Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has announced that Alessandro Capobianco, 40, of Somerville, was arraigned Friday in Cambridge District Court and charged with uttering a counterfeit note, possession of a counterfeit note and defrauding an innkeeper under $100 in connection with an alleged attempt to pay a hotel bar tab with counterfeit bills. Capobianco formerly worked as a police officer for the Somerville Police Department.

Judge Roanne Sragow released the defendant on personal recognizance and ordered him to stay away from all witnesses and the location of the alleged offense. The next scheduled hearing in this case is Monday, May 22, 2017.

On February 3, 2017, at approximately 3:00 a.m., Cambridge Police responded to a hotel on Memorial Drive in Cambridge in response to a report of a customer having paid his tab in counterfeit currency. Upon arrival authorities spoke to an employee of the hotel who showed officers two $20 bills and a $50 bill believed to be counterfeit. Through their investigation authorities learned that at approximately 12:10 a.m. that night the defendant allegedly tried to pay hotel staff for food and drinks by charging them to a credit card he did not have on his person. When hotel staff declined to allow the defendant to charge the fee to the card, the defendant allegedly paid the bill in counterfeit cash. A closer examination of the cash allegedly showed that the bills were made of a lower quality of paper and lacking security strips, watermarks and embossments found on legitimate currency.

These charges are allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The prosecutor assigned to this arraignment was Assistant District Attorney April O’Brien.

— The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Middlesex District Attorney