Third man indicted in suspected bank robbery ring

ST. LOUIS -- A man once imprisoned for his role in a staged armored car holdup was indicted Thursday in a series of bank robberies in which employees were abducted as family and friends were held hostage or threatened.

The indictment returned against Andre Worthy names the 25-year-old St. Louis man as a co-defendant in the robberies of local Firstar banks in February 2000 and on June 2 of this year.

Worthy is accused of conspiring with co-defendant Kenneth Coleman, 26, to commit armed bank robberies since at least September 1999, 13 months before federal prosecutors say 27-year-old Orlando Willis joined in the plot.

All three are charged federally of conspiring to commit bank robbery and of weapons counts. Coleman and Worthy are charged with armed bank robbery in the June 2 holdup. Coleman, originally charged five days after that holdup, also is accused in a Firstar robbery Feb. 22, 2000. Willis also is accused of aiding in armed bank robbery.

On Wednesday, Worthy was sentenced to three years and four months in federal prison for being a felon in possession of a .45-caliber pistol found in his car when arrested June 7 as a suspect in the holdups.

In August 1998, Worthy was sentenced to a year and 10 months in federal prison for his role as the getaway driver in the staged holdup of an armored car outside a McDonald's restaurant in Lemay five months earlier.

Workers kidnapped

In the bank robberies in question, federal authorities said female bank workers were kidnapped at gunpoint, often from their homes, and ordered to open vaults at a banks run by Firstar or Mercantile Bank, which later merged with Firstar. In each case, another gunman held relatives or a roommate hostage or threatened to harm the worker's children.

No one was seriously hurt.

About 2:30 a.m. June 2, authorities said, three gunmen broke into the home of a Firstar Bank assistant manager in south St. Louis County, tying up the woman's husband and two teen-age children and a third teen-ager spending the night.

Two of the gunmen took the woman to a local Firstar Bank, but she could not open the vault because it required two employees' keys, investigators said.

She was tied up with duct tape and a phone cord before the two men left, as did the third man from the woman's home.

Court papers have alleged that Coleman was one of the kidnappers who took the woman to the bank, where the robbers deactivated alarms and closed the blinds before trying to open the vault.

The robbers also struck the woman in the head and took a surveillance camera tape with them before bolting, according to court records. The woman identified Coleman in a lineup five days later, authorities said.

In the holdup Feb. 22 of last year, investigators said, another Mercantile worker was abducted from her Northwoods apartment and was taken to a bank as the victim's roommate was held hostage. The two men wore fake beards and wigs and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.