Coffee Break Lands Man In Jail On Two Bank Robbery Charges

(Mugshot courtesy Lodi Police; Surveillance photo from PNC Bank robbery courtesy Toms River Police)

It may have been a bad time to take a coffee break.

A New York man has been arrested and charged in two robberies after he was found sitting in a coffee shop just a fifth of a mile from one of the banks he is accused of robbing, according to Toms River Police spokesman Ralph Stocco.

Michael J. Cassano, 38, of Queens, was arrested Monday in a coffee shop in Lodi just a fifth of a mile from the bank he’s accused of robbing in that town. And while Lodi police were still processing him, Toms River police arrived with an arrest warrant for Cassano in connection with the armed robbery of the PNC Bank on Feb. 5, Stocco said.

Toms River detectives Thomas Grosse and Jon Turner had identified Cassano as the suspect in the Feb. 5 robbery and were on their way to New York to arrest him when they learned he was being held by Lodi police.

Cassano had robbed a Hudson City Savings Bank in Lodi and fled with $4,000 in cash. He was arrested a very short time later at a coffee shop a fifth of a mile away. He had the cash and a bb gun in his possession. Grosse and Turner served Cassano with the charges in the PNC robbery as he was being held for the Lodi crime, Stocco said.

According to Cliffview Pilot, Cassano, a CYO basketball coach, had been arrested by Maywood police outside a Dunkin Donuts, with a cup of coffee in hand. That news source reported that its publisher and editor, Jerry DeMarco, recognized Cassano as possibly being the same man responsible for the PNC Bank robbery.

Bail was set at $250,000 in the Toms River robbery, Stocco said.