Bandit's Bounty Eludes Heroic CUManager

EDINA, Minn. - (01/17/05) -- The 52-year-old manager of RealFinancial CU, who put his life on the line to chase down theFishing Hat Bandit and locate him for police to capture, isprobably out of the money when it comes to the $20,000 rewardoffered by the FBI for help in the arrest of the state's mostprolific bank robber. FBI policy is that employees and managers ofcredit unions and banks are not eligible for the bounties offeredin assisting the capture of criminals, according to Paul McCabe,special agent for the FBI, who added that any reward will be heldin abeyance until the bandit is either convicted or found innocent."Normal procedure is that we wait until the case has beenadjudicated," McCabe told The Credit Union Journal. That probablymeans that Real Financial CU manager Dean Wickstrom, who policecredited for the capture of the elusive serial robber, will not bereceiving the reward, according to McCabe. The bandit, identifiedas John Whitrock, of nearby Burnside, is believed to be responsiblefor as many as 24 robberies over the past 18 months, all but two ofthem at credit unions.