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A Massachusetts Greyhound bus driver has been arrested and charged with an Orono bank robbery and is now being investigated in conjunction with 10 other bank robberies from Maine to Connecticut, according to The Bangor Daily News.
Robert Ferguson, 47, of Lowell, Mass. was taken into custody early Wednesday morning after police received a tip from an employee of the Days Inn on Odlin Road in Bangor. Ferguson allegedly held up the Bangor Savings Bank branch on Park Street adjacent to the University of Maine campus, saying he was armed.
Ferguson made his first court appearance Wednesday at the U.S. District Court in Bangor, according to the newspaper. U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk ordered Ferguson be held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail until a bail hearing on Monday. Ferguson’s court-appointed lawyer, Jon Haddow of Bangor, asked that his medication for bipolar disorder be sent to him in jail.
According to the newspaper, the FBI in Boston has dubbed the robbery string in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island the “burly bank robberies,” after the build of the person involved.
The Orono robber was described as being a 6-foot-tall, approximately 250-pound white male from 30 to 40 years old who wore a gray T-shirt, jeans and a dark baseball cap. The “burly bandit” was described by the newspaper “as a white male with short brown hair in his late 40s or early 50s, approximately 6 feet tall and weighing 250 to 300 pounds.”
A bag containing money was recovered from the bus Ferguson earlier drove from Boston to Bangor. Authorities declined to release the amount of money in the bag or the amount taken from the Orono bank.
If convicted of the Orono robbery, Ferguson could face a maximum of 20 years in federal prison. He may also be held responsible for restitution.
