'Tri-Cities Bandit,' Suspected Accomplice Charged
Posted by Daniel Antolin on Aug 24, 2011 - 10:45:46 PM
Ernest Ivar Viana. Photos courtesy of FBI.
BRENTWOOD—On Tuesday, August 23, a man who has been tied to 10 bank heists in eight cities including Brentwood since mid June was formally charged along with his alleged getaway driver with bank robbery and aiding and abetting, respectively.
Ernest Ivar Viana, 39, and Oleg Gorokhovsky, 42, were present at the United States Central District Court before federal magistrate judge John E. McDermott as Special FBI Agent Christine Nicole Black filed a criminal complaint against them. They did not enter a plea.
"The judge also remanded both to federal custody so they were denied bail," FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller told Canyon News.
Malibu/Lost Hills police announced on August 20 that Viana, a resident of Redway, Calif., was arrested by sheriff's deputies after investigators connected him to the robbery of a First California Bank in Westlake Village on August 19 at 11:40 a.m. This is the 10th bank robbery authorities suspect Viana committed.
During each of the 10 robberies, Viana allegedly entered the banks, handed tellers notes demanding money in $100 and $50 bills and kept conversation limited, an earlier police press release states. He dressed in buttoned-down shirts or jersey-style shirts and began to wear sunglasses during the more recent bank robberies.
In an interview with Gorokhovsky after his arrest, Black deduced that Viana would often wear long-sleeved shirts that belonged to Gorokhovsky to hide his tattoos. Viana also never targeted banks that used glass walls to separate tellers from clients. Viana would also take the business card-sized, line paper notes he wrote in pencil in all capital letters with him in order to keep police from using them to derive his fingerprints. Then Viana would throw notes out of the getaway vehicle's window.
According to the criminal complaint, Viana told Gorokhovsky that morning to take the I-101 Freeway, get off at Westlake Boulevard past a golf course, where they targeted the first bank they saw. Viana entered the west doors of First California Bank in Westlake Village, but ignored the assistant branch manager, who asked if he needed assistance, and walked straight to a teller window. The branch manager, suspicious of how quiet Viana was at the window, asked another teller to approach him and ask if he needed assistance.
Thereafter, Viana left the bank with the money in both hands through the same west doors from which he entered and turned south toward Agoura Road. The assistant branch manager immediately shut the doors and put out a crime broadcast to police. After crossing the street, Viana got into a white Volkswagen Jetta with Gorokhovsky in the driver's seat, and they both sped away. He stole $5,850 during the robbery, which took about 30 seconds.
While driving on the I-101 Freeway, police started chasing the getaway vehicle. Viana instructed Gorokhovsky to keep driving while the former jumped in the back seat and gave the money to the latter, who instead decided to stop and give up. During their arrest, police found $700 in Gorokhovsky's front left pants pocket. The suspected getaway driver has since said he accepts responsibility for his actions and feels very bad for having committed them.
Viana was arrested on August 19 at 1:30 p.m. and booked at 2:05 p.m. at the aforementioned police station on bank robbery suspicion, booking details indicate.
Gorokhovsky was previously arrested on June 18 at 4:20 p.m. by the LAPD West Valley Division and later booked at 5:55 p.m. at the Van Nuys Jail on an unspecified misdemeanor, booking details indicate. He was released on July 19 on $6,660 bail, one month before he was arrested along with Viana.
"They are being held at the
Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles," Eimiller said.
He later told FBI he did not know Viana was going to rob the bank, but he also said that this was a topic of at least two prior conversations between the two. One conversation was casual weeks after Viana had sold drugs to Gorokhovsky. Robbing banks was a quick and easy process, Viana told Gorokhovsky during this chat. And the other conversation, which took place during the morning of the West Lake Village bank job, involved Viana telling Gorokhovsky that they were going to drive to a bank to rob it.
In addition to providing the aforementioned details of the robbery, Gorokhovsky said he was able to remember driving Viana to four or five other bank heists in Tarzana, Pasadena, La Verne and Chino Hills. But Gorokhovsky said that his use of drugs, which includes methamphetamines, makes it difficult for him to remember the details.
Other banks Viana is suspected of robbing are located in the cities of Burbank, Glendale, Los Angeles and Brentwood. After the first three robberies in Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena, authorities dubbed the man responsible the "Tri-Cities Bandit."
The Brentwood robbery occurred at the Grandpoint bank located at 11661 San Vicente Blvd. on August 12. Crime report data indicates that the bank robbery occurred on that date at 4:45 p.m. Black believes that the man who she has seen in surveillance video photo stills from the bank and others positively matches Viana's description. And the assistant branch manager and two tellers from the First California Bank in Westlake Village have also identified Viana in live and photo line-ups.
Police earlier released details indicating that Viana was seen by witnesses leaving U.S. Bank located at 1900 E. Foothill Blvd. in La Verne on August 17 and getting into a white, later model four-door Volkswagen Passat-style vehicle driven by another man. Though witnesses could not physically describe this second man.
-
Serving Bel Air, Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills. Brentwood, Laurel Canyon, Los Feliz, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Melrose, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Topanga, Canyon, Westwood & Hollywood Hills.
