Counterfeit Sentence Sends Couple To Prison

A Canadian couple convicted of possessing $100,000 in counterfeit money were sentenced to prison yesterday and told never to return to the United States.

Gordon McLennan, 64, of Surrey, B.C., was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 20 months in prison, with three years of probation when he is released. His wife, Shirley, 48, was sentenced to four months behind bars and three years' probation.

The couple were arrested April 28 at the Blaine border crossing after Customs officers searched their recreational vehicle and seized $105,000 in counterfeit U.S. $100 bills.

The day after the McLennans were arrested, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers searched their home in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, and seized $457,700 in counterfeit U.S. bills.

No other arrests have been made in the case, and an investigation is continuing in both Canada and the United States, defense attorney Scott Engelhard said.

Although Gordon McLennan gave authorities the negatives used to make the counterfeit money, he would not tell them where the printing plates could be found. Engelhard said he understood the plates had been destroyed.

"I want those plates," U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said before sentencing McLennan. "If he can come up with those plates, it would save him about a year in the slammer."

Gordon McLennan's criminal history includes convictions in the 1960s for forging American Express traveler's checks and using stolen credit cards. Shirley McLennan was convicted in 1969 of passing a fraudulent traveler's check while vacationing in Wisconsin.

Shirley McLennan worked as a welfare-fraud investigator for British Columbia's Social Services Ministry.

Engelhard asked the judge not to impose a higher sentence on Gordon McLennan "based on mistakes he made as a much younger man."

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Peter Montague said the investigation had been going on for some time before the couple's arrest.