Serial robber indicted again

A career thief is allegedly back at it with a hit on a Brookline bank last summer, according to a new federal indictment.

Jerome Lamont Turner, 47, of Boston, is an experienced thief, with convictions for armed robberies in 1993, 2002 and 2017. Earlier this month — and announced by the U.S. Attorney’s office on Thursday — a federal grand jury indicted him for bank robbery related to knocking off a Brookline Bank Branch on Harvard Street on Sept. 26, 2022.

The feds say Turner, wearing a surgical mask and a backpack, walked into the bank branch at 2 Harvard St. at 8:49 that morning and asked a teller how to set up a bank account. The teller gave him a pamphlet with instructions, according to an investigator affidavit filed in the case, and Turner walked out the door.

Just around 40 minutes later, at 9:26 a.m., Turner allegedly returned, walked up to the same teller and placed the pamphlet down. Now written on the pamphlet were the words, “Let me have 17,000 in Large bills no dye pack.”

The teller started handing over some money and Turner allegedly kept motioning for more. When the teller indicated she had no more money, Turner allegedly said something like “just give me whatever.” He stuffed the cash in his backpack and left. A post-robbery audit showed he had made off with $3,125 from the bank.

Unluckily for Turner, the surveillance cameras were rolling and his fingerprints were already in the system.

A latent print on the pamphlet turned up as a match to Turner in the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System, according to the affidavit, and multiple Brookline officers recognized the surveillance footage as Turner from arresting him only six days earlier on another offense.

The day after the robbery, a Brookline detective saw Turner, still wearing the same clothing and carrying the same backpack as in the surveillance footage, standing on Harvard Avenue in Brookline. Officers attempted to place him under arrest, but Turner allegedly fought back in a “violent struggle,” according to the affidavit, and “assaulted numerous officers.”

Turner is scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston on Tuesday.