Hats all, folks! ‘Bandit’ nailed
Blowing lid off serial bank heists
Time to hang up his hat! A serial robber who hit six Big Apple banks wearing a stylish assortment of hats was finally busted after a failed Manhattan heist Tuesday, police sources said.
Lid-loving suspect Joseph DiBenedetto of Staten Island donned creative headwear — including fedoras, flat-billed Yankee caps and a bike helmet — to disguise himself on bank jobs around Manhattan, police said.
But the chapeau-happy heister’s scheme ended Tuesday morning after he passed a note to a teller and demanded cash at the Popular Community Bank at West 96th Street and Columbus Avenue, police sources said.
A worker at the bank set off an alarm, spooking the 34-year-old bandit, who bolted without any cash and hopped on a bus, sources said.
Officers Lisa Mendoza and Sarah Frankel from the 24th Precinct chased DiBenedetto down on a crosstown M96 bus heading east and arrested him, police sources said.
Earlier in the day, before the attempted robbery at Popular, DiBenedetto had walked into a HSBC Bank on West 95th Street and Amsterdam Avenue wearing a black and white cap.
But a teller recognized him because he had robbed the same bank in June, so he fled, cops said.
DiBenedetto is accused of targeting at least nine New York City banks, three times while not wearing hats, and swiping a total of $20,000 between March and August, according to police.
Upper West Siders cheered the bandit’s arrest, saying he should quit bank jobs — and get a real one.
“Thank God they got him. Throw him in jail. He should find a job. I work 9-to-5, everybody should,” said Benny Hoti, 27, who works near the Popular Community Bank.
DiBenedetto allegedly attempted to and actually robbed mainly HSBC and Santander banks in neighborhoods including the West Village, Murray Hill and the Upper East Side in the past five months.
The banks include: Santander at 250 Lexington Ave. in March; Santander at 711 Third Ave. in May; Santander at 250 Lexington Ave. in May; HSBC at 354 Sixth Ave. in May; HSBC at 2025 Broadway in June; HSBC at 721 Amsterdam Ave. in June; HSBC at 45 E. 89th Street in July; HSBC at 1165 Third Ave. in July; and HSBC at 45 E. 89th St. in August.