Published: July 15, 2008 11:13 pm            

CNB robbery suspects indicted

FBI: Federal grand jury in Tyler hands down 18 counts in April

It was an e-mail Sgt. Darrell Waller of the Corsicana Police Department had been waiting for — one from the FBI.

Received last week, Waller said it informed him that two suspects in the May 2007 holdup of the Citizen’s National Bank branch were indicted for that robbery as part of an 18-count indictment by a federal grand jury in Tyler.

The CNB branch that was held up is located at West Seventh Avenue and 45th Street. Waller said the indictments were handed down in April, according the July 10th e-mail he received.

“At this time, the trial is set for Sept. 2,” the CPD sergeant said.

Dubbed “The Takeover Bandits” in a Tyler Morning Telegraph article, the two men entered pleas of not guilty to all 18 indictments in a hearing on April 9, some eight days after they were indicted.

The suspects are: Derrick Van Hodges, 34, Paul Edward Thomas, 40. The duo are half-brothers and are accused of robbing the Kelly Tyler Federal Credit Union, the Bank of America in Henderson, the Austin Bank in Troup, the Bank of America in Lufkin and the Citizens National Bank in Crockett as well. They have also been charged with 12 counts of using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence. The government is seeking $179,090 in cash proceeds derived from the robberies. according to an April 10 Morning Telegraph article.

The May 3, 2007 robbery of the Citizen’s National Bank in Corsicana saw two male subjects with handguns enter the branch bank and take a large amount of cash. They fled the scene in a pickup that was later located on what is known as the Oak Valley slab.

Waller said it is believed the suspects had another vehicle stashed there to effect the final stage of their escape.

Corsicana police had participated with a multi-agency task force investigating a string of bank robberies suspected of being done by the same men — a number of robberies believed to be as many as 15.

“The FBI had set up surveillance on these guys,” Waller said. “They got a search warrant for a storage building that uncovered a lot of evidence — marked money, clothes and things — believed to be used in the robberies.”

“This is a task force we had worked with for a while,” he added. “These guys had apparently done a lot of robberies.”

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Loyd Cook may be reached via e-mail at lcook@corsicanadailysun.com

        

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