A man who held up a Stillwater bank in June, claiming he had a bomb that could blow up a city block, pleaded guilty to armed robbery on Wednesday and faces up to 20 years in prison.
Appearing before U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, David Michael Tyler, 66, of Cheboygan, Mich., admitted to walking into a U.S. Bank in Stillwater, wearing a fake beard and glasses and carrying a briefcase. He put the briefcase on the desk of a bank employee and opened it, showing what appeared to be a homemade bomb, which he said he would detonate if he was not given $200,000.
The banker placed the money in Tyler's backpack and he fled, but he was apprehended by Stillwater police and Washington County sheriff's deputies about a block away. It turned out he had no bomb.
No sentencing date has been set.
Randy Furst
