Indictment Handed Down for Purim Bank Robber
A man who allegedly robbed a Boro Park bank of thousands of dollars on Purim was indicted for that plus three other bank robberies, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced Wednesday.
Michael Rodriguez, 33, is accused of robbing three banks and attempting to rob a fourth between March 16 and March 26. He faces multiple charges of larceny and robbery, among others.
“We simply will not allow anyone to rob our banks in broad daylight and terrorize bank tellers in the process,” Thompson said in a statement.
According to court documents, Rodriguez followed a distinct pattern in each of his raids. He would give the bank teller a hand-written note, written in the same pen, on the same type of paper with identical wording, including misspellings. The note’s message was simple: give money and I have a gun.
“He never spoke,” Thompson said.
In addition, Rodriguez consistently wore a hooded, black, full-length “North Face” coat with a logo. There were surveillance photos taken at each location.
His first robbery came on Purim, when he came away from Flushing Bank on 13th Ave. and 46th Street with $5,761. That was followed over the following ten days by three others, in downtown Brooklyn, Sunset Park and Bensonhurst.
Last week Wednesday, a bank teller at Apple Bank in Bensonhurst turned him away and he left empty handed. Later that day, Rodriguez was arrested at his home nearby. Altogether, Rodriguez got about $22,000 in ill gotten gains by the time he was caught.
This article appeared in print on page 5 of edition of Hamodia.
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