Buyer Nabbed on Forgery Charge in Crooked Craigslist Deal: Cops

Oak Lawn police arrested a 22-year-old Chicago man who used counterfeit currency to pay for a smartphone in a sour Craigslist transaction, prosecutors said.

Terry Cowan appeared before Cook County Judge Peter Felice on a forgery charge during a bond court hearing at Bridgeview on Monday afternoon.

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Oak Lawn police responded to a robbery the evening of June 30 in the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, 10301 S. Central Ave.

A 27-year-old student had advertised is iPhone 6 for sale for $450 in a Craigslist ad and within minutes he was contacted by a man that police had identified as Cowan.

Police said the student had just retrieved a currency pen used to check the authenticity of currency from his car when he saw Cowan sitting at a table outside the doughnut shop.

The student handed the phone to Cowan, who threw a roll of fake currency at him. When the student told Cowan to stop so he could check the money with the currency pen, Cowan shoved him the chest and took off on foot, an Oak Lawn police report said.

A witness told police she saw a man matching Cowan’s description getting into an older model gray car in the 10300 block of Washington Avenue and take off, police said.

The currency pen determined that the nine fifty dollar bills that Cowan had allegedly used to pay for the phone were fake.

Prosecutors said in court Monday that all nine bills had the same serial number. The student was able to positively identify Cowan through a police video lineup, according to the charges.

Cowan also allegedly gave Oak Lawn police a written statement admitting that he had purchased the phone using fake money.

The iPhone was not recovered. Cowan had apparently sold the phone on the street for $750 and did not know where it was, prosecutors told the judge.

Division Chief Randy Palmer, of the Oak Lawn Police Department, said the case was solved by an Oak Lawn detective. While Palmer would not give details of the investigation because the case was still pending, he said the detective was “tenacious is solving the crime.”

The assistant public defender told the judge that Cowan graduated from Hyde Park Academy High School.

Judge Felice set bail at $7,500 with ten percent to apply. Cowan is due back in court on August 28.