From Ed Fletcher:
In hindsight, maybe an Indian casino isn't the spot to celebrate a bank heist.
A Thunder Valley Casino employee earlier this month was presented with a $500 reward after his tip lead to the arrest and conviction of a local bank robber dubbed the "Stuffed Shirt Bandit."
So named because of his practice of stuffing his shirt with his bank loot, Scott Stewart Singewald, 42, of Roseville, on Sept. 5 pled guilty to robbing seven Northern California banks.
The banks hit included:
• The June 11 robbery of River City Bank in Roseville,
• The June 20 stick up of the Bank of the West in Carmichael and,
• The June 23 robbery of the Well Fargo Bank in Lincoln.
After seeing media coverage of the Lincoln robbery where a man wearing a dark hat and a loud Hawaiian shirt (right photo) made off with $11,375, the tipster rushed back to work.
"He just stuck in his mind from the day before," said Dee Dee Gunther, a spokeswoman for the Roseville Police Department. "There was something that just made him remember him."
It's unclear whether Singewald gambled with his ill-gotten gains.
Using casino surveillance footage, the unnamed tipster and casino staff identified the suspect's vehicle and turned the information over to the police.
The local and federal officials teamed up to arrest Singewald on June 26 without incident at a Roseville hotel.
Singewald pleaded guilty to seven counts of bank robbery and was sentenced to 97 months in prison.
Roseville Police chief Mike Blair called the case a "great example" of law enforcement partnership."
"We are indebted to Thunder Valley Casino for their outstanding cooperation in this case, to their employee who went beyond the call of duty to help identify a criminal," Blair said.
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