Bank Heist

[indianajoe]

A story about turns the road might take after a young guy leaves the Marines, falls into debt, and becomes infatuated with a pretty little bank teller 10 years his junior:




I don't picture myself ever landing in federal prison for bank robbery, but I have an old friend who did.


Jack Weldon Nealy, Jr. is the kind of name that would fit just fine in a Larry McMurtry story or a Cormac McCarthy novel. Jack was born and raised in rural Bandera County where cypress, live oak, and pecan trees lined the streams, and buffalo grass and rye grew in the shallow alkaline soil of the South Texas hill country.


We each served our first Marine Security Guard posts in West Africa: me in Yaounde, Cameroon, where I managed to avoid drowning in bourbon. Jack served his first MSG tour at the embassy in Accra, Ghana, where he received a Navy Achievement Medal for saving a fellow Marine from drowning in the Gulf of Guinea. At the post in Nassau, Bahamas, we were as tight as any of the Marines in our six-man detachment. We were a lot alike, and we were friends.

Story continues.... Joe Jansen: Bank Heist: An Inside Job

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Sorry to hear about your friend, Joe. I hope everything works out as well as it can.

 

[indianajoe]

Thanks, Kirk. It's been a long time since I've seen him, but have good memories of the time serving together.

Jack was released around 2008 after serving his sentence. One of the other guys from the detachment told me that Jack was driving a cab in NYC for a period of time. He unfortunately got into trouble again in 2014 when he set up a company called "Tactical Transportation and Security" and was chauffeuring Mexican government officials to nightclubs around San Antonio. He was carrying a bogus State Department security ID and Glock .40, which got him charged with impersonating a federal officer and felon carrying a firearm. I looked him up on a Federal Bureau of Prisons web site and see he's in FCI La Tuna, with a scheduled release of September 2017. The choices we make...

Sentencing delayed for former SAPD officer turned bank robber

 

[Kirk Freeman]

La Tuna is way out on the western tip of Texas, near New Mexico. Minimum security.

 

[indianajoe]

Right. Hope he can turn it around when he gets clear.

 

[MuttX7]

Thanks for sharing. You have some really interesting stories.

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

 

[indianajoe]

Thanks, Mutt and Roland. I like telling 'em, so if you like reading them, we have a deal.