Report of woman handing out money leads to bank robber's arrest
A 43-year-old woman was sentenced Friday to 63 months in federal prison for robbing a Denver bank less than a year ago.
Georgiana Jones's arrest was helped greatly by a tipster who told an undercover officer that a woman was "handing out money" to tenants at an East Colfax motel in the days following the robbery.
The woman bragged to those tenants as she passed out the money that she had recently robbed a bank, according to the case's arrest affidavit.
The robber entered the PNC Bank on northeast of the Cherry Creek shopping district at around 9 a.m. on October 25, 2021.
The robber made inquiries to a teller about deposits, left for half an hour, then returned with a baseball cap and sunglasses.
The robber presented a note written on the deposit slip that the teller had provided minutes earlier.
The note stated, "Put all large bills and no tracers or die sticks immediately in bag. You have 20 seconds."
The robber left the note at the bank. Investigators were able to compare the writing on the note to a letter Jones had written to a judge regarding a 2018 case in Denver. The handwriting, particularly the loop around the 'G' and the fact every 'A' was capitalized, "appeared to match," the Denver detective observed.
After the robbery, Denver Police Department investigators gathered surveillance video from the area around the Westerner Motel located at 8405 E Colfax Avenue. In it, they found images of Jones wearing the same distinctive jacket that the robber wore and driving the same black Audi which the robber drove to and from the bank.
They also found her driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee that she told a friend she had just purchased. That friend told detectives he wasn't aware of Jones having a job.
DPD also recorded bodycam video of Jones wearing the same jacket the night before the bank robbery when officers stopped a stolen vehicle.
Following Denver's arrest of Jones, the case was handed over to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado to prosecute. Bank robbery is a federal crime.
Judge Philip A. Brimmer required Jones to undergo three years of supervision after her release from prison.
