Montgomery Township Police Photo by James Short.
Anesha Joynes, of the 600 block of N Clinton Avenue, Trenton, New Jersey was detained by Target asset protection on Thursday, police said.
A Trenton, New Jersey woman is charged with felony forgery and a misdemeanor count each of retail theft and receiving stolen for allegedly paying for more than $400 in items from Target with 20 counterfeit $20 bills.
On Thursday evening, Montgomery Township Police were dispatched to Target at 125 Witchwood Drive, for a retail theft in progress, with Anesha Joynes, 23, of the 600 block of N Clinton Avenue, detained by Target asset protection, police said.
Police said Joynes came into Target and chose a cart with merchandise already inside it that as abandoned by a previous customer. Joynes selected items throughout the store and placed them in the cart with the other items, police said.
She allegedly then went to the checkout where she paid in cash for the items, but did not attempt to pay for the items that had already been in the cart. Joynes gave the cashier 20 $20 bills to pay for the merchandise, police allege.
The cashier used a counterfeit pen on the money and found that the bills were counterfeit and all bills had matching serial numbers, police said.
Joynes continued to the exit, without paying for the unpaid merchandise still in the cart, police said, before being stopped by asset protection.
Police found another $20 bill in Joynes back pocket, which was also found to be counterfeit, police said. Target employees turned over the fake bills, and out of the 20 bills, there were 11 different serial numbers that were duplicated on other bills, police said.
The total amount of merchandise purchased using counterfeit $20 bills was $375.07, and the total amount of merchandise unpaid was $91.39, totaling $466.46, police said.
She remains at Montgomery County jail in lieu of $500 cash bail, per court records. A preliminary hearing is set for Feb. 4 at 11:30 a.m. before Magisterial District Judge Andrea Duffy.
Joynes had a prior conviction for retail theft in 2014, police said.
All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using public court records.
