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The L.A.S.T. Bank Robberies
–by Don Deppeller
The reader has to know that this
is the story as seen through my eyes, though I will do my best to share it
through as many eyes as possible. And in order to truly understand how the
story came about, you have to go back to the late 70’s. The specific
names and places will remain anonymous, to protect the innocent as well as
the guilty.
I
was 18 and had taken a job with the City in which I lived in
Pennsylvania. My job was to report on all the traffic signs
and signal lights. I also ran the Mayor’s mail back and
forth from the local newspaper. During this job, I became aware
of how the poorer neighborhoods were being studiously neglected,
and then after the forces of gentrification went forward, the
money and improvements to transportation followed. I thought
this was wrong, and after meeting with many friends and activists,
decided to form a political party.
I
called this the L.A.S.T. Party, after Local Association of
Sovereign Trust. It was really a tongue-in-cheek jab at the
power of the banks in receiving and disbursing federal block
grants. I circulated a petition and gathered enough signatures
to register the party at the local courthouse. I then planned
a mayoral campaign, and enlisted the help of a bright but in
retrospect disturbed individual who had been a research assistant
at Princeton. He became my campaign manager, and although dedicated
he constantly urged me to "have faith". So one
day he took my glasses (I had only recently begun using contact
lenses, and could only wear them 8 hours a day) on the train.
It was a special trip to take my eyeglasses just to deposit
them in Philadelphia. This event caused me to leave my contacts
in way too long, and so I woke up one morning with a double
corneal abrasion. I was blind for over 2 weeks, and was also
drained with exhaustion, having to attend class, work, and
work on the campaign.
I
lost just about everything that summer, and
my father came to drag my sorry carcass back home, which
was in the Pocono mountains between New York and Phila.
After recovering, I re-enrolled in courses at the local
community college, but of even more interest was the situation
in the downtown area of the town.
The
local train station was up for sale, since the line was only
used for Conrail freight trains. But I learned about this from
a young friend of my brother. I was intrigued, because apparently
it was a sore point with a lot of people in the area. The only
potential buyer was a Manhattan restaurant corporation, that
went by the acronym of D.B.N.S. "Rich and stuck-up New
yawkers" I would hear. At the same time, some of the
local people even younger than myself were shooting heroin
in row houses and by the train tracks, or just wasting themselves
away….
...I
received a call from the town manager. Now it was up to
the Mayor and the Council to make the decision, AFTER the
public hearing, but the town manager produced a file and
so much as threatened to leak it to the media if our group
did not "cease and desist". It contained a "smear",
in essence...
This was not the kind of experience I had had just a few short years before,
and it wasn’t long before I started talking to some of the local
PTB to see if we could get a plan together to save this train station.
I met with 3 potential investors that agreed to put up $35,000.00 between
them if we had a plan in action to offer entertainment and provide other
functions so the station could be used as a cultural center. Before long
we had the active help of the ex-mayor, local business groups, parent groups,
and young people helped get the signatures we would need to petition the
town council to hear our proposal. The local newspaper soon started covering
the LAST vs. DBNS campaign and before long it was apparent we had a real
chance. So much so that I received a call from the town manager. Now it
was up to the Mayor and the Council to make the decision, AFTER the public
hearing, but the town manager produced a file and so much as threatened
to leak it to the media if our group did not "cease and desist".
It contained a "smear", in essence.
There
was some truth to it, I had one minor charge (dropped) of accepting
stolen goods (a suit) when I was 16, and I had belonged to
the Youth International Party (Yippies) as well as of course
the L.A.S.T. Party, which was the forerunner of LAST Corp.
However, there was also manufactured evidence, actually a lot
of it, and it was all concocted other than the ones I just
told you of. So I bascially told this man that he should do
what he had to, as I would do what I had to. The big public
hearing was only a week or so away, but it was never to take
place.
The
Council held a "special session" to
consider the ultimatum that DBNS had delivered, which was
they would either have to sell it then, or not even consider
them if the hearing were to go forward. They determined,
as they later claimed, that they could not afford to lose
the opportunity DBNS promised them, and so risked acting "precipitously." We,
on the other hand, had only vague assurances of financial
backing. To our meager sum was arrayed a $3.5miilion proposal.
