Three banks, 30 minutes -- plus a baseball cap and sunglasses -- is all it took a Florida mom to raise the dough she needed to throw her daughter a graduation party, and have a little left for the rent.
In fact, though neophyte bank-robber Cindy Carabeo handed tellers threatening notes if they didn’t fork over cash, she didn’t even have to invest in a loaded firearm to successfully pull off her heists.
“Should you not follow these instructions you will meet your maker,” one of Carabeo’s scary notes read. “I will not hesitate to SHOOT!”
Unfortunately, the rather daring plan was foiled when a red dye-pack strategically burst in her vehicle on the way home, exposing the unemployed mom as a pretty crummy crook.
The 50-year-old held up a neighborhood BB&T Bank, a Florida Central Credit Union and a Wells Fargo within only a half-hour time span, but had no prior criminal history before embarking on the speed-crime. So she wouldn’t have been a likely suspect.
But, once a stolen money bag did explode, police then simply had to follow the telltale paint trail to the robber’s residence where, fifteen minutes later, she was under arrest.
This week, Cindy Carabeo finally pleaded guilty on bank robbery charges, for which she could be sentenced now to twenty years in a federal prison.
No major celebration is in the works.
