SEATTLE — Anthony Curcio spent nearly a year plotting an elaborate armored car heist outside a Monroe bank that included an escape on an inflatable raft and decoys recruited on Craigslist.
Curcio, 28, was obsessed with every detail. He modified his clothing with Velcro so he could quickly rip off his pants and shirt to disguise himself. He strung a cable across Woods Creek to help ferry him and his getaway raft to safety. He watched the Monroe bank, monitoring the delivery schedules of the armored cars.
He planned how to plant unsuspecting decoys to distract police. He made practice runs.
Curcio thought he left nothing up to chance.
He didn’t account for a few things, including an observant homeless man with an eye for other people’s weird behavior or resourceful police who used chewed tobacco to link Curcio to the crime.
Curcio was sentenced Monday to six years in federal lock-up for the Sept. 30 robbery.
U.S. District Court Judge James Robart added an extra year to the five-year sentence recommended by prosecutors. The judge said he was troubled that Curcio attacked an armored car guard and put the decoys at risk for being shot by the guards.
The judge likened the robbery to something in the movies but said there was nothing “dashing” about the crime.
Curcio made off with $400,000 after spraying an armored car driver with Mace outside the Bank of America. He pleaded guilty in May to interference with commerce.
Court papers detail the downward spiral of a man who lived a seemingly privileged life in an upper-middle class home. Curcio, a high school football star, attended the University of Idaho for a time on a partial scholarship for basketball and football. He became a successful real estate agent.
But Curcio had developed an addiction to prescription pain medication after he was injured and he began having financial problems in 2008, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake wrote in court papers.
That’s when he began plotting how to make some quick money. He became enamored with the idea of robbing an armored car while he was working for his parents’ landscaping company outside a federal courthouse in Seattle, court papers said. He saw armored cars making their deliveries and found a story on the Internet about a man who made off with a lot of cash after holding one up.
He became obsessed with pulling off the robbery without getting caught, Miyake said.
Curcio came up with a disguise and planned a diversion. About a week before the heist, he posted an ad on Craigslist offering work for landscapers who showed up outside the Monroe bank on the day of the robbery. They were told to wear a reflective vest and a blue T-shirt. Their outfits matched the one Curcio planned to wear.
He also plotted an escape by water. He strung a cable along Woods Creek to help pull himself and the loot downstream.
The heist went off initially without a hitch. Curcio sprayed the guard with pepper spray, grabbed two bags of money and ran.
He dropped one bag during the escape. He also discarded his hat, wig, sunglasses and particle mask as he raced to the raft, where he pulled himself downstream to a waiting vehicle.
Investigators say Curcio’s cover was blown after they learned that a homeless man reported finding suspicious items outside the bank two weeks before the heist. He didn’t want to be implicated in a crime, so he called 911. Before police arrived, a vehicle pulled up and the driver grabbed the items and drove off. The homeless man gave police the license plate number.
Detectives later connected that license plate to Curcio. They also learned that whoever robbed the bank left genetic evidence on a mask that was worn during the heist. FBI agents followed Curcio around Lake Stevens and eventually seized a bottle of chewed tobacco and saliva that Curcio dumped in a garbage can.
The DNA collected at the crime scene matched a sample taken from the makeshift spittoon.
FBI agents continued to follow Curcio, tracking him to a Tulalip mall where he and another man were seen loading a Range Rover with shopping bags from Perry Ellis, Burberry and Coach.
Agents also learned that Curcio treated six friends to a Las Vegas trip shortly after the robbery. Curcio rented a house there and bought his guests food and drinks and hired a guide to get them into nightclubs.
A witness told investigators Curcio helped him coach the Monroe Middle School football team but on the day of the robbery he indicated he was going to be late for the game. He never showed up.
When he was arrested, Curcio was moving a lockbox holding $17,000 to his truck, court papers said. He also had $2,500 in cash on him.
Investigators eventually recovered $220,000 — more than half the money stolen in the robbery.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
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