Police ID woman accused of using counterfeit $100 bill at Rancho Cotate High bake sale

The woman had just walked out of Oliver’s Market in Cotati and stopped at the bake sale fundraiser Monday for the Rancho Cotate High School music department.

She picked out three rice crispy treats, a brownie and possibly a slice of cake, handed a student a $100 bill plus $3, took her items and $80 in change and went to her car.

Evan Crow, a 17-year-old singer in the school’s choir, said the student who took the $100 bill suspected something was not right and asked Crow about it. Crow works at a local pizzeria and knows the difference between a real and counterfeit $100 bill. He knew immediately.

“When you hold it up to the sun or a bright light, there should be a Benjamin Franklin in the right hand side,” he said. “With the fake $100 it didn’t show up.”

He saw the woman getting into her car and gave chase. Just as he reached the car, though, the woman suddenly drove off “and almost hit two other cars trying to get out,” Crow said.

Cotati Police Sgt. Craig Guydan said there’s been an uptick in the number of incidents involving counterfeit currency since the 2013 opening of the Graton Resort and Casino in Rohnert Park.

In mid-June, two Vallejo men were arrested after trying to pass fake $100 bills at the casino. Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputies found nearly $36,000 of counterfeit money in their car.

Deputies said each man - Rodney Short, 49, and Johnny Winn, 52 - was carrying a large number of phony bills.

“It definitely happens,” said Guydan, who suspects the woman had originally planned to pass the counterfeit bill at Oliver’s. “It’s too bad that the victims in this case were children.”

He identified the woman as Sonoma County resident Michelle Kruse, 41. He said tips to the department’s Facebook page helped identify her and her car. She has not been apprehended.

Vickie Gilbert, a board member with the Rancho Cotate High School Music Boosters club, said the kids were devastated, especially the student who took the fake bill, since the kids are trying to raise money to pay for a trip next year.

“We’re hoping in the springtime to go to Disneyland, where they get to march down Main Street,” Gilbert said.

The last big trip the music students took was two years ago to New York City’s Carnegie Hall where they placed third in the nation at the New York Wind Band Festival, she said.

Guydan said a video image of Kruse was captured on security cameras, as was her car.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.