However, we had an ace in the hole. According to the ex-mayor,
it turned out that a minimum of Twelve feet right-of-way
had to be accorded to the railway line in the event of a "national
emergency". That $3.5million plan was destroyed because
their plan called for an allowance of only 9 feet, a multi-million
dollar difference as it turned out….and the train station
still sat there, disused, ever afterwards.
Meanwhile, the many
people involved in this coalition basically devolved into two
groups:
the
older activists, and the young people under 21, including
my younger brother and myself.
After
the brutal betrayal by the town council, we were stunned. We
had done nigh the impossible, when none said it could be done.
And we hadn’t even had a fair chance in the open court
of public opinion, as they had basically snatched it away from
us, so we will never know. My brother, in a fit of pique one
night shortly after the fait accompli, suggested we "rob
a bank" in retaliation, and use the money to finance
a billboard-painting campaign around the country urging people
to "Screw City Hall". Of course I laughed it off,
as I shared this with Dawn, my girlfriend at the time. However,
rather than laughing with me, she said seriously "why
not?" I stopped laughing and asked what she meant, and
she re-iterated the same attitude my brother had. I was taken
aback. And rather than bore the reader with all the details,
the end result was that I was starting to plot a political
justification to do just that. The truth was, I was just insecure.
If anything, that was the great secret to what motivated me
in all my endeavors, having to establish this greater family
that I had never known one true version of. A child of divorce
and foster parents, I had been on my own from the age of 15,
even though I had benefitted from a scholarship to a prestigious
college prep school. I had a bad habit of living on the wrong
side of the tracks, yet mixing with not only the wealthey but
those who actually got a good education and were taught how
to think critically. And so, with the idea of a cultural center
in both cities I had worked with, I was in effect trying to
help re-establish that greater sense of family that I secretly
yearned for. To reconcile both worlds that I lived in.
....In
any event, in short order the group I was with then planned
and successfully executed a comedy of errors,
the
first successful bank robbery ever in the history of that
county. One of our people, Paul, was the son of a judge.....
In any event, in short order the group I was with then planned
and successfully executed a comedy of errors, the first
successful bank robbery ever in the history of that county.
One of our people, Paul, was the son of a judge. His
girlfriend was the daughter of a real-estate magnate.
A male gigolo by the name of Billy Custard (actually
Custred was the real spelling, but his hair was so blonde….)
was one of the gang, my girlfriend, and my brother. We
planned on using one of the judge’s cars, a souped-up
motorhead car that had been ‘customized’ by
the future District Attorney of a neighboring county.
Billy Custard ‘procured’ 2 .38 Specials,
Dawn ‘obtained’ the
latex gloves from the hospital where she worked, Paul drove the getaway car,
Roseanna picked up the pantyhose we used to disguise our faces when we got
to the bank. The morning of the bank robbery, in fact as we were leaving our
house for the last time, I actually received a call from the local Chamber
of Commerce. They wanted to know if I would like to head up a new task force
to explore the potential of establishing the cultural center idea in an abandoned
school in the far reaches of the county. By then it was too late; I was numb
inside, numb to everything. I’ve never known such numbness, before or
since. And it wasn’t "comfortable", in case you are thinking
of Pink Floyd (much as that album was peaking at the time).
Paul
and Nick (my brother) used the .38 Specials, and each wore
one of the leg sections; I wore the piece from the center.
We parked the car 200 yards away from the bank, walked toward
it (it was in a suburban shopping strip), and when we got there
we pulled our masks on and burst in. Nick shouted "nobody
move!" and I leaped over the counter and started clearing
out the drawers and the vault. We were as courteous as possible
to the tellers, and although they later claimed we were very "gentlemanly",
the fact remains we probably scared them half to death. Fortunately
we had the opportunity to apologize to them later, but I’m
getting ahead of myself. We were back out of the bank in less
than 2 minutes, but just then a police cruiser had pulled up,
and we had to run around him to get to our car. Which we proceeded
to do, and he tried to gather his wits about him as tried to
get out of the car, but he was just as shocked to see us as
we were to see him. By the time he figured out what had happened,
we were halfway to our car. We heard "Halt!" and
a pop! Then whizz! Beside my right ear as I realized I was
being shot at.
.....Soon
we came upon a sign that said, simply, "Hope",
and pointed to the left. We took the suggestion.....
