MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. – A 45-year-old paraplegic who allegedly robbed a Space Coast CU branch here Friday afternoon was arrested in a nearby parking lot minutes later after he stuffed the stolen credit union loot in a prosthetic leg.
The suspect, identified as Christopher Reed, who is a paraplegic confined to a motorized wheelchair, entered the credit union around 4:10 pm and demanded money, after telling the employees that he was armed with an explosive device, according to police.
He was located by police and arrested in an adjacent parking lot about 10 minutes later.
Reed told detectives that two unknown suspects had threatened him with a gun and forced him to commit the robbery. He told sheriffs’ deputies that the money had been given to those two men.
But deputies later found that the money taken during the robbery was concealed in Reed’s prosthetic leg. All the money taken during the robbery was recovered.
