Pay Stub Bank Robber Faces Four-Year Sentence
by Ethan Fry - Valley Independent Sentinel
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Steven Gomez-Maya walked into the TD Bank North in Seymour one morning last August and handed the teller a note.
“This is a robbery, give me 5,000 nobody gets shot,” it read. So the teller gave $500 cash to Gomez-Maya.
But detectives had him in handcuffs within hours after discovering the note he left at the bank was written on the back of his girlfriend’s pay stub.
The 20-year-old now faces up to four years in prison when he is sentenced for the robbery after taking a plea deal in the case last week.
Gomez-Maya pleaded guilty to a single count of first-degree robbery at Superior Court in Milford Jan. 11 before Judge Frank Iannotti.
According to court records, a plea deal in the case calls for an eight-year prison sentence to be suspended after four years, followed by five years of probation.
The terms of the deal gives Gomez-Maya’s lawyer, Public Defender Susan Brown, the right to argue for less jail time.
According to a search warrant in the case, after Seymour police found the note used in the heist was written on a pay stub from a McDonald’s in Derby, they went to the restaurant and learned a female employee had just left because of a “family emergency.”
Surveillance footage from the McDonald’s showed the same man who robbed the bank entering the restaurant about a half-hour after the stickup and talking to the employee, identified as his girlfriend.
The footage showed the man jogging to a car similar to one used in the bank robbery and driving away.
Police then drove to the employee’s address in Ansonia to ask about her boyfriend, according to the warrant.
“As they approached the residence they noticed a vehicle matching the description of the suspect vehicle leaving,” the warrant says.
They followed the car and eventually stopped it as it turned into a driveway.
Gomez-Maya and his girlfriend were inside, and while “sweeping” the vehicle for possible weapons police found a hat he allegedly wore during the stickup and “a large amount of crisp ten dollar bills in the center console of the vehicle.”
Detectives then obtained search warrants for the car and Gomez-Maya’s bedroom, where they allegedly found the clothes he wore during the bank robbery.
While being questioned by police Gomez-Maya confessed to the stickup, saying he needed the money to pay bills.
Gomez-Maya is scheduled to be sentenced March 22. He has been in jail since his arrest in the case last August.
