bloodrayne
07-02-2005, 08:53 PM
How Even A Well-Planned Heist Can Go Awry
The two roommates thought of everything -- or believed they did.
Drug the girlfriend with sleeping pills? Check.
Position a getaway car? Check.
Remove the bank's video recorder? Check.
Pitch the clothes in the river? Check.
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania - Jeremy Clark, 33, and Justin Fortuna, 24, did all of that and more last July when they pulled one of the region's single largest bank heists, stealing $144,500 from the vault at Sky Bank in Greenville, Mercer County, where Clark had been the manager.
Most bank robberies net a few thousand dollars, tops. This was big-time.
But all the planning in the world doesn't help if you don't keep your mouth shut.
Fortuna didn't, eventually blabbing the plan to the very girlfriend he had drugged.
She ended up wearing a wire for the FBI in Miami and gave agents and prosecutors, who had suspected Clark and Fortuna from the beginning, the evidence they needed for search warrants and arrests.
This week, the two pals from Hermitage paid the price with prison terms. Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch gave Clark 18 months and Fortuna 15 months.
According to court papers, here's how it all happened:
The two wanted to hit the bank on July 4, but decided to do it July 13. Clark, who had left his job at the bank a month before, knew the security codes to get into the vault. He also knew that lots of cash would be inside for an armored car to pick up later that day.
Fortuna, a salesman and Webmaster at McCandless Ford in Mercer, would provide the getaway car, a Ford Taurus, from his employer's lot. After the heist, he would hightail it to Florida to live with his girlfriend, Lea Clark (no relation to Jeremy Clark), who was in town visiting from her home in Miami.
The roommates were worried about pulling the job with Lea around, but they came up with a plan to use her as an alibi without her knowledge.
The night before the robbery, the three hit the bars and Fortuna slipped some crushed sleeping pills into her beer. That way she would sleep through the night back at their apartment and wake up beside Fortuna the next morning, thinking he had been there all night with her.
Months later, Lea told the FBI, she remembered feeling sleepy but didn't know why.
"She related that she unaccountably got very drowsy at about 2 a.m.," said an FBI affidavit, "although she had not had much to drink."
After the roommates dropped her off at their place, the two drove to the car lot, picked up the Ford Taurus and drove to the bank at about 4:30 a.m. To make the robbery look like a smash-and-grab instead of an inside job, they used a crowbar to break some windows.
Clark went inside the vault and stole the cash while Fortuna acted as the lookout. They made their escape in the Taurus, drove back to the car lot and jumped into Clark's waiting sport utility vehicle. They stuffed their clothes, gloves, the crowbar and the VCR from the bank into a duffel bag, drove to the Shenango River and pitched the bag into the water.
Then they went home with the loot. Clark gave about $6,000 to Fortuna, who quit his job at the dealership without giving notice and flew to Miami with Lea.
Almost immediately, the FBI was on to Clark and put him on a polygraph. He gave "deceptive" answers, according to the affidavit, although he later bragged to Fortuna that he could beat the machine. In later weeks, employees of Sky Bank also noticed that Clark was making cash deposits there, and agents knew he was still making car and loan payments despite being unemployed.
But they needed more to make a case.
They finally got it from Lea in Miami, who had been wondering how her boyfriend was able to pay $1,800 in rent or afford such items as a $3,000 TV, furniture, a dog that cost $1,500 or the engagement ring he bought her.
On Halloween night, she told FBI agents in November, she and Fortuna had gone out. He became belligerent, she said, and spilled the beans about the robbery and how he had drugged her.
He also said he was angry at Clark for withholding $12,000 of the cash and related how he had twice returned to Hermitage to get more of it from Clark's apartment.
On Nov. 8, the FBI wired Lea with a body recorder. At a Miami restaurant, Fortuna related the story again, this time with agents listening in.
A few weeks later, they searched Fortuna's Miami apartment and found cash, $10,000 in traveler's checks and the pricey items Lea had described to them.
A search of Clark's apartment the same day turned up $2,433 in cash and 51 straps that banks use to hold bundles of money. All of them were stamped with a code number from the Sky Bank branch in Greenville.
