Proof Anyone Can Rob a Bank

"Hey," my girlfriend texted me one spring morning in 2013, "I think my bank got robbed."

She was letting me know she was OK, but also figured that as as a crime reporter here in the greater Philadelphia area, I might appreciate the tip. She'd gone to the bank up the street from us to make a deposit, saw a bunch of cops outside the building, and figured someone had probably just made a withdrawal of the exceptionally illegal kind.

She was right. Had she been inside the bank that morning, she would have seen a burly man clad in a suit and tie, green latex gloves, and an alarming Elephant Man-like hood over his head stroll in with a black semi-automatic pistol in one hand and a drawstring bag in the other, order everyone to hit the ground, and make off with close to $30,000 in cash.

He'd done this before, investigators later determined. The FBI connected him to several prior armed bank robberies in Bucks and Montgomery counties—suburban and semi-rural areas north of Philly—beginning in June 2012. Several similar robberies occurred later in 2013. The feds believed it was the same guy due to his "signature," including a penchant for distinctive masks and headwear that led authorities to dub him the "Straw Hat Bandit," a nod to the hat he wore during the first robbery in his alleged spree.

By last July the "Straw Hat Bandit" was a suspect in nearly a dozen bank robberies in a roughly 30-mile radius. His folksy nickname belied the fear he'd instilled in small communities that wondered when and where he might strike next.

"Fortunately, during the 11 robberies, no shots have been fired. However, we feel that it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt," intoned FBI agent Christian Zajac at a mid-October press conference urging the public to help identify a man believed to be "hiding in plain sight."

On April 20, a suspect in the prolific "Straw Hat Bandit" robberies was finally unmasked. The US Justice Department announced that 57-year-old Richard Boyle—owner of a flailing aerial photography business run out of his home in the Patriots Ridge section of moderately affluent Plumstead Township—had been indicted by a grand jury for the four-year robbery spree that allegedly netted him close to a half-million dollars.

As the local TV news crews converged on Boyle's modest townhouse, some neighbors expressed shock that such a major criminal might have been living right in their midst, recalling how they'd amiably chatted with him about the Philadelphia Eagles and whatnot. But those who really knew Boyle couldn't have been too surprised. After all, this wasn't his first rodeo.

According to newly filed court documents, Boyle's life of crime began in 2007, when he was arrested in western Pennsylvania for stealing a woman's purse while working as a photographer at a graduation ceremony, then using her credit cards to purchase hundreds of dollars' worth of merchandise, for which he was convicted.

On May 4 of that year, Boyle walked into a bank three miles from his home and—sans gun or mask—politely asked the teller to hand over some cash, prosecutors said. He fled with nearly $3,500. Over the next nine months, he robbed seven other banks, none further than 26 miles from where he lived, in similar fashion. His biggest score was about $38,000, the day after Christmas. But his next robbery was his last, at least for a while. On February 12, 2008, witnesses got the license plate of the BMW in which Boyle was speeding away from a bank in Bucks County with $11,000 in stolen cash, and he was arrested later that day.

Boyle confessed to eight robberies in which he'd deprived the banks of more than $100,000. The case was prosecuted locally, rather than federally, and Boyle—who pleaded guilty to two-dozen felony counts and had faced up to 160 years behind bars—was sentenced to three and a half to ten years in state prison. The judge said he went relatively easy on Boyle, who tearfully apologized to his victims and his family at his sentencing hearing, in part because he hadn't used a gun during the robberies, according to newspaper accounts at the time.

Boyle was released from prison in August 2011, several months after telling the Pennsylvania Parole Board that "the first bank I robbed was out of panic of losing my house, but I believe the other robberies occurred because of greed and laziness."

Already saddled with $100,000-plus in restitution to the banks he'd robbed, and facing eviction in May 2012 after falling behind in his rent to the tune of nearly $9,000, prosecutors allege that on June 8 of that year, Boyle donned a mask and straw hat, grabbed a gun, and allegedly went back to a life of crime, holding up a bank about 14 miles from his home, taking off with close to $50,000 in cash.

"What happened, of course, was that he went to prison, which is a finishing school for robbers, and he really learned his trade," argues retired FBI agent Bill Rehder, who during his long career spent nearly two decades overseeing the Bureau's Bank Robbery Squad in Los Angeles. "Everyone shares notes, because what else are you gonna talk about? I'm sure he learned just how much more money he could have been making with just one robbery, and how to spread [the robberies] out."

Rehder, who now provides security and safety consulting services to financial institutions and was once described as "America's secret weapon in the war against bank robbers" by CBS, says that a person who goes into a bank without a gun and robs one teller gets on average between $2,000 and $2,500. But a takeover bandit with a gun can average $25,000 or more per heist while "throwing a hell of a scare into everybody," he says.

Indeed, Boyle graduated to a more methodical and terror-filled approach this go-around, according to investigators—ordering bank tellers and customers to the floor or into a back room at gunpoint, then forcing employees to open vaults and ATMs. And sometimes he went as long as six months between heists, particularly after a big score, like the $90,000 he allegedly took from a bank in January 2015.

During his second spree, prosecutors say, Boyle was laundering some of his ill-gotten cash proceeds through Sky Eye View, a drone photography front business he'd fibbed to his parole officer was earning "substantial" legit income but had actually generated less than $2,000 in total revenue.

It wasn't the hats that ultimately led investigators to Boyle again—according to the feds, he'd had gotten in the habit of placing 9-1-1 hoax calls just prior to his robberies in order to distract local police, yet another tactic Rehder's sure Boyle picked up in the pen. But FBI agents managed to trace the calls, and that, as they say, was that.

Through a spokesperson, the FBI declined to comment on further details of the investigation—including whether Boyle had been suspected in the "Straw Hat Bandit" robberies early on in the spree given his status as a convicted bank robber who had previously operated in the same area.

"I'm guessing if they really did have him as a suspect, they would have had him under surveillance, and it didn't sound like they did," says Rehder, who noted that since 9/11 and the subsequent focus on anti-terrorism efforts, "bank robberies in various FBI jurisdictions have taken very much of a back seat; it's the lowest-priority matter the Bureau now handles."

Still, Boyle—who has pleaded not guilty in this latest case—is being prosecuted federally this time, and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 232 years in prison if convicted.

That is plenty of time to earn an advanced degree in bank robbery, though Boyle is highly unlikely to get the chance to apply that knowledge in the real world.

Follow Michael Goldberg on Twitter.