An elderly Florida man charged with the armed robbery of an Arizona credit union that captured national media attention will remain in federal custody.
During a detention hearing Jan. 23, a U.S. District court magistrate judge in Tucson, Ariz., ordered Robert Francis Krebs to be held in jail pending his trial. Federal authorities determined Krebs to be a “risk of nonappearance” for future court hearings if he were to be released on bail.
The case attracted national headlines after Tucson police reported Krebs was 80 years old.However, federal documents show that Krebs of Daytona Beach is 75 years old.
On Jan. 12, Krebs walked into a branch of the $154 million Pyramid Federal Credit Union with a black BB handgun and stole more than $8,000. The next day, police received a tip that the suspect was at a hotel where he was arrested without incident. Police, who initially thought Krebs was in his late 60s, recovered $7,500 of the credit union's money.
The Associated Press reported Krebs served more than 30 years in prison for robbing a Florida bank in the 1980s. Additionally, he was convicted in 1966 for embezzling $72,000 from a Chicago bank where he worked as a teller.
He was also a suspect, along with three other men, for an alleged $1.5 million jewel theft and a $3.3 million robbery of the First National Bank of Arizona in 1981, according to an Associated Press article.
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