Bank robber Mark Chambers, who hitchhiked to the Kaua‘i Police Department to turn himself in three days after taking almost $3,000 from the First Hawaiian Bank branch in Lihu‘e’s Kukui Grove Center on May 24, has pleaded guilty to the sole count of the federal complaint lodged against him, U.S. Attorney Amy Olson said yesterday.

Olson said that Chambers, 50, of Hanalei, violated U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2113(a), which covers bank robbery “by force and violence, or by intimidation.

According to the criminal complaint filed on May 30 by Federal Bureau of Investigations Special Agent Rachel Byrd, KPD Det. Trent Shimabukuro said Chambers had entered the bank at roughly 11:30 a.m. “with a brown paper bag and demanded money from the teller.”

Shimabukuro also told Byrd that “another teller overheard Chambers tell the victim teller something like, ‘I’ll come around if I have to and don’t make me come around to get it. Give me the money.’”

Chambers then fled the bank with $2,800 in unmarked bills, and police recovered a baseball hat near the scene, Shimabukuro told Byrd.

Read more …

(Source: Michael Levine, Kauai Garden Island News)