Third forgery suspect sought

While authorities have arrested a Costa Mesa pair they say have been passing off counterfeit $50 and $100 bills in recent months to local retailers, there is still one more person on the loose, officials said.

Police are looking for 33-year-old Diana Gordon, the third defendant listed on a criminal complaint prosecutors filed with the court Monday.

According to Costa Mesa detectives, the Huntington Beach resident was the third person involved in a small counterfeit operation running out of a pair of Costa Mesa homes where police say the trio printed money.

Police arrested Jacques Delia, 43, and Sheila McCarthy, 41, Friday after a months-long investigation initially launched by the Secret Service, detectives said.

The pair pleaded not guilty to numerous counts of burglary, conspiracy to commit a crime and forging public money Tuesday. A warrant has not yet been filed for Gordon but could come as soon as next week, officials said.

Over the last several months, Costa Mesa police noticed a rise in counterfeit bill incidents. With the help of the Secret Service, authorities say they traced the money back to Delia, McCarthy and Gordon.

Friday, police went to two homes in Costa Mesa, one on Java Road and another on Coriander Street. While there, police saw Delia leave in a white cargo van, police said. Delia did not stop when police tried to pull him over, police said, and instead led them back to the Java Road residence, where he was arrested.

Inside, investigators said they found drugs, a semi-automatic rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun and equipment for forging money and driver’s licenses.

McCarthy was arrested at the Hotel Huntington Beach, where she worked as a manager. Det. Eugene Kim said it does not appear that she used counterfeit money at her business.

Police have linked the three suspects to nearly 20 counterfeit bills, which were made by washing $5 bills with chemicals and reprinting them in the larger denominations. Police said that while the bills look real, the permanent water mark showing Abraham Lincoln’s face, indicating it’s a $5 bill, cannot be erased.

Kim said it is likely that more instances of the group using counterfeit money have so far gone unreported.

According to prosecutors, Delia used counterfeit cash in August to pay for a dental appointment in Huntington Beach, and McCarthy bought clothes at a No Rest For Bridget store.

On Sept. 6, Gordon bought a digital video camera valued at more than $300 from Wal-Mart using fake $50 bills, prosecutors said. Most of the bills originated from a few $5 bills, Kim said. Many of the forged and smaller bills shared identical serial numbers, police said.

These are some of the better counterfeit bills detectives have seen recently, officials said.

“These aren’t the typical bills you see printed on paper. It’s a bill that’s actually printed onto another bill; it’s more insidious,” Kim said.

Prosecutors are accusing all three of assuming others’ identities, with Gordon at one point using another person’s identity to post her own bail, leaving them legally liable, court documents show.

Authorities said they also found credit card forgery equipment and nunchakus, an illegal martial arts weapon, in Delia’s home. Delia kept a samurai sword in his car, police said.

Court records show that all accused have had run-ins with the law.

Delia was free on bail related to a February arrest by Orange County Sheriffs. According to a police affidavit requesting a search warrant, when sheriffs pulled Delia over in his black Audi in February, he pulled out a loaded .22-caliber handgun that deputies had to wrestle away.

Inside his car, the affidavit shows, authorities found $2,500 in counterfeit bills and 5 grams of methamphetamines with packages and scales. More of the same was found inside his home, officials said.

While Delia faces the bulk of the charges related to the alleged counterfeit operation, which police said was on a rather small scale, McCarthy faces five felonies in the case. Since 1998, she has been convicted six times on felony drug charges.

Gordon, who faces charges related mostly to identity theft, was convicted of grand theft last year.

Delia and McCarthy are being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

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JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].