Wheelchair-Bound Man Charged With Second Queens Bank Robbery
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A wheelchair-bound man has been charged for the second time in less than a year with robbing a bank in Queens, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Kelvin Dennison, 23, was awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court Tuesday on third-degree robbery charges, according to the office of Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown.
In the latest case, Dennison was accused of entering the TD Bank branch at 41-01 Queens Blvd. in Sunnyside, Queens early this past Monday afternoon. He approached a teller window and handed the teller a note saying: "Give me $20,000. I have a bomb. I will shoot," prosecutors said.
When the teller allegedly handed Dennison over a sum of cash, he left the bank and fled south on Queens Boulevard, prosecutors said.
Dennison was also arrested on July 1 of last year and charged with robbing the Santander Bank branch at 37-10 Broadway in Sunnyside, Queens. Two days earlier at 2 p.m., Dennison allegedly handed a teller a note reading: "Give me all you have. I have a gun," and made off with $1,200, prosecutors said.
On Sept. 4 of last year, Dennison, who was in jail in lieu of $15,000 bond in the June case, appeared before Acting Queens County Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin Brandt and entered into a conditional felony and misdemeanor disposition, prosecutors said. He was released from court and taken to the Fortune Academy, a residential facility for inpatient mental health treatment, prosecutors said.
Under the deal, Dennison was to remain at the Fortune Academy for mental health treatment for a minimum of one year, prosecutors said.
If he had stuck to the program, Dennison would have been sentenced to two years' probation on misdemeanor charge rather than one to three years in prison on the felony charge from the earlier bank robbery, prosecutors said.
But he was kicked out of the program on Dec. 29 without notification to the court or prosecutors, due to noncompliance with residency requirements, prosecutors said.