Losing Numbers : License Plates Trip Up Suspects in 2 Bank Robberies

Within minutes of bank robberies Wednesday in Los Alamitos and Orange, police arrested two suspects and recovered the stolen money, thanks in part to alert bank employees who spotted license numbers of the getaway vehicles.

But in Los Alamitos, the arrest came after a fleeing suspect tossed dye-stained cash from a booby-trapped bundle of bills out the window of his car as he sped along, police said.

The Los Alamitos incident occurred about 11:40 a.m. when three tellers at Harbor Bank, 5252 Katella Ave., gave a knife-wielding robber about $5,600 in cash, including a packet rigged to explode with red dye if taken from the bank, according to police and bank President Robert Turicchi.

A bank employee got the robber’s license number as he drove away and an officer spotted the vehicle traveling westbound on Katella, where “the suspect (was) throwing bundles of money out the driver’s window,” Lt. Gary Biggerstaff said. He said police stopped the car and arrested Steven Moss, 23, of Compton on suspicion of bank robbery.

Meanwhile, onlookers were helping other police officers pick up the discarded cash along Katella Avenue. But one man, identified as Alfred Robin, 59, of Anaheim, attempted to run off with some of the money, police said, and was chased on foot by Patrolman Rod McKenzie, who arrested him on suspicion of receiving stolen property and theft.

Robin later complained of chest pains and was taken to Los Alamitos Medical Center, where a spokesman said he was “stabilized and released.”

Also transported to that hospital was an unidentified 50-year-old employee of the bank who suffered an apparent heart attack during the holdup, police said. She was reported in serious but stable condition Wednesday night, police said.

Moments before the Los Alamitos robbery, a man handed a teller a note demanding cash at the Farmers and Merchants Bank at 1220 E. Katella Ave. in Orange and fled with an undetermined amount of money, Orange police said.

But an unidentified bank employee, driving his own car, followed the suspect’s white pickup from the bank onto the Costa Mesa Freeway long enough to get the license number, Detective Mike Pera said. Although the bank employee lost the suspect when the truck pulled off the freeway at Lincoln Avenue, within minutes a motorcycle officer spotted the truck parked in a field at the intersection of Lincoln with Orange-Olive Road, Pera said.

Thomas E. Stoffel, 46, of San Juan Capistrano was arrested on suspicion of bank robbery after police observed him looking under the truck’s hood, apparently to work on the engine, Pera said. An undisclosed amount of cash was recovered, and witnesses to the robbery were brought to the scene where they identified Stoffel and the vehicle, Pera said.