Oh yeah, this guy is committing a serious federal offense and could very easily be put in prison if the authorities decided to prosecute him. Whether that would actually happen depends on how connected he is to powerful people, of course, but there is zero ambiguity about the legality here.
That's the thing, isn't it? If someone shot this dude it would just feed into his narrative even more and give people like him more power. Only way to actually make a difference is to get organized with enough people to carry out coherent actions (which would definitely be a lot less violent, at least initially, than shooting ghouls like this guy).
That's what you need organization for, so that when things get real (which is almost always provoked by the bourgeois side of things) you have more people ready to keep the thing going. Spontaneous and individualistic movements fade out just as easily as they come into existence.
I'm pretty sure this is still illegal, he's attempting to put the money into circulation by giving people the false impression that it is real legal tender.
Like hypothetically if you're so charismatic that you manage to convince a bank teller that a piece of printer paper you wrote "Gay Sex" on with a crayon is actual legal tender I still think that counts as counterfeiting, because you're still putting false currency into circulation.
the problem is its a rich guy allegedly doing this to homeless people
The least likely to be treated fairly under the law of this country scenario I can think of other than if it was 1820 and he was doing this to actual slaves
Oh I doubt he'd ever see the inside of a jail cell over this.
However, if enough people reported him for this it maybe enough for the Dept. of the Treasury to send him a notice or something which would probably scare him into not doing it anymore.
But if we take him at his word, he is at the very least in breach of 18 U.S. Code § 472:
Whoever, with intent to defraud, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or with like intent brings into the United States or keeps in possession or conceals any falsely made, forged, counterfeited, or altered obligation or other security of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Of note, the unsuspecting homeless people he’d ensnare in this scheme would lack the requisite intent to defraud, meaning the only participant in the hypothetical transaction actually committing any crime is McEntee himself.
That said, while a homeless person duped by a stunt like this would not commit a federal crime if they tried to pass a bill they believed to be genuine, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be arrested for the attempt. Or worse, given that George Floyd was stopped for attempting to spend a counterfeit bill when he the police killed him.
that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be arrested for the attempt. Or worse, given that George Floyd was stopped for attempting to spend a counterfeit bill when he the police killed him.
If the American legal system is remotely sane (which is a big if) then the important question is the intent. If you use the prop money as a prop it is not a crime but if you pass it on, deceiving people to think it is real money then you've crossed the line.
The thing about the American legal system is that it runs on Whose Line Is It Anyway? rules: everything's made up and the laws don't matter. What happened doesn't matter as long as the audience likes you. And the audience is rich people.