Federal prosecutors have charged an Arizona man with the Feb. 16 holdup of the Park Avenue branch of U.S. Bank and investigators claim he and another man are responsible for 15 other bank robberies in the region.
Joel Glore, who is 51 years old and from Show Low, Ariz., faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if he is convicted. Prosecutors charged another man, Ronald Capito, who is 52 years old and from the same city, with the same counts. Capito is not suspected in the Park City holdup, but a spokesperson for the FBI in Salt Lake City said the investigation is continuing.
The prosecutors charged Glore with eight counts of armed bank robbery, the FBI office in Phoenix said in a prepared statement. The authorities say the two are believed to be the bank robbers known as the ‘High Country Bandits.’ They are being held pending trial.
They have targeted banks in Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, with the robberies occurring between September 2009 and February 2010, the FBI said in the statement.
Glore took approximately $10,200 in the U.S. Bank holdup in Park City, prosecutors said in a charging document filed in Salt Lake City. According to the charging document, Glore went inside the bank at approximately 4:17 p.m. wearing dark clothes, gloves and sunglasses.
A teller called the man forward asking Glore if he could help him, the prosecutors said, indicating Glore then said something similar to “Yes, you can help me by filling the bags with money from both drawers” as he put two bags on the teller’s counter.
The teller hesitated briefly but then did so when Glore pulled out a semi-automatic handgun from his waist, the prosecutors said. The charging document said Glore got $8,200 from the teller and then moved to another teller, who handed over $2,008. He pointed the gun at three people during the holdup, the prosecutors said. He told the people in the bank to get onto the floor and then fled, according to the charging document.
The police quickly arrived at the bank, but officers did not find the suspect during a dragnet that extended to the Park City entryways. A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix indicated that the bank robber sometimes fled with another person on an all-terrain vehicle.
Investigators found similarities between the Park City holdup and the others, and, through subpoenas, obtained cell phone records showing which phone numbers were in use near the Arizona banks that had been robbed. The prosecutors said two cell phones — those with Glore and Capito’s numbers — were in use in the vicinity when the banks were robbed.
A photo lineup was developed, and witnesses at the Park City bank picked Glore’s picture from the lineup, the charging document said. The authorities arrested the two in northern Arizona.
Police Chief Wade Carpenter has said Park City Police Department provided video footage from the U.S. Bank holdup to assist with the federal investigation. He called them “serial bank robbers” after they were captured.