Man Arrested After Bragging About Unsolved Robbery on Talk-Radio Show

LTB logo

Last April, six men robbed a bank in South Chicago and got away with over $80,000. Police were unable to find any of the culprits, until one of them called a talk-radio show from his own cellphone to brag about the robbery.

In a criminal complaint that was unsealed this week, police said they were notified of the call by WKSC-FM, which provided them with the caller’s cellphone number and a recording of the call. The caller discussed numerous details of the crime, including the amount of money taken, and mentioned a variety of stores where the men had spent some of the money. “The details he provided [on the air] were incredibly helpful in moving this investigation forward,” stated (or understated) an assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the case. The caller was arrested February 17. One of the other men was arrested in Dallas, and police are still looking for the other four. After blabbing on the air, the guy is probably lucky the cops found him first instead of his five buddies.

Of course, he has an explanation for how this is all a big misunderstanding. He says he called the radio station to win a prize. Well, that could explain how they got your cellphone number, but I’m not sure it explains the recording of your voice giving details of the robbery, unless the contest was called “Call In and Describe a Crime That You Heard Was Committed by Somebody Else As If You Were That Person.”

UPDATE: The non-prize-winner later (and not surprisingly) pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the investigation, according to this report. He and two of his partners were sentenced to 40 months each.