'Fast Eddie' jailed for 5 years in UK
2013-03-05 21:21
-
Us
An old fashioned story by Mary Louisa Molesworth (1836-1921). The author of beloved children's...
Now R150.00
buy now
London - A British man nicknamed "Fast Eddie"
after brazenly driving off with an armoured van full of banknotes and coins was
sentenced on Tuesday in London to five years in jail following nearly two
decades hiding out in the US.
Edward J Maher was working as a guard for a security
company in 1993 when authorities say he took off with the van as a colleague
was making a bank delivery.
While the abandoned vehicle was later discovered, its
booty of about 30 bags containing some $1.5m worth of coins and notes was gone -
and so was Maher.
British media breathlessly covered the search for the man
they dubbed "Fast Eddie" in the days after the heist.
The trail went cold, until he was arrested in Missouri on
a tip some two decades later.
After initially denying the theft, Maher entered a
last-minute guilty plea at London's Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday.
Detective Inspector David Giles said that while Maher had
insisted he was forced to carry out the crime and had only made a small amount
of money off the heist, he had never put forward a credible story.
"We have succeeded in proving that he profited
substantially from the theft and was a key player in the planning and execution
of it," Giles said outside the court on Tuesday.
"Since his arrest, he has displayed no remorse for
what he did — but I get the impression he has spent 20 years looking over his
shoulder and hoping the law would not catch up with him."
After the heist, a reward was offered for Maher and there
were reported sightings of him across Europe, but his trail eventually went
cold.
At some point, Maher and his family fled to the US, where
he often used a brother's name or the alias Stephen King.
They made frequent - sometimes cross-country - moves, and
Maher spent several years working for Nielsen Media Research, first in
Philadelphia, then in Milwaukee and St Paul, Minnesota.
Sometime in 2008, Maher and his family moved to the small
town of Ozark, Missouri.
Authorities said he was living there under his brother's
name and working as a cable technician when he was arrested in February 2012 on
a tip from Maher's estranged daughter-in-law.
While in custody on federal charges of aggravated
identity theft, document fraud and firearms violations, Maher agreed to be sent
back to Britain to face charges in relation to the robbery.
- AP
