Talk about high vault-age.
A Coney Island man has been arrested for allegedly going on a 10-day, $22,000-plus bank-robbery spree — including a $17,000 cash-out at a Third Avenue Bay Ridge lending institution on March 21‚ authorities announced on April 2
Police say they picked up 30-year-old Michael Rodriguez at his W. 23rd Street home on March 26, shortly after a failed attempt to hold up a bank on 86th Street in Bensonhurst where the robber tried to pass a note the teller, who wouldn’t accept it. Authorities say they found that note in Rodriguez’s car.
According to cops, Rodriguez’s fingerprints matched those on a note passed to a clerk at a Cobble Hill bank on Court Street on March 19 — where the accused reportedly cleared $485. District Attorney Ken Thompson has also charged Rodriguez with a $5,761 robbery of a Borough Park bank on March 16.
“We simply will not allow anyone to rob our banks in broad daylight and terrorize bank tellers in the process. We will hold the defendant accountable for this bank robbery spree,” Thompson vowed.
In each case, the robber reportedly entered wearing a hooded, full-length, black North Face jacket and slipped the bank employee a hand-written note — each one allegedly written on the same type of paper, with the same pen, with the same wording, and with the same misspellings. Each note claimed the robber had a gun and demanded cash. The robber never spoke or displayed a weapon.
Rodriguez’s attorney failed to respond to repeated requests for comment. The People’s Playground resident faces three counts of robbery, two counts of grand larceny, three counts of petty larceny, one count of attempted robbery, and one count of attempted petty larceny. Rodriguez faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison if his sentences are imposed consecutively.
