U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom called it a "classic inside bank job."
Classic? No tunnels, no C-4 slapped on the vault door? In this Wednesday heist, the lens of the security camera wasn't even spray-painted — which was one of the reasons why four Johnson County buddies found themselves in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., just two days later.
"Maybe I'm getting old, but you look awfully young to me," Judge James P. O'Hara told the defendants Friday before reading embezzlement charges against Michael Grace, 20; Brenden L. Connors, 18; David Batson, 20; and Jacob McWhirt, 28.
Indeed, three of the Overland Park suspects could not legally buy a beer with the $62,248 taken from the U.S. Bank at 10100 W. 119th St. in Overland Park.
Two had jobs at AMC's Town Centre 20 theater in Leawood. The other two had worked there but had been terminated recently, AMC officials said.Were all those action movies the inspiration? If so, a rather thin plot in real life is recounted in the court documents:
Grace, a bank teller, was the inside man, according to those documents. He allegedly hatched a plan to stage a kidnapping, bought the materials, recruited the others.
Connors is accused of playing the heavy for the bank surveillance camera, wearing a grim Halloween mask as he forced Grace to open the ATM machine with his bank key. He left his friend with a bloody nose to convince cops, authorities allege.
Among the usual suspects, naturally, is a wheel man, allegedly played by Batson, who got a coded text message that the caper was on.
And finally the bit player, McWhirt, who, although "not comfortable assisting in the actual act of embezzling bank funds," nevertheless allegedly agreed to hide a duffle bag full of money in the trunk of his old Volvo.
Not bad for a high school skit, but FBI agents are harsh critics, and they quickly picked this performance apart.
Read more of this story at KansasCity.com
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