Third Man Admits to Va. ATM Robberies

The robbers wore menacing Halloween skeleton masks, shoved guns at armored car workers who were stocking ATMs with cash and made off with $360,000 from three mid-day heists in Northern Virginia. But by the third ambush, at a Bank of America in Woodbridge, they got sloppy.

A white Cadillac they used as a getaway car was registered to one of the robbers, Christopher Blakeney, 21, who lived a quarter-mile from the bank.

FBI agents went to his home and another address and found the money, the guns and the masks. The trio's undoing came, fittingly, on April Fool's Day.

Carlic Darnell Brown, 25, of Prince William was the last of the three to plead guilty yesterday, in his case to using a firearm in two of the cases. Brown and Blakeney, friends who live on the same street, admitted to police that they committed the string of robberies, documents show. For the final heist, they called in Blakeney's cousin from New York, Michael Blakeney, 20, who was paid $20,000 for the job, according to authorities.

At a hearing in August, Brown faces a minimum of 32 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life. Christopher Blakeney, who faces the same sentence, pleaded guilty to matching charges May 13. Michael Blakeney pleaded guilty May 6 to using a firearm in the April 1 robbery and faces a term of seven years to life.

Court records show that the holdups got bigger as the men went on.

The first was April 4, 2007, near a Wachovia ATM in Lorton, where the men took about $80,000 from a Loomis employee. The second was Feb. 1, 2008, near a Navy Federal Credit Union ATM in Fairfax, which netted the men $120,000. The third was the largest, when the men took $160,000 and a cellular phone from a Loomis guard.

FBI agents found the men through a mix of searching records and shoe-leather detective work.

In the April 1 holdup, the robbers arrived near the scene, 1708 Old Bridge Rd., at 8:30 a.m. in a Toyota Siena van that had been stolen from Fairfax County, court documents show. After the 1 p.m. holdup, investigators used police dogs to follow the scent of the men through a wooded area to the back of the bank, where witnesses said they saw a "suspicious" white Cadillac parked on a street.

Agents traced the Cadillac and found it was registered to Blakeney, who lived on Shady River Court in Woodbridge. They then discovered the Loomis guard's stolen cellphone behind an adjacent street.

They also spotted the white Cadillac in a nearby parking lot. Agents searched the homes of Brown and Christopher Blakeney and found $170,771 in cash, two semiautomatic handguns, a shotgun and rubber skull masks.

The men were arrested, and while being interviewed by police, they explained how they committed their crimes.