As counterfeiting capers go, this one was not particularly noteworthy.

A group of young people got together, made about 227 fake $20 bills, spent them around town and got indicted by a federal grand jury.

But then one of the conspirators' lawyers raised this routine federal case out of the ordinary with a unique legal argument: The U.S. Secret Service had "illegally seized" his client's thoughts when he confessed.

That was what attorney Mark A. Sindler had been prepared to argue Friday in U.S. District Court on behalf of his client, Angelo Armenti, 24, of Millvale.

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Conway, said in court papers he looked forward to the debate.

But it didn't happen. Instead of appearing at a suppression hearing, Armenti decided to plead guilty to passing a counterfeit $20 at the Family Dollar in Millvale last year.

Sindler said it was Armenti's decision to plead and cooperate with agents investigating the others indicted with him.

But the lawyer said he plans to use his legal strategy again the next time he has a client who confesses under similar circumstances.

In pretrial motions, Sindler said Secret Service agents Keith Heckman and Benjamin Full approached Armenti on Nov. 16 at ARC House, a halfway house on the North Side where Armenti was serving a sentence.

The agents asked him to sign a form waiving his rights, after which he wrote out a statement incriminating himself. It wasn't a Miranda warning because Armenti wasn't charged, but another form used in what Sindler called a "custodial interrogation."

Armenti wasn't under arrest, but he also wasn't free to go anywhere, and Sindler said he couldn't just tell the agents to go away.

Sindler also argued that the statement was obtained under threat because Armenti believed if he didn't cooperate, he would go to jail.

Under the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, Sindler said, Armenti's "thoughts and/or verbal communications were illegally seized."

Taking the written confession, he said, amounted to the agents stealing Armenti's thoughts.

"What area anywhere is more private or out of bounds to others," wrote Sindler, "than the inner sanctum containing a person's thoughts, ideas or considerations?"

Conway countered in court papers that the confession at ARC House was not coerced in any way.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," he wrote. In fact, he said, the interview was "amicable, even friendly."

Either way, the debate over stolen thoughts will have to wait until another day.

Armenti, a drug addict who works for a painting company, will be sentenced in October. He could receive up to five years in prison but probably will get probation.