Counterfeiting case results in three-year sentence

LITTLE ROCK — A Florida woman will spend the next three years in federal prison for counterfeiting after an attempt in January 2020 to pass phony $100 bills in a Dillard’s department store in Jonesboro, Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. decided Wednesday morning.

Jamie Marie Dewberry, 37, of Dunnellon, Fla., pleaded guilty last September to one count of manufacturing counterfeit currency, which could have landed her in prison for 20 years. Based on Dewberry’s offense and criminal history, the advisory guideline sentencing range was 30 to 37 months in prison, a fine of $5,500 to $55,000 and a term of supervised release between one and three years.

Based on the guidelines, Marshall sentenced Dewberry to 36 months in prison, three years supervised release — which he said he would transfer to the Middle District of Florida — and a $100 special assessment.

Dewberry was indicted by a federal grand jury Feb. 4, 2020, on one count each of counterfeiting $1,400 in $100 bills and possessing $1,400 in $100 bills. The government dropped the possession count in exchange for Dewberry’s guilty plea.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jana Harris, in arguing for a sentence at the high end of the guideline range, noted Dewberry’s criminal history, “beginning at the age of 18 and continuing to the present.”

“Looking at the offense itself we have a low dollar amount here, just a few hundred dollars were passed in this case and I believe nine counterfeit $100 bills were found on her,” Harris said.

“But I think it’s important to note that at the time she committed the offense she was on supervision out of Florida for this exact same conduct.”

Harris said Dewberry admitted to Florida officials after a December 2018 arrest by Citrus County deputies that drugs, counterfeiting equipment and multiple fake $100 bills found in her car belonged to her.

“After she was sentenced in that case and put on conditions, she absconded from the state of Florida, came to Arkansas and she committed this crime,” Harris said. “And she admitted to passing counterfeit notes in Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma, in addition to Arkansas.”

Tamera Lee Deaver, Dewberry’s defense attorney, said her client’s legal troubles stemmed from a lifelong battle with drug addiction and asked that she be recommended for the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program — known as RDAP — a voluntary, 500-hour, nine- to 12-month program of individual and group therapy for federal prisoners with substance abuse problems.

“A low-end sentence would be enough time for her to complete the RDAP program and we believe that would take into account the nature and the circumstance of this offense,” Deaver said. “It was a nonviolent offense. Ms. Dewberry is not now and has never been a danger to the public… We don’t believe that the public needs further protection from Ms. Dewberry but we do realize her actions were wrong and she needs to be punished for them.”