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It was 3:50 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2012, when Jorge Luis Oliveiros Ortega, then 22, walked into a bank in northwest Toronto. He was about 5’4″, 120 pounds, and wearing a grey Adidas jacket. He gave no indication he was armed.

As the teller was about to serve him, he stepped back, spoke in Spanish to someone on his cell phone, then he handed over the note, which read: “This is a robbery, give me the money, my mother is sick.”

“The teller initially hesitated because she could not believe what was happening,” the judge wrote. “In a calm voice, [Mr. Oliveiros Ortega] said: ‘Give me the money.'”

When the teller handed over the $600, he asked for more, but the teller refused. He asked her to put the money in an envelope. She did, and he left.

In her testimony, the teller said she felt no fear at all, neither for herself nor anyone else, and handed over the money, according to the judge, “because he asked for it and also because she felt sorry for him, given that he looked so young and his mother was sick.”

The judge noted that another teller heard some of the exchange and did not feel afraid either.

In the Crown’s view, the teller’s state of mind was irrelevant, and it only needed to prove Mr. Ortega’s conduct was objectively threatening, or that a reasonable person would be scared. It argued that requiring the teller to be scared “frustrates the operation of the provision.”

‘This is a robbery, give me the money, my mother is sick’

The Crown also argued that Mr. Oliveiros Ortega’s actions “amounted to what everyone considers to be robbery,” and noted that Mr. Oliveiros Ortega himself called it a “robbery” in his note.