NEW YORK BANK ROBBERY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 125, 11 March 1950, Page 5

NEW YORK BANK ROBBERY

64,000 Dollars Taken By Gunmen , » i NEW YORK, March 9. Five gunmen robbed the Long Island City branch of the Manufacturers’ Trust Bank of 64,000 dollars in cash to-day, and escaped. The gunmen, three of them working in the building while two others kept, guard outside, held 17 employees at gunpoint while waiting for the vault time lock to open, when they grabbed three cash boxes and fled. None of the bandits was masked.

Eleven of the employees of the bank identified the leader as the notorious Willie Sutton from rogues’ gallery photographs. The robbery was the first in a New York City bank in several years. Sutton, aged 49, known as “Willie the Actor,” and “Slick Willie,” is one of the most notorious bandits in the country. He escaped from the Pennsylvanian State Prison in 1947 while serving 30 to 60 years for armed robbery. In to-day’s hold-up the robbers entered the bank as the first employee unlocked the door to report for work. -They chained him to a big steam radiator. As the other employees reported for duty they were herded into the basement.

The telephone, operator was sent to her switchboard with the warning: “Seventeen lives are at stake. Don’t make a mistake.”

A postman, Nicholas Sudano, knocked at the door and asked what was going on. A gunman replied: “Never mind what’s going on, Bud.- You’re in it now.” Sudano, his curiosity more than satisfied, was taken down to the basement.