Toledo Men Found Guilty In '09 Armed Robbery Of Monroe County Credit Union
DETROIT (WWJ) - Two Toledo, Ohio, residents were found guilty Thursday by a federal jury in Detroit of robbing the Monroe County Community Credit Union in Temperance in 2009.
U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said Quentin Sherer and Martin Tucker, both 33-years-old, were found guilty after a weeklong trial before U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland.
Sherer and Tucker were charged in an indictment with bank robbery and brandishing a firearm during the bank robbery.
Evidence presented during trial showed that on July 16, 2009, Sherer and Tucker, clad in masks and hooded sweatshirts and armed with semi-automatic pistols, entered the credit union and ran to the teller counter.
Sherer pointed his gun at one teller and demanded money, while Tucker ran to another teller window, pointed his gun at a customer and demanded money, McQuade said. After taking nearly $6,000, both men ran out of the credit union into an awaiting getaway car.
A customer at the drive-through window followed the getaway car a couple of miles across the state line and into Toledo, where the robbers abandoned the car in the driveway of a private residence.
When officers from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office responded to that residence, they retrieved several items of clothing that were worn during the robbery along the path where Sherer and Tucker had fled. Investigators also discovered that the getaway car had been stolen from a Toledo home earlier in the day.
The FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia conducted a DNA examination of the evidence recovered in and around the getaway car and found matches to Sherer, who has a history of bank robberies.
Investigators were led to Tucker after examining Sherer's Myspace page, which showed pictures of the two together. Agents tracked Tucker down at an amature boxing fight, where they were able to obtain a DNA sample after he got a bloody nose -- which matched DNA left on the getaway car's steering wheel and in one of the masks.
"Armed bank robbery places lives in jeopardy and harms the public's sense of safety," McQuade said in a statement. "We are grateful for the work of the investigators and citizens who helped bring these two robbers to justice."
Sherer and Tucker are both due back in court for sentencing on April 9, 2013.
