Great Escape From The Bank

By Jay Goodman

I have written several chapters called great escape where I poked fun at some moments in my life we are law-enforcement had me dead to the right, but I was able to somehow slip away and do it in such a way that looking back at it now it’s funny how everything played out.

I could never begin to tell everyone reading this how blessed I feel to have survived all the crazy moments I went through. They say God gives us an angel to watch over us through our lives. Well, let me assure everyone my angel has worked overtime. To tell the story I have to go back in time, when I was younger, I was arrested for smuggling marijuana and sent to federal prison for 5 1/2 years. Federal prison is much Different from state prisons. The people are in prison for breaking the law in both state and federal but in federal it’s a completely different breed of people. While in federal prison I met people from all over the world and from every walk of life. You will see people in federal prison that you would never dream that these people would end up in prison. I meant FBI agents, DEA, US marshals, lawyers, judges, doctors, bankers, and mafia Don’s.

Also, in federal prison there’s a lot of people who pulled off some big crimes, I’m talking multimillion-dollar scams. I laugh at a lot of the people I’ve met in state prisons that call themselves gangsters. I have met a few but as of a whole most state prisoners want to be looked at as this but in reality, they are just low-level criminals.

Another thing I’ve seen, people in state prisons have it in their minds that tattoos make them look gangster. I always thought this was odd, because I believe tattoos make you stick out. It’s easy for most people to look at someone and tell this guy has been to prison. When you meet people in federal prison that were literally making millions of dollars, you would’ve never guessed that this guy had pulled off some of the biggest jobs in American history.

Which leads me to my story. I showed up at a federal prison and was put in the sale with a man who used to be a bank president of a chain of banks. The first day I met this man I could tell he was really good people. He was around 60 years old, in great shape, been married to the same woman for 40 years, and they had three kids, and a grandchild on the way. As time passed and we became friends eventually I started telling him stories about my trips to Mexico. We drink cups of coffee and laugh, and he started telling me stories about how he had stolen nearly $7000,000 over the 20 years he worked as a bank president. Naturally intrigued by how much money he had taken, and of course how much money are inside of banks, I started asking him questions about robbing banks. My sellers name was Cory, and he came from a good family. He went to Harvard College, and was very intelligent. But I soon would learn that from the day he started working as a bank president, he began planning to rob it. So, when I asked him questions about how to rob banks, he was more than willing to tell me. Corey and I would be Sally’s over the next three years, and he would tell me things about banks that most people don’t know. So, I took the information he gave me and decided to try my hand at it when I left prison. My thought was to take the money I got from banks and fly to Mexico and buy marijuana. Which I did for a very long time, it all seem to work out beautifully.

But, like with any business there will be problems from time to time. I naturally understood how banks worked and operated inside and out thanks to my silly Cory, so for many years I was in and out without so much as one bit of trouble. But like I said that was fixing to change, I guess the hand of fate decided that I had things way too easy, and decided to teach me a lesson that I would never forget. Like with anything else in life, once you do it enough you will get comfortable. And the more comfortable you become the more likely you are to make a Mistake.

I walked into this bank late in the afternoon while they were at their busiest time, walk straight to the bank president’s office and informed him this was a robbery. We then walked to the counter together where he went to the money drawer and bought me all of the 20s, 50s and 100s, I put the money in a shopping bag and I carried with me from Macy’s department store. Then I left the counter in an hour as I was about to leave the bank a lady was coming inside and said hello to me I turn my head for one moment to look at this lady who spoke to me, and walk straight into a man who was holding a cup of coffee. Since I hit him, most of this coffee hit him, but what little hit me, I could feel how hot it was. Boy was this guy pissed. His first words to me were “you stupid S.O.B.!” Can you imagine the situation I’m facing, I just robbed this bank I’m sure the bank president has already pushed the alarm so I’m trying to reason with him. Sir, I am terribly sorry, I know it was careless of me to not pay attention to where I was going. I reached inside my bag and took out a $100 bill and said “here you go sir this should be way more than cover getting your shirt cleaned.” I was thinking that should make him happy. But to my surprise, he smacked my hand away and started calling me all kinds of four-letter words. Then I smelled it, this guy in drunk. My first thought was to just run, but once again I tried to reason with him. “Sir, please know I’m sorry.” I tried to still give him the money even the woman that was with him said to take the money. But again, he starts calling me all kinds a four-letter words. So, I put the hundred back into my bag and started walking away. This guy grabbed a hold of the bag and torn in half. $75,000 still on the floor once again my instinct told me to run and just leave it. After all I know the police are on their way. But my greed took over so I bent down and started putting the money down my shirt, in my jacket, anywhere and everywhere I could shove it. Next thing I know this idiot hits me and I fell backwards. Right now, I’m in a rage so I pulled my pistol out jumped up so fast he was not ready for it. I hit them straight between his eyes and dropped him. I asked the lady who was with him “do you like this guy?” She answered “yes, he is my brother.” I said “okay, because if he hits me one more time, I’m going to shoot him in his ass.” Once again, I’m thinking just run, leave it. But again, the greed takes over. I’ve been down and get the rest of the money, walk to the front of the building go into the parking lot. I would usually just slowly walk away trying not to draw any attention to myself. But because so much time went by I took off to a dead run. As I was running between the parked cars and a motorcycle cop pulls right in front of me. I slid through a stop, he breaks to a stop, and for a moment we just looked at each other. In my mind, I’m thinking this freaking day get any worse?

Now I’m thinking what am I going to do? So, I started waving at the police officer to come here, he looks at me for a moment and shakes his head no. Then he motioned for me to come to him so I watch straight to him and said you were not going to believe this server but there’s two men robbing the bank. He tells me, I know someone inside push the alarm. Now he gets on the radio and here comes one, two, three, police cars. And here I stood the “Bank Robber.” He asked “what kind of gun do they have.” I said “it looks like AK-47s.” He looks at the other officers and said “oh my God.”

By now the people inside the bank are looking out the windows, no doubt wondering what the hell is going on. They had to be thinking why the hell are they arresting him. By now there’s too many police officers to even count. A lot of them are in the hood of their cars with their guns pointing at the building. Which made me happy, because the people that were looking out the windows got scared and left. Finally, this cop said to me “sir it’ll probably be a lot safer for you if you wait over beside the building next to the door.” I said “I believe you’re right.” As I walked away, I look back one more time as these police officers running in every direction trying to set up when the to bank robbers with AK-47s run out. As I rounded the corner and took off running, I was saying if you hail Mary’s at how everything played out. When I got inside my car and started to drive away. I reached inside the cooler I kept with me, and took out a beer and opened it. By the time I got back to my hotel and walked inside my room, I was on beer number two. I pulled out all the money on my bed and smiled. I wondered how long it took the police to figure out that I was the bank robber? Then I remembered years before this my son and I had escaped a hotel room in Mexico, and we made it back to the US my son was so happy that we I escaped a whole parking lot full of police that he said “my God, dad, you are a genius.” I smiled as I remembered. And thought to myself there might be a little truth to that.