would you be better at getting a way with a crime than this bank robber?

from philly burbs

Police: Suspect took same taxi twice
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By: MATT COUGHLIN
Bucks County Courier Times

A man who robbed a Bensalem bank Friday wasn't the first bank robber to use a taxi, but he might be the first to use the same cab again the next day.

Bensalem police said Saturday that John Anthony Chiartas, 31, a homeless heroin addict, didn't even change his clothes when he got back into the same cab with the same driver nearly 24 hours after robbing the TD Bank on Street Road.

The story starts about 4 p.m. Friday when Chiartas hailed a cab at the Franklin Mills Mall and got a ride to the TD Bank on the 2700 block of Street Road, according to court records. He went into the bank, wearing a white baseball cap and dark jacket with a white hooded sweatshirt underneath, and handed the teller a demand note stating he would shoot her if she didn't give him the money, police said. He fled in the silver cab with about $1,000, police said.

Police interviewed the driver and got a description of their suspect.

Saturday morning an anonymous caller saw the suspect's picture in the newspaper and told police Chiartas' name. Detectives found his last known address was a vacant apartment in the Creekside Apartment complex on Knights Road. He wasn't there, but squatters told detectives he'd planned to rob a bank, police said.

At 3:45 p.m. the cab driver called police. He'd just dropped the same man in the same clothes off near a restaurant in the Franklin Mills Mall, according to court records. Police arrested Chiartas at the mall and he later confessed to the bank robbery and a November retail theft in Bensalem as well, according to court records.

Chiartas was arraigned by District Judge Michael Burns and sent to prison on $150,000 bail on the robbery charges and $25,000 bail on the retail theft case. Chiartas has at least two retail theft cases pending in Philadelphia court. He's previously pleaded guilty to robbery in 1996 and retail theft in 2005.

Police said Chiartas, a heroin addict, didn't have a gun on him when he was arrested. They also said they haven't found the money, but believe it may have already been spent.