Forget a trail of bread crumbs, police said all they had to do to nab a bank robbery suspect was follow the literal trail of money he left behind. We would like to welcome you, sir, to the You Have Only Yourself To Blame Hall of Fame.
Police arrested a man accused of robbing a bank in Rochester, NY, last week, alleging that he nabbed more than $100,000 in the heist, the Democrat & Chronicle reports.
According to court papers, the robbery happened before 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, when the suspect allegedly handed a Chase bank manager a note demanding cash and then fled on foot with the money. Prosecutors say the man then got into a taxi and was dropped off at a bus station. His cab driver told investigators that the man left a jacket filled with $9,000 worth of cash in his car.
The suspect changed his clothes at the bus station and tossed the garments he’d allegedly worn during the robbery along with around $43,500 in cash in the trash, and then took another cab to a hotel for a brief stop, court documents say. He then returned to the bus station and bought a ticket to New York City.
But when the bus stopped in Binghamton, NY, later that day, the suspect got off and took another taxi to a few more hotels in the area before he was apprehended at one of them by FBI agents and Binghamton police officers.
Prosecutors say he admitted to robbing the bank and accidentally leaving piles of cash in several locations, and said he hid another $50,000 in a Binghamton hotel room microwave, a shoe box, and a plastic bag on top of the safe.
He’s been charged in federal court with a felony count of bank robbery by force or violence, and has also earned himself a spot in Consumerist’s “You Have Only Yourself To Blame” Hall of Fame, where he has plenty of company:
• The bank robbery suspect who led police straight to his house when he swiped his ATM card before demanding cash.
• The would-be robber who had to be rescued by firefighters after tried to crawl through a pizzeria’s ventilation duct to steal and got stuck.
• The bank robbery suspect who was caught by police when he stopped for lunch at a casino.
• The KFC worker who pulled a gun on his boss and returned for a paycheck the next day.
• Suspected thieves who police said tried to sell a pawn shop owner his own stuff back, unaware that they’d purloined it from him in the first place.
• A guy who police overhead planning a burglary after he unwittingly butt-dialed 9-1-1.
• The burglary suspect who made things pretty easy by falling through the store’s ceiling… in front of cops.
• A man who was freed after 15 years in prison for robbery who was accused of heading straight back there to rob it again.
• The students who were arrested after allegedly stealing a $7,500 Ronald McDonald figure and then completing their drive-thru order.
• A guy who was found sleeping in his car at a McDonald’s drive-thru who was charged with DUI after he tried to pay cops for his burgers.
• The burglary suspect who broke into a restaurant and was caught after he tried to cook himself up some tasty crab cakes.
• A man accused of burgling a fried chicken restaurant who found himself in handcuffs when he returned to the eatery the next day — and wearing the same clothes, no less.
• The guy found snoozing at a Wendy’s drive-thru who woke up to a DUI and no fries.
• The father-daughter duo accused of going on a burglary spree who were nabbed after she posted a doctored Microsoft employee badge on Facebook.
• The criminal mastermind whose brilliantly plotted heist was undone after he returned to the scene to grab a remote control for the sound system he allegedly stole 30 minutes before.
• A real-life Hamburglar accused of robbing a McDonald’s who was caught when he crashed into the local mayor.
• Yet another snoozer, this time, a guy police found asleep in the McDonald’s drive-thru who was charged with driving while intoxicated after scoring a blood alcohol content of 0.14%.
• The guy accused of breaking into Walmart and trying to saw through the ceiling of the store’s cash room while an employee was present.
• The blabby teen who bragged online about pulling off a bank robbery. He apparently thought no one watches YouTube.
• A would-be Walmart robber who was unfortunate to get hit by his own getaway vehicle.
• The timid bank robber who scared himself silly by shooting his gun, and ended up fleeing without cash.
• An accused robber of storage units who left behind a pizza box with his address on it.
• The accused thief who made the rookie mistake of uploading pics from a stolen iPad to the cloud.
• Speaking of uploading things, there was the time when a Disney cruise worker accused of stealing an iPhone unwittingly sent photos to the cloud of his adventures with the pilfered device.
• The guy who reported the theft of an iPhone he’d just stolen from someone else to the police.
• A very sleepy man who allegedly broke into a bar and then took a nice nap on the kitchen table.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist