personal recognizance bail. She had a court date on Dec. 27.