Two teenagers ridiculed by the Australian media for their bumbling alleged robbery of a bank in the ski resort town of Vail are expected to plead guilty to federal-bank robbery charges, their attorneys said on Tuesday.
Anthony Prince, a 19-year-old New Zealander with Australian residency and Australian national Luke Carroll, 19, were arrested at Denver International Airport on March 22 while passing through a security checkpoint.
The two teens are accused of robbing Vail's WestStar Bank of US$132,000 the day before.
Their attorneys said Prince was to enter a guilty plea yesterday and Carroll next Wednesday.
Their arrests came a day after two men wearing ski masks and brandishing BB guns held up the bank at the ski resort, about 160km west of Denver.
No one was injured during the robbery, but tellers said the two had Australian or European accents and wore ski jackets with badges similar to ones worn by the staff at Pepi Sports, the Vail ski shop where Carroll and Prince worked, authorities said.
One-way tickets
On the day after the robbery, Carroll and Prince tried to buy one-way tickets to Mexico at a Frontier Airlines counter at Denver's airport.
Told that such tickets weren't available, the pair bought round trip tickets, according to an FBI affidavit.
With their pictures on an FBI flyer, they were spotted by a Denver police officer at the airport and arrested.
About US$26,000 was found in a backpack in a trash can in an airport parking garage, while Carroll was carrying about US$7,600 when he was arrested and told police that more cash was in his luggage, according to the affidavit.
A man who lives near the bank found US$1,000 in $1 bills on his property shortly after the robbery.
"If there is a hall of fame for stupidity, these guys are about to make it with a bullet," Sydney's Daily Telegraph said in a March 31 editorial.
"As stupid as the entire robbery was, their very behavior means you can't help but see it more as a fantasy gone wrong than two bad kids on the early road to crime. Obviously, these kids are too stupid to be bad. They clearly didn't consider the consequences," it said.
Charged
Each was charged with one count of bank robbery by force or violence, which is punishable by up to 25 years in prison and a fine of US$250,000.
Each also could be ordered to pay restitution when they are sentenced, likely to be later this summer.
Carroll's attorney, Dan Smith, said the two teens might ask to be transferred to an Australian prison.
Prince's attorney, Warren Williamson, said that his client had accepted responsibility for the robbery "from the first moment he was contacted by police."
Carroll and Prince, who arrived in the US last November, are childhood friends from the northern coast of the state of New South Wales.
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