Downtown San Diego
Flights occurred quickly but were violent and “very sophisticated”, according to San Diego prosecutors. On four times between 2019 and 2022, masked armed men burst into the branches of the Bank of the San Diego region, jumped over the counters, forced the storytellers to the threat of firearms to open the chests, filled garbage cans with money, then disappeared in previously stolen splashing cars.
During three of the burglaries, the bandits dragged the storytellers with the hair or struck it with firearms, leading two of the traumatized victims to never return to their work. Planning and violence worked as expected – while the Middle Bank thief realizes with about $ 4,200, according to FBI data, the four burglaries of San Diego brought back to thieves nearly $ 400,000.
But criminal success only lasted so long. Prosecutors said that a man who had participated in at least two of the flights had been shot in Lemon Grove in an incident unrelated about five months after the final breakage. And on Monday, a jury from the San Diego Superior Court admitted Larry Lightning Jr., 45, guilty of 29 crime charges, including accusations of theft, kidnapping and aggression with a deadly weapon.
“Mr. Lightning was the head of all of this,” said deputy prosecutor of district Kristie Nikoletich on Monday.
Although the public defender appointed by the Lightning court said that there was no evidence that his client was the head of the flight crew, the prosecutors said that his actions showed the opposite. He did a robbery by himself, and when he worked with the accomplices, he was the first through the entrance doors and the most violent, Nikoletich told the jury.
“The testimony that was released by the victims at the trial was extremely convincing, and it was obvious the trauma that Larry Lightning inflicted,” said Nikoletich after the trial. “At least two of the victims thought they were going to die because he counted after ordering them to open the safe. Two distinct victims in two separate flights said they imagined their death and said goodbye to their children. ”
Lightning lawyer did not respond to a request for comments on Friday.
At least publicly, the FBI and the other investigation agencies have never given Lightning and its crew one of the catchy nicknames that they sometimes attach to standard banking thieves, such as the nickname “Geezer Bandit” given to a man who held a series of banks between 2009 and 2011 while carrying a realistic mask of an elderly man.
But lightning and its accomplices would be among the most prolific bank thieves in the history of the county.
In 2019, Lightning and two accomplices stole $ 91,297 in an escondido branch. Later that year, Lightning left with $ 58,383 in a Ranch scripps branch. In 2021 and 2022, Lightning and an accomplice stole $ 174,568 in a branch of Kearny Mesa Bank and $ 65,106 in a branch of Carlsbad Bank.
Total socket: $ 389,355.
“It’s an amazing amount,” said Nikoletich.
The prosecutor said that a detective from the San Diego police told the trial that most of the bank thieves demanded money from a cashier at a window while trying to keep a low profile. This tactic can spin thieves as little as a few hundred dollars, according to the judicial archives in other local affairs.
But Nikoletich, who attempted the case with the deputy prosecutor of District Savanah Howe, told the jury that lightning and his crew were “very sophisticated”. She said they had spotted bank branches in advance, choosing unanswered locations close to the highways. She said that evidence during the trial suggested that at least two times, they deliberately hit shortly after the armored trucks have made cash drops. And in the hours or a few days before the flights, they stole vehicles to use as escape cars that they were able to abandon quickly a few kilometers from the crime scene.
But stolen vehicles finally led to the fall of Lightning. “It was his own DNA that finally made him take it,” Nikoletich told the jury. She said the investigators had discovered her DNA in each of the stolen vehicles. Federal research mandates not sealed last year detailed how the investigators were then methodically poured by location recordings of the mobile phone to show that lightning was present at the right times in the areas when the vehicles were stolen, where they were staged, where the flights occurred and where the escape vehicles were abandoned.
The jury noted that Lightning, who had previously spent time in prison for charges related to a 2010 flight, had the first break with two accomplices on May 23, 2019, at the San Diego County Creit Union branch on Center City Parkway near West Conglicita Avenue. The crew supported its SUV of escapade stolen towards the entrance doors, then broke out with fired rifles and their covered faces. They forced a cashier to open the safe under the threat of a weapon, then filled a trash can with money.
Nikoletich said the prosecutors had made no allegation during the trial regarding the identities of the other two suspects in this flight.
The jury found that on November 27, 2019, Lightning acted alone to make a break similar to the California Coast Credit Union branch in a shopping center on Boulevard Mira Mesa just in the east of the Interstate 15. But this time, lightning has deployed real violations, not only threats, when it caught a content in another. He then put his pistol at the head of the second cashier and asked to open the trunk. He then struck the second cashier on the head with his weapon.
Although the similarities between the first two burglaries were obvious at the time, the authorities would not say publicly if they were linked.
Then for more than two years, lightning has not struck. But the jury noted that on December 9, 2021, he and an accomplice looted a branch of California Bank & Trust on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard near the state road 163. Lightning again dragged a cashier by the hair while he and his accomplice have succeeded with the largest score to date – nearly $ 175,000.
Nikoletich said Lightning’s accomplice had made a key error during crime by stealing money from a cashier drawer while lightning was in the safe. The silver of the drawer contained two hidden GPS monitoring devices. Although the bandits finally discovered and rejected the devices on the side of a highway, that the follow -up information allowed investigators to see where the thieves have changed the crack vehicle and where they headed immediately after, allowing them to match the cell phone recordings more to strengthen their file against the two suspects.
The jury found that almost a year later, on November 8, 2022, Lightning and an accomplice stole the employees with a California Bank & Trust branch on Palomar Airport Road near El Camino Real. Lightning caught a cashier with the hair and tried to slam his head in the safe before hitting her with her weapon.
The prosecutors allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly and during the trial that the accomplice of Lightning during the last two flights was Gregory Moore, who was shot down on March 18, 2023 in Lemon Grove. Moore has never been charged. Prosecutors do not believe that the shooting was linked to flights.
About a month later, in early May 2023, the investigators obtained an arrest warrant against Lightning. A Swat team from the Sheriff’s Department of the County Riverside arrested him in a house in Moreno Valley.
Lightning should be sentenced in June. He risks 25 years for life imprisonment with several charges dealing with each of the 12 victims.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
