- A federal judge in Providence on Wednesday reduced Louis Colavecchio's sentence to time served, but said he must remain in custody until an appropriate release plan is in place.
- Louis Colavecchio passed away at the age of 92 in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Funeral Home Services for Louis are being provided by Avery-Storti Funeral Home - Wakefield. The obituary was.
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© Bob Breidenbach Louis Colavecchio walks into the federal courthouse in Providence in August 2019. [The Providence Journal/Bob Breidenbach]CRANSTON — Just weeks after being granted compassionate release from federal prison, the self-proclaimed 'world's greatest counterfeiter,' Louis 'The Coin' Colavecchio, died Monday at age 78.
He was in hospice care after struggling with dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension and other ailments.
Colavecchio, a colorful character who authorities cast as an old-time mobster and counterfeiter of some repute, was released May 26 from Butner federal prison in North Carolina, days after U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. agreed to free him on time served.
McConnell in August 2019 sentenced Colavecchio to 15 months in prison for producing counterfeit $100 bills, all the while boasting to an informant that he was going to outwit the latest security features. He was due to be released in October.
A North Providence native and Providence College graduate in business administration, Colavecchio was dubbed 'The Coin' due to his talent for making near-perfect counterfeit slot-machine tokens for casinos from Foxwoods to Vegas.
Colavecchio for years frustrated casinos nationwide, plying the fruits of his work. Perhaps his biggest arrest came in 1996 at Caesars Atlantic City, where he and his girlfriend were caught with 800 pounds of fake tokens. It was considered at the time the biggest counterfeiting scheme ever involving legalized gambling in New Jersey.
© Bill Murphy In 2006, Louis Colavecchio of Pawtucket takes a break on a swing at Governor Notte Park in North Providence while walking his dog Otto. [Journal files]He spent two years in federal prison for his handiwork and was paid $18,000 by the feds as a consultant to explain why his manufacturing dies outlast those at the U.S. Mint.
Eventually, he was banned from every casino in the country, but he continued gambling — wearing wigs and dressing as a woman to avoid being recognized, according to former Rhode Island State Police Col. Steven G. O'Donnell.
'If he used the amount of ingenuity and knowledge he had for good, he could have been a millionaire and changed people's lives,' O'Donnell said.
Colavecchio was a disarming, charming man who was driven by beating the system, O'Donnell said.
'It was catch me if you can,' he said.
Through the years, he would be convicted of obtaining money under false pretenses for stealing $100,000 from his 92-year-old aunt in a septic plot; resisting arrest; and drug charges for cultivating kilograms of marijuana in a sophisticated indoor grow operation. For all, he received suspended sentences.
A self-described ladies' man who professed that women love an outlaw, Colavecchio had been convicted of five crimes since age 55 and was found to have used cocaine while out on bond — an offense Colavecchio explained was only 'for sex.'
In his most recent case, U.S. Secret Service agents raided Colavecchio's Pawtucket home in December 2018, seizing presses capable of producing counterfeit bills with simulations of the security features used in real currency, and about 2,400 fake $100 bills.
Colavecchio pleaded guilty to manufacturing and possessing the counterfeit bills. He was an honors student at the Community College of Rhode Island at the time of his sentencing.
Colavecchio documented his escapades in a 2015 autobiographical book, 'You Thought it was More: Adventures of the World's Greatest Counterfeiter.' In the tale — available in paperback or digital format — Colavecchio with braggadocio traced a lifetime of crime and boasted of his ties to the Patriarca crime family, which he referred to as 'The Providence Office.'
He recounted a life of hustling, starting in his teens with a plot to steal money from Catholics by marketing rosaries in the names of priests dedicated to missionary work. Instead, Colavecchio said, he pocketed the donations.
He wrote of exploits that included bank fraud, insurance scams, robbery, arson and duping 'Ma Bell' by creating devices that allowed users to place long-distance phone calls free of charge, prosecutors wrote in excerpting from the book. He expressed disdain for law enforcement agents, mocking their 'cheap suits' and dim wits.
A talented tool-and-die maker, Colavecchio recounted the thrill of minting slot-machine tokens with such accuracy that even labs couldn't differentiate between his work and the actual tokens.
Colavecchio's lawyer, Joanne Daley, dismissed the book as mostly fiction and a venue to 'tell tall tales' at his 2019 sentencing.
'Like anybody else, he had good and bad in him,' said Andy Thibault, who became friends with Colavecchio while working with him on writing the book. 'I got to appreciate the good points. He was a lot of fun to be with.'
Counterfeiter
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