NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Other Than That, They Were Twins: Cops
The man who held up a Bank of America in Corte Madera, CA of more than $22K, on March 27, 2009 was white, in his late-50s, wore glasses, drove a compact car and had a mole on his jaw. Attorney Stuart Silman, who had used the bank’s ATM earlier in the day, fit that description to a tee-minus-mole and was arrested for the robbery and jailed for five days. The cops had the wrong guy, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, and he has now filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Twin Cities Police Authority, which patrols the cities of Corte Madera and Larkspur:
Silman was arrested … after Detective Patrick Eddinger, who knew Silman from a previous incident at Silman's ex-wife's home, included a Department of Motor Vehicles picture of him in a photo lineup. A teller who viewed the lineup picked out Silman as the robber, according to the suit and Silman's attorneys.
In the photo, Silman is wearing glasses similar to those worn by the robber, "making it harder for the witnesses to see his face and more likely they would identify plaintiff as the robber," the suit said.
The robber had a mole or some kind of mark on his jaw, but Silman did not, a fact that Eddinger failed to note in an affidavit he wrote to secure an arrest warrant, the suit said.
Silman was off the hook for the holdup after his cell phone records and surveillance video from the Golden Gate Bridge proved he was San Francisco at the time of the robbery. It also helped that the real robber, Scott Randal Hall, returned to the scene of the crime four months later to rob the bank again.
The charges against Silman were dropped in August 2009; Hall was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison in December.
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