2 arrested after man with backpack robbed Parrish bank with bomb threat, sheriff says
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office says it has arrested the man who robbed a bank Monday in Parrish after making a false bomb threat, along with the getaway driver.
Investigators have identified 55-year-old Robert Dietrich Frascella as the man who robbed the Fifth Third Bank at 11215 U.S. 301 in Parrish and 31-year-old Thomas Harris as his accomplice, the sheriff’s office said in a press release Tuesday
Both men have been arrested and face charges of armed robbery and false threat of an explosive device.
The men had several pieces of evidence linking them to the robbery at the time of their arrest, the news release said. Some of the money stolen in the robbery has been recovered.
On Monday, Dietrich entered the bank at around 2:30 p.m. carrying a blue backpack.
He placed the backpack with a note demanding money on a counter in front of one of the bank’s tellers.
He then started to verbally threaten to blow up the building, the press release said.
The teller gave him an unknown amount of money, then he walked out of the bank with the cash and left the backpack with the phony bomb behind.
He left the bank in a blue Ford Fusion, which was driven by Harris, the press release said.
The Manatee County Sheriff Department’s Bomb Squad inspected the backpack that Dietrich said had an explosive inside and found a “suspicious” box with only glassware inside.
The FBI is also investigating the case.