Luckily Nick and Paul didn’t stop to shoot just then, and by the time
we reached the car Mr. Policeman had jumped back in his cruiser and had floored
it to catch up to us. We crawled in and, ducking down, floored it in reverse
as the cop reached us and jumped out and took aim at our front windshield.
Fortunately he didn’t shoot, so we were able to exit the parking lot
in a real ‘hurry’, to say the least. We didn’t realize it
at the time, but the bank was on the boundary of 3 townships. We had less than
3 miles to get to the interstate highway, but by the time we reached it we
already had 3 police cruisers in hot pursuit, and when we got on the entrance
ramp we had the sheriff in a Jeep clocking us at 122 mph, and a detective in
a beat-up Chevy Malibu, and soon 7 state police cruisers streaming in from
the west. We raced east into New Jersey, bursting through the toll booths in
a hail of plywood and 2x4s. Nick was firing out the side all the way, and shot
out a radiator in one cruiser, causing it to pull off. We soon outran all but
one, and after taking the first opportune exit off the interstate into the
woods, we soon got lost under the treetops, not knowing where we were. Soon
we came upon a sign that said, simply, "Hope", and pointed to the
left. We took the suggestion, and that is where we lost our last pursuer. No
sooner had we made that turn than we cam to a farmhouse on the right, and pulled
in and behind it. We later found out that it was occupied by an elderly woman
who was deaf and blind, and whose attendant was off on Friday afternoons. It
was ALSO owned by Roseanna’s father, this out-of-the-way place, and so
to this day the police there probably STILL believed we had it planned that
way. Nothing could be further from the truth
Ditching the car, we jumped out and immediately ran across the field and up
the hillside, eventually coming to the summit and a small wood building. We
went inside, made some crude torches with some kindling and tar, and counted
the money. Over $25,000.00 in cash. We decided to break up into 2 groups and
find our way to Manhattan, where we would meet up at the Hilton hotel. (We
didn’t find out later that night that there were 5 Hilton’s in
New York.) We agreed on aliases, and left down separate sides of the mountain.
My group found our way to a farmhouse with an older couple whose son had died
in Vietnam, but who had a daughter who would be happy to take us back to Pennsylvania
to the bus station, since our car had ‘expired’ down the road.
We sat nonchalantly with the couple for awhile, eating cake and drinking tea
and discussing the Vietnam war. Meanwhile our adrenalin was at skycraper levels,
but we managed to maintain our cool. Eventually we got dropped off at the station
and were soon on our way to New York. We arrived at the Port Authority around
3am, many hours later. Meanwhile, Nick, in keeping with his Romeo image, had
knocked on the door of another farmhouse, and it was answered by a girl his
age, who immediately got her brother to take the other group (and the 2 teenagers)
up to New York. Luckily they came through the doors of the second hotel we
got to, just as we were about to give up ever seeing them again. Nick was so
giddy with exuberance, he pressed his .38 into the hands of the driver and
told him to "keep it as a souvenir". We took the best suites and
were soon ordering champagne from room service. I was in a total state of numbness.
The next day,
Dawn (who wasn’t in the car with us) told us on the phone
that the headline was "BANK ROBBERS OUTRUN POLICE IN 10-MILE
HIGH SPEED CHASE". Below, in smaller letters, "U.S.
Senate Votes to Boycott the Olympic Games". We spent the
next 2 days shopping and planning our next move, which was to
fly to London to hide out for awhile first. Unfortunately, after
sharing a limo to the airport, we found we needed passports,
and so could not leave the country. We made up our minds to go
to Miami then, since Roseanna had relatives there. We flew out
from JFK to Miami, and once there holed up in another hotel while
we attempted contact with these people that Roseanne knew. After
two days, Roseanna and Paul disappeared. It seems their contact
was too alarmed at helping all of us, and so we didn’t
see the two of them ever after that. We found out later they
had been spirited to Yellowstone where they both got jobs through
their contact as tour guides, and would go to parties where Paul
would soon start drinking and talking about how he had helped
rob a bank, but no-one would believe him. He even tried to surrender
on two occasions, but his ‘confession’ wasn’t
accepted. Eventually it was, and he later went back to face court
just as the rest of us finished our relatively light sentences.
