Oak Bluffs water department worker pleads guilty to robbing $20,000 from Falmouth bank
BOSTON - Petar Petyoshin, a water department worker on Martha's Vineyard, pleaded guilty Thursday to robbing more than $20,000 from a bank on the Cape last spring. He entered his plea in federal court in Boston.
Petyoshin, 40, admitted he was the masked man who walked into the Rockland Trust on Route 28 in Falmouth on April 8, flashed a gun, demanded money from a teller and claimed to have a bomb.
He had the customers and bank workers zip-tie each other's hands. Petyoshin left with more than $20,000 in cash and drove off in a customer's car. He then went to Woods Hole and took a ferry back to the Vineyard.
Petyoshin was arrested May 23 at his home in Edgartown. Police found 57 guns, thousands of dollars in cash, zip ties and some of the clothes he was wearing at the time of the robbery. A jacket later found in his locker at the Oak Bluffs Water Department was the same one worn by the robber.
"The investigation also determined that the Facebook page for Petyoshin's clothing store, Dapper Martha's Vineyard, displayed photos of the same clothing – including jacket, sunglasses and wig – he wore during the bank robbery," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement Thursday.
Petyoshin faces up to 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He will be sentenced January 24.
