LAREDO, Texas A former employee of Laredo FCU was sentenced yesterday to 121 months in federal prison after he confessed to the January 2012 armed robbery of $177,700 at the credit union.
Authorities said Asael Cruz, 30, ambushed a teller leaving work at 7 pm and threatened him with a handgun, before bounding and gagging him and leaving him face down on the ground in the rear of the credit union. Then he forced an exiting female teller at gunpoint back inside and to the vault, where he ordered her to load cash into a plastic bank bag, threatening to kill her “if she did anything stupid.”
The teller was left taped to a chair as Cruz made his getaway in a stolen pickup truck, according to court records. The truck was found later that night, along with two stacks of U.S. currency bound in Laredo Credit Union bands.
Cruz was identified immediately from surveillance video by employees, who had worked with him. Court records do not indicate what he did at the credit union.
After police tracked down Cruz, his girlfriend told them he had showed up at home the night of the robbery looking tired and wearing all black and told her, “I did it mi amor (my love),” according to court records.
The girlfriend said Cruz had a lot of cash that he tried to hide under the bed, elsewhere in the house or in the backyard. She said Cruz owned a handgun that he disassembled that night in the closet.
Five days after the robbery police raided the house and found $166,000 in credit union cash and the handgun they believe was used in the robbery.
Cruz was also ordered to pay restitution of $7,689, with $100 due immediately, and to pay $738.82 to the owner of a pick-up truck he stole as a getaway car. An amount of $6,950 will be payable to the credit union. Cruz will have monthly payments of $153.79 over a period of 50 months. Payments start 30 days after he is released from prison.