(Two years, in my case, which was the longest sentence of any
of us.)
Meanwhile,
Nick, Billy, Dawn and myself headed to Daytona Beach, where
my mother lived with her third husband. Once there, we realized
we were about to be broke……even with $25k, there
were 6 of us, and it’s awfully expensive to live on-the-run.
At first we tried to get jobs, but when the proprietor seemed
to be interested in checking our records, we felt we could
not end up working at an honest job, what with our records.
We didn’t know that they didn’t find the car for
some time, but didn’t want to chance it. We figured that
we would probably have to either go "underground",
but had no money left to do so, or rob another bank. However,
both guns were now gone; Nick had given his away, and Paul
had taken his with. And we were broke. So we shoplifted a toy
cap gun and some spray paint, called a taxicab, and told him
to go to the airport but to stop at the bank first because
we had to pick up some money. The cabbie stopped at a Burger
Chef, we (only my brother and I this time) walked through,
exited the other side, went into the bank, held it up, and
quickly retraced our steps calmly through the Burger Chef,
then back into the cab and on to the airport.
Ultimately
we took the train because it was apparent the authorities were
sealing off the airport, after staying holed up in a motel
for a few days. Eventually we found our way back to the Pocono
Mountains, and calculated that we would either be dead in a
short period of time by robbing banks, or we would be caught
and possibly killed. I didn’t feel we could stay on the
run, and so we all agreed that surrendering was the best option.
We then laid our plans to surrender and met with an attorney.
...Eventually
we found our way back to the Pocono Mountains, and calculated
that we would either be dead in a short period of time
by robbing banks, or we would be caught and possibly
killed.
I
didn’t feel we could stay on the run, and so we
all agreed that surrendering was the best option. We
then laid our plans to surrender and met with an attorney....
We
wrote out our story, how we had tried to change
things for the better, and got caught up in this hare-brained
scheme to rob banks and go around the country painting billboards,
but the day before we were to turn ourselves in, someone had
tipped off the police as to where we were. They were none too
happy with us, because we were the first bank robbers to elude
the combined efforts of all these people, but there was actually
a modicum of respect for us. We were known to the
area for what we had tried to accomplish, and when they arrived
at early dawn to surround the house we were staying at, they
had at least 10 vehicles and the detective with a double-barrel
shotgun and a bullhorn ordering us to "come out with
our hands up". I was still half-asleep and appeared at
the door naked and wrapped in a blanket; it was over two months
since the first bank robbery.
I
asked them to all come in for coffee, and we would just like
to get a shower if they didn’t mind. This was unexpected
on their part; they finally put down their guns and came in.
Our friends served coffee and donuts all around, while the
FBI agents, the sheriff, the detective, the police chief, all
quizzed us on what had happened and how we did it. We showed
them our letter of intent to surrender, that if they had only
waited a few more hours they might have saved the manpower
and had a decent breakfast. The police chief then took us downtown
to be fingerprinted etc., then let us go home on our own recognizance,
with a promise to appear for arrainment the following day.
Which we did, but I couldn’t get a ride so I had to
call the chief to come pick me up. We drove through the mountains
for awhile, then he checked me into the county jail and even
left $5 of his own money for me to buy sundries like shampoo
and cigarettes.
After a couple months in the
county jail, we were sentenced; I received
two to six years for the first bank, and 0-6 for
the second, to be run concurrently. Luckily. Because
of that, I served the two years. My brother received
2-1/2 to 5 years, but got out in less than 2. Paul
got less than a year, Roseanna spent her time in
a halfway house because she was pregnant with child
by Paul, and Billy also got less than a year. We
were the most fortunate bank robbers anywhere in
America; people we met at the county jail were getting
5 to 20 years for attempting to rob gas stations.
....One
of the more interesting facts we discovered after the surrender
was that, when Nick had given his gun as a ‘souvenir’,
the young driver had gone back to New Jersey and ended
up throwing the gun into a lake in the back of his house,
and swallowed the bullets....
One of the more interesting facts we discovered after the surrender was
that, when Nick had given his gun as a ‘souvenir’, the
young driver had gone back to New Jersey and ended up throwing the
gun into a lake in the back of his house, and swallowed the bullets.
