HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Dorothy Marie Livingston, 24, of Millerstown, Pa., has been charged with theft in connection with a series of incidents in July in which she deposited a bogus $1 million bill at an ATM, then used other ATMs to transfer the money to other accounts.
Livingston, a Fleet Bank customer, deposited the phony bill at an ATM owned by the First National Bank of Newport on July 15. First National tellers discovered the phony bill and notified Fleet, according to Jane Timothy, First National's vice president of branch administration. "She didn't even hit enough zeros to make it look like a million," Timothy said.
It took several days to identify and locate Livingston, according to a spokesman for the Newport station of the Pennsylvania State Police. During a five-day period, she was able to access $27,500, either by making withdrawals or by transferring to other accounts and writing checks.
The bogus bill was a less-than-convincing forgery, the police spokesman said. "It looked like something you'd get at Dollywood."
She was charged on Sept. 18 with 16 counts of theft by deception and was being held on $25,000 bail at the Perry County Prison, police said.
Livingston's novelty $1 million bill was about 10 times the value of the largest bill ever printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and 10,000 times the value of the largest bill still being printed, according to the Treasury Department.
The $100,000 bill, which was never publicly circulated, enjoyed a life of about three weeks in the 1930s as a way of transferring funds between Federal Reserve banks.
The largest Federal Reserve note in general circulation today is the $100 bill.
