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Glenwood bank robbery suspect allegedly held up Las Vegas casino

Pete Fowler
pfowler@postindependent.com
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado ” In a case that seems to offer new twists by the day, the man suspected of robbing a West Glenwood Springs bank is also suspected in a Las Vegas casino holdup.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release Dec. 23 that a white male in his 20s entered the Sahara Hotel and Casino Dec. 19, loitered for about 20 minutes, then “entered the poker room and used a firearm to commit a robbery upon an employee” before fleeing on foot.

Las Vegas police spokeswoman Barbara Morgan said the Federal Bureau of Investigation called police on Dec. 24 and said they’d just arrested a suspect matching the description with the same clothes two days earlier. The FBI had arrested Jeffrey Smith, 27, of Glenwood Springs, on suspicion of robbing the Alpine Bank in Glenwood Springs on Dec. 15.



Morgan said the FBI called after seeing casino security images in a Las Vegas newspaper. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported the robber got between $4,000 and $5,000 off the poker room employee.

The man in security camera images that police say is Smith did not wear a mask in the casino robbery or the Glenwood Springs bank heist.



Smith, his family members and friends have written letters to judges saying he has a severe gambling addiction and a history of stealing to support it. He entered guilty pleas in theft cases from 2003 and 2004 in Garfield County, violated probation multiple times and received a two-year prison sentence in February 2007.

Smith faces a federal bank robbery charge and a parole violation charge in Colorado, plus additional charges in Nevada.

Contact Pete Fowler: 384-9121

pfowler@postindependent.com


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