Vineyard shop owner pleads guilty to bank robbery

An Edgartown clothier on Thursday pleaded guilty to robbing a Falmouth bank by having employees and patrons zip-tie one another as he toted a gun and placed a purported bomb on the counter, officials said.

Petar Petyoshin, 40, pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to a sole count of armed bank robbery, according to prosecutors.

On April 8, Petyoshin entered Rockland Trust Bank and made off with more than $21,000, an affidavit in the case said. Petyoshin, owner of the now-closed Dapper Martha’s Vineyard clothing store in Oak Bluffs, wore a wig and carried a “Grow Greener” bag when he entered, according to the affidavit.

He placed an “alleged bomb” on the teller counter, brandished a gun, and told an employee “I’m robbing you,” before he had customers and staffers zip-tie each other’s hands together, the affidavit said. According to a police report, a bank clerk told investigators the purported explosive device was “the fakest looking C-4 I had ever seen.”

Petyoshin had tellers place $21,579 in a Walmart bag, asked “for a customer’s car keys,” and drove away in that person’s Ford Flex, which was later found abandoned less than two miles from the bank, officials said.

Petyoshin was linked to the robbery by surveillance video, the affidavit said.

Items seized in police searches of his apartment included “$4,325 in US currency bundled together in ‘Rockland Trust Co.’ money bands,” the affidavit said. “57 firearms and a large quantity of ammunition were seized by Edgartown Police following the revocation of Petyoshin’s firearms license to carry.”

A search of a tent in the driveway turned up “black zip ties with similar markings on them as the zip ties recovered” at the bank.

Petyoshin is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 24. The parties have agreed to a recommended sentence of between 60 and 108 months along with restitution of $17,254.

Petyoshin’s public defender didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment. The Facebook page for Dapper Martha’s Vineyard said the establishment was “permanently closed.”