Alleged 'Choirboy Bandit' captured / Suspect in 7 Bay Area robberies known for bicycle getaways

Thomas Justice hoped to become a bicycle racer in the Olympics someday.

But instead, Justice used his pedaling skills to rob some 30 banks across the country, from the Bay Area to Chicago, authorities said today.

Justice was dubbed the "Choirboy Bandit" because he kept his head bowed slightly and his hands in front of him so he wouldn't be filmed by security cameras or leave his fingerprints behind, police say.

The former Berkeley resident is being held without bail after being arrested Tuesday near Chicago, two months after he allegedly robbed the Union Bank of California in Walnut Creek of $5,122.

Justice, 31, was wearing street clothes when he robbed the bank March 7, police said, then rode away on his bike and changed into a Spandex cycling outfit blocks away. Walnut Creek Police Officer Greg Thompson stopped the bicyclist on a hunch, but Justice bolted, authorities said.

In a nearby creekbed, Justice ditched a custom-made, $3,000 orange Brent Steelman racing bike with blue pedals, cycling cleats and sports sunglasses, police said.

A picture of the bike and a bank-camera surveillance photo of the robber was posted on the Web site of Steelman Cycles in Redwood City. Walnut Creek police soon received tips from two people in Chicago.

One caller said he had "worked extensively" on the bike at a shop and the former owner of the bike said he had sold it and shipped it to Berkeley, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland by FBI Special Agent Robert Schenke. Both tipsters identified Justice as the bike's owner, the FBI said.

"It was good police work, coupled with a little bit of luck," Walnut Creek Police Lt. Loren Cattolico said today. "It's a unique suspect who put a little more work into planning robberies than the average robber."

Cattolico said of the suspect's travels and escape by bike, "Most of the time robbers will go until they get caught. They don't get enough money to run off to some place exotic. Generally, they're not that lucrative."

Justice was arrested at his parents' home in Libertyville, Ill. -- right next door to the home of the town's police chief -- on one count of bank robbery for the Walnut Creek heist.

He is being investigated in connection with seven bank robberies in Concord,

Lafayette and Walnut Creek, 10 in the Chicago area and other holdups in San Diego and Milwaukee. He apparently used the money to buy drugs, authorities said.

At the same time, Justice nurtured a love for bicycling and racing.

Schenke wrote in his affidavit, "The bike frame built by Steelman was a custom-made racing frame which would have been purchased, as bare frame only, by an individual having an interest in racing."

Justice's mother, Caroline Justice, told the Chicago Tribune that the family was upset by the news and that she didn't know why her son would rob banks.

"Apparently, he was not thinking," he said.

In his senior yearbook at Libertyville High School, where Justice had been president of his class, a friend who was asked to guess where Justice would be in 10 years wrote: "On the cover of a Wheaties box, with his bike," the Tribune reported.

For her part, Steelman cycles co-owner Katryn Steelman said today that it was a dubious honor to know that one of her bikes was used as a getaway vehicle in a bank robbery.

"Certainly, it's not the type of attention that we would want," she said, "but I guess everybody tries to get attention in various ways. I'm happy that the person got caught."