ARVADA, Colo.—Two stories of the odd and unusual in financial services have attracted some attention.
First, a Colorado man who served a decade-and-a-half prison sentence and wrote a book about his experience may be headed back to prison.
Charles Christopher Martinez was arrested on bank robbery charges, CBS News reported. The 48-year-old Arvada resident is suspected of being the person who held up the US Bank on Colorado Boulevard in Denver three days earlier.
Authorities say that robber, dressed in a bright orange jacket with “Tech Ops” wording on the back, demanded money from a teller and ran away. The jacket was found by responding officers, CBS News said.
The Denver Police Department and the FBI local office distributed surveillance photos of the robber hours after the incident.
‘Life of an Outlaw’
An FBI spokesperson confirmed for CBS Colorado that Martinez was previously incarcerated for bank robbery in Colorado. He was also identified as the author of “The Life Of An Outlaw” published in 2018, according to the report, which said the crime biography detailed Martinez’s bank robbery conviction. It also talked about the criminal gang connections he used to survive detention in “some of the most ruthless and bloody prisons the American Justice system has to offer,” as stated on the book’s website, CBS News said.
Martinez later published at least one additional crime-based fiction novel before his recent arrest, the report added.
Martinez is currently in the Denver Jail awaiting a Feb. 3 court hearing on state charges. Bank robbery, however, is a federal offense, and the case will likely be transferred to a federal court in Denver, CBS News stated.
Deer Causes Mayhem in Branch
Separately, in Suffolk County, N.Y., police responding to a burglar alarm at a local bank discovered a fully grown male deer trapped inside and trashing the branch, with the whole thing caught on video.
“The deer was not charged in this case, he lives to break it to another bank on another day,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said, according to the New York Post.. “I think it just goes to show, like, you know, what cops and cats are on a daily basis — you never know what your day is going to bring you.”
The mayhem unfolded on Sunday when police responded to a possible burglary at a Webster Bank branch in the Long Island hamlet of Ridge and found a window smashed and an intruder inside — a frightened buck thrashing around to try to break free, footage posted by cops on Instagram shows, the Post said.
‘Quite a Mess’
“As the deer frantically attempted to escape on its own — leaving quite a mess in the process — officers were able to safely lasso the animal and guide him to freedom,” police said in the post.
Five Suffolk cops were involved in the hunt to “get this deer headed in the right direction.”
A video of the deer in the branch can be viewed here.
