# Man robs bank and flee's in Septic tank truck.



## stm4710 (Jul 6, 2004)

Off all the vehicles he could have chosen, he picks the smelliest,slowest one around. :roll:

Feds will take over holdup case

By Julie Manganis

Staff writer

SALEM -- A Peabody man who robbed a Newburyport bank, led police on a wild chase in a septic truck and was finally captured in a stolen camper the next morning will face federal charges, a prosecutor said yesterday.

John DiFrancesco, 31, who lived at 7 Esquire Circle in Peabody before his arrest, was in Salem Superior Court yesterday, where he tried, unsuccessfully, to convince a judge to reduce his bail from the $500,000 cash set at his arraignment last month.

He is charged with armed robbery while masked and a host of other counts stemming from the July 1 holdup of the Newburyport Five Cents Savings Bank on Storey Avenue.

DiFrancesco, an ex-con who had served prison time for armed robbery in the mid-1990s, had been working for Wind River Environmental Services, driving and operating a septic truck, his lawyer, Lawrence McGuire, said yesterday.

It was that truck that pulled into the bank parking lot, not far from Route 95, around 7 p.m. Prosecutor Jesse Dole said others in the lot noticed the driver putting on a mask before heading inside.

A teller told police that the masked man paced back and forth between two teller windows pointing a gun -- DiFrancesco later told police it was a toy -- at them and demanding money. He made off with just over $10,000.

But police caught up with the septic truck in Georgetown, and were about to pull it over when DiFrancesco crossed the median of Route 95 and began heading up the highway the wrong way. He eventually crashed into a wooded area in Byfield, then fled on foot -- leaving a trail of money and his wallet, containing his driver's license, behind in the truck.

Police believe he hid in the mud of the banks of the Parker River overnight, then, early the next morning, stole a recreational vehicle that had been left with the keys in the ignition.

He was spotted on Route 133 in North Andover by the husband of a state police trooper who had just passed along the camper's description.

The robbery came after a series of setbacks for DiFrancesco, his lawyer said yesterday.

After serving a federal prison term for holdups in five communities, including Salem, in 1993 and 1994, he was paroled, and went on to earn his associate's degree and find steady work in the septic pumping business.

But, said McGuire, he suffered from hepatitis C, and had lately found that the medication he was taking no longer appeared to help. He also suffered severe pain, his lawyer said, leading him to return to using heroin, a drug he thought he had beaten after a rehabilitation program on Cape Cod.

He was "driven to commit the robbery" by the pain and his addiction, McGuire said.

DiFrancesco has resigned himself to the fact that he will be punished for what he has done, his lawyer said. But he asked for a chance to post a lower bail, saying he wants to enter drug treatment.

Judge Patrick Riley, while expressing concern that DiFrancesco is not receiving his medications at the Nashua Street Jail in Boston, said he shared the prosecutor's assessment of the case as serious and the high bail is justified.

Dole said the U.S. Attorney's office intends to present the case to a federal grand jury next month, meaning DiFrancesco could be heading back to federal prison within the next several weeks.



> He was "driven to commit the robbery" by the pain and his addiction, McGuire said.


 nananananan Law whore........nananananana law whore . :roll:


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## reno911_2004 (May 13, 2004)

Break out the box of band-aids


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