Former Officer Pleads Guilty to Robberies
Posted on Sep 2, 2009 12:07pm PDT
This past Tuesday, a former police officer in the state of New York pled guilty to robbing a bank twice in 2007. According to reports, Christian A. Torres, was charged with robbery after he held up a Sovereign Bank branch twice in the East Village. It is alleged that Torres received help from a friend, who worked as a teller at the bank.
Torres was arrested in April 2008 in Queens after robbing the bank, which is located near Reading, Pennsylvania. After hearing about Torres' arrest, many of his police colleagues were shocked that they had been working with a serial bank robber.
In May, Torres was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for the robbery in PA. This week, he pled guilty to charges of armed
bank robbery, bank larceny and conspiracy to defraud a bank on both June 8 and November 16, 2007.
During the first robbery, Torres entered the bank and went straight to the window where his friend, Christina Dasrath, was working as a teller. He ordered he to empty her drawer and she proceeded to hand him $16,305 in cash.
Approximately 5 months later, Torres returned to the bank, where employees were in the process of opening the branch. He ordered bank employees to open the door for him. One employee adamantly refused, so Torres threatened to kill him and revealed the black handle of a gun that was tucked inside of his waist band.
After the employees let him in, he proceeded to bind their legs and take their cell phones. He then ordered the employees into the bank's vault, took their keys and managed to steal about $102,000.
Torres will be sentenced on November 6, 2009. He is facing 30 years for his bank fraud conspiracy charge, 25 years for his bank robbery charge and 10 years for his bank larceny charge. He will be sentenced by Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, New York.
If you have been charged with a
theft crime in Manhattan,
click here to find a skilled New York criminal defense lawyer!