Yes, swallowed them. His grandmother had to take him to the hospital,
and he had his stomach pumped…..out came the bullets, and out
came the story (the part that he knew). This, together with the judge’s
car (which they eventually found), was the only evidence they had
found and put into place. But it would have been enough, even though
our finger prints weren’t to be found. Ultimately, you end
up catching yourself. If you’re guilty of something, might
as well get it out and get it over with. We were very fortunate,
and luckily no-one was seriously hurt in our misadventure.
Now,
after getting back out into society, I began to volunteer
time on various political campaigns, having moved to
Washington, DC after serving my time. I don’t want
to offend good republicans that may be reading this,
(before the L.A.S.T. Party, I had been a republican myself),
so I won’t bore the reader with the names, but
I was often enough on the winning side as the losing
side. What is important is that it has been a part of
my daily life to be involved in the process of change,
which is really what politics should be. And fortunately
for me, one of the candidates I worked for also made
it his policy to offer clemency and the restoration of
rights to ex-offenders who are able to show that they
are trying to be good citizens in the community. Which
I have tried to do, as quietly as possible. A favorite
activity of mine for a time was to go out for a walk
and pick up hubcaps that would be strewn by the highway,
then take them back to the neighborhood to put on cars
that needed them. Neighbors would wake up to having had
something good happen to them, instead of something bad.
And those of us that did it said nothing lest we ruin
their surprise. I share this with the reader so they
understand how it was I later came to be accused by the
FBI of being a spy for East Germany in 1988.
The
spy episode took place because I had always been
interested in German history and even taught myself the
language while I served my time. Also while serving time
I had written to both East and West Germany for their
literature, as I was fascinated by how a nation could
be divided of itself into enemies; this correspondence
was later used when the FBI was determining if my contact
was genuine. To set the context; I was working at an
industrial hardware store, where I normally worked on
the phone but on occasion would be called upon to help
customers in the showroom. On this occasion, the customer
only spoke German, and so I was called out to help communicate.
The gentleman only needed a replacement fuse for an electrical
meter, but it was one of the first generation of LCD
multimeters (now you can buy them everywhere). Once I
determined what it was, priced and ordered it, he gave
me his card and left. It was from the East German embassy.
After a week or 2, his part arrived, and I called to
notify him. He came into the shop, and brought quite
a bit of propaganda in the form of brochures, etc., and
an invitation to the Leipzig Int’l. Trade Fair,
for purposes of exhibiting our Glass Bead Game of Twelves.
I was thankful, and before leaving he ordered some add’l.
accessories. Again, I called him when they came in and
he again brought more literature on East Germany.
About
2 weeks later, I was home, sick, and received a call from
the office. They told me the FBI had come in and ransacked
my cubicle and demanded to know my whereabouts. It turned
out that my customer from East Germany was the newly-appointed
head STASI agent for the U.S., and not just a maintenance
man. The FBI suspected this spy had recruited me and was
delivering ‘drops’ to me, since our company
dealt with virtually all the gov’t. agencies, foreign
and domestic, as well as many of the CIA front-companies
and Beltway Bandits that supplied the Pentagon. Of course,
I quickly contacted the FBI agent in charge and explained
it was all a big misunderstanding, but the FBI nonetheless
made everyone in the company sit in on a 2-hour lecture
on How Communists Recruit Americans. Ever after, it was
a subject for a good laugh, and fortunately the following
year the Berlin Wall came down and East Germany ceased
to exist.
Since that episode, my political involvement was limited to my own neighborhood,
where I was a precinct captain and manned the polls every election day, sun-up
to sundown, and made sure all my neighbors got out and voted. That is, until
I discovered the story of Dr. Burisch, hiding in plain sight on the internet
at Eaglesdisobey.com, with the unassuming file named "Q94-109a Document".
Which, after 8 months of surveillance later, led me to Canada, and to Godlikeproductions.com..
A whole new group of friends from around the world who also have come to learn
of how this brilliant scientist has discovered what could prove to be the most
significant advance in science and medicine the world has known. The original
world-seed, the Ganesh Particle. And now those friends and I hope to be able
to share with the world what the U.S. taxpayer has funded, and what is humanity’s
birthright. It may also be the saving
grace of humankind, if what
we have discovered is true. But that is left for another chapter, one which
someone else will write.
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