Faced with the evidence, Clark and Fortuna pleaded guilty.
The two roommates thought of everything -- or believed they did.
Drug the girlfriend with sleeping pills? Check.
Position a getaway car? Check.
Remove the bank's video recorder? Check.
Pitch the clothes in the river? Check.
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania - Jeremy Clark, 33, and Justin Fortuna, 24, did all of that and more last July when they pulled one of the region's single largest bank heists, stealing $144,500 from the vault at Sky Bank in Greenville, Mercer County, where Clark had been the manager.
Most bank robberies net a few thousand dollars, tops. This was big-time.
But all the planning in the world doesn't help if you don't keep your mouth shut.
Fortuna didn't, eventually blabbing the plan to the very girlfriend he had drugged.
She ended up wearing a wire for the FBI in Miami and gave agents and prosecutors, who had suspected Clark and Fortuna from the beginning, the evidence they needed for search warrants and arrests.
This week, the two pals from Hermitage paid the price with prison terms. Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch gave Clark 18 months and Fortuna 15 months.
According to court papers, here's how it all happened:
The two wanted to hit the bank on July 4, but decided to do it July 13. Clark, who had left his job at the bank a month before, knew the security codes to get into the vault. He also knew that lots of cash would be inside for an armored car to pick up later that day.
Fortuna, a salesman and Webmaster at McCandless Ford in Mercer, would provide the getaway car, a Ford Taurus, from his employer's lot. After the heist, he would hightail it to Florida to live with his girlfriend, Lea Clark (no relation to Jeremy Clark), who was in town visiting from her home in Miami.
The roommates were worried about pulling the job with Lea around, but they came up with a plan to use her as an alibi without her knowledge.
The night before the robbery, the three hit the bars and Fortuna slipped some crushed sleeping pills into her beer. That way she would sleep through the night back at their apartment and wake up beside Fortuna the next morning, thinking he had been there all night with her.
Months later, Lea told the FBI, she remembered feeling sleepy but didn't know why.
"She related that she unaccountably got very drowsy at about 2 a.m.," said an FBI affidavit, "although she had not had much to drink."
After the roommates dropped her off at their place, the two drove to the car lot, picked up the Ford Taurus and drove to the bank at about 4:30 a.m. To make the robbery look like a smash-and-grab instead of an inside job, they used a crowbar to break some windows.
Clark went inside the vault and stole the cash while Fortuna acted as the lookout. They made their escape in the Taurus, drove back to the car lot and jumped into Clark's waiting sport utility vehicle. They stuffed their clothes, gloves, the crowbar and the VCR from the bank into a duffel bag, drove to the Shenango River and pitched the bag into the water.
Then they went home with the loot. Clark gave about $6,000 to Fortuna, who quit his job at the dealership without giving notice and flew to Miami with Lea.
Almost immediately, the FBI was on to Clark and put him on a polygraph. He gave "deceptive" answers, according to the affidavit, although he later bragged to Fortuna that he could beat the machine. In later weeks, employees of Sky Bank also noticed that Clark was making cash deposits there, and agents knew he was still making car and loan payments despite being unemployed.
But they needed more to make a case.
They finally got it from Lea in Miami, who had been wondering how her boyfriend was able to pay $1,800 in rent or afford such items as a $3,000 TV, furniture, a dog that cost $1,500 or the engagement ring he bought her.
On Halloween night, she told FBI agents in November, she and Fortuna had gone out. He became belligerent, she said, and spilled the beans about the robbery and how he had drugged her.
He also said he was angry at Clark for withholding $12,000 of the cash and related how he had twice returned to Hermitage to get more of it from Clark's apartment.
On Nov. 8, the FBI wired Lea with a body recorder. At a Miami restaurant, Fortuna related the story again, this time with agents listening in.
A few weeks later, they searched Fortuna's Miami apartment and found cash, $10,000 in traveler's checks and the pricey items Lea had described to them.
A search of Clark's apartment the same day turned up $2,433 in cash and 51 straps that banks use to hold bundles of money. All of them were stamped with a code number from the Sky Bank branch in Greenville.
Faced with the evidence, Clark and Fortuna pleaded guilty.