No Reward For Manager Who Nabbed Bandit

The 52-year-old manager of Real Financial CU, who put his life on the line to chase down the Fishing Hat Bandit and locate him for police to capture, is probably out of the money when it comes to the $20,000 reward offered by the FBI for help in the arrest of the state's most prolific bank robber. FBI policy is that employees and managers of credit unions and banks are not eligible for the bounties offered in assisting the capture of criminals, according to Paul McCabe, special agent for the FBI, who added that any reward will be held in abeyance until the bandit is either convicted or found innocent. "Normal procedure is that we wait until the case has been adjudicated," McCabe told The Credit Union Journal. That probably means that Real Financial CU manager Dean Wickstrom, who police credited for the capture of the elusive serial robber, will not be receiving the reward, according to McCabe. The bandit, identified as John Whitrock, of nearby Burnside, is believed to be responsible for as many as 24 robberies over the past 18 months, all but two of them at credit unions.