LIBERTY — A Girard woman pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Friday after being arrested on a counterfeiting charge by Liberty police.

Nicole Lassiter, 46, was charged with counterfeiting and later theft at the Liberty Plaza Walmart at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Goldie Road.

According to the police report, an officer was dispatched to the business Thursday afternoon after receiving a report that two individuals were attempting to pay with counterfeit currency.

A Walmart loss prevention officer provided the Liberty officer with a copy of a $100 bill they attempted to use, which had the words “copy” and “for motion picture purposes” printed on it.

The officer noted that aside from the text, the bills looked realistic.

After putting both people in handcuffs, he learned from the loss prevention officer that only one of the people — Lassiter — attempted to pay for “numerous” groceries and other items with the $100 bill. Lassiter told the officer that she had another one of the bills in her wallet and permitted him to retrieve it from her purse, where he found “several other stacks” of counterfeit $100 bills totaling an estimated $40,000.

When asked where she had gotten the money, Lassiter told the officer her father had given it to her, and she was unaware it was fake.

Lassiter was booked into the Trumbull County jail on a third-degree felony charge. It was originally a fourth-degree felony, but the amount being more than $5,000 but less than $100,000 increased the severity of the offense.

The report states this was not Lassiter’s first offense, as she was previously convicted of offenses such as insurance fraud, falsification, misdemeanor theft and passing bad checks.

Lassiter’s bail was set at $5,000. She’s set to appear back in court Wednesday, court records show.