Ex-rookie police officer pleads guilty to holding up same NYC bank twice with teller’s help

Guilty plea for ex-NYC police officer in bank jobs

NEW YORK — A former rookie police officer pleaded guilty Tuesday to robbing the same bank twice after a friend who worked as a teller there convinced him it would be “easy money.”

Christian Torres, 23, told a federal judge that he was struggling to pay his bills when he hatched the inside job with the teller, Christina Dasrath, in 2007.

“It was premeditated,” he said. “We discussed … how we would split (the money) in the end.”

Before being exposed as a bank robber, Torres was considered a promising rookie officer at the New York Police Department. He said Tuesday that he turned to a life of crime after the teller told him, “It will be easy money that we both need.”

On June 8, 2007, Torres entered the Sovereign Bank branch in Manhattan where Dasrath worked, handed her a threatening note as planned and fled with $16,500.

Five months later, while enrolled in the police academy, Torres struck at the same branch using a fake handgun. He said his co-conspirator played victim as he forced her and other employees into a vault, where she put $102,000 into a duffel bag.

The same day as the second holdup he put down $18,500 cash on a new car, authorities said. Later, he bought his girlfriend, who is not implicated in the bank jobs, a diamond engagement ring and paid off a $2,500 college loan.

Torres had graduated from the academy and was assigned to a transit patrol when, while off duty, he held up another Sovereign branch in Reading, Pa., in April 2008. He again forced employees into a vault, stuffed $113,000 in large bills into a shopping bag and fled in a car.

Police responding to a silent alarm captured Torres outside the bank. He was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in a separate Pennsylvania prosecution, defense attorney Paul Missan said.

Torres could get more than eight years for the New York holdups at sentencing Nov. 6.

Dasrath, who also pleaded guilty, was sentenced earlier this year to 2 1/2 years behind bars. She claimed she was duped by Torres, describing him as her first love.