'Straw Hat Bandit' robbed 19 banks in Bucks County and Montco. Why he says it wasn't him
In a crime spree worthy of Dillinger, 19 banks were robbed in Bucks, Montgomery and Lehigh counties between 2007 and 2016. The haul: more than $500,000.
As remarkable is the man jailed for those robberies, Richard Boyle who, prior to his conviction was an ordinary, middle-aged Navy veteran, married father of four who lived a quiet suburban life in Doylestown.
“I just want you to hear my story,” said Boyle, in a recent interview at the State Correctional Institute at Phoenix in Skippack, and in follow-up phone calls.
Now 64 and in the seventh year of a 71-year sentence, Rick Boyle is soft-spoken. His countenance is fair, his hair dark, his eyes bright and blue. He’s polite. Attentive to questions. Thoughtful when answering.
He’s not angry. He’s not happy. He’s measured.
His tone is of a mid-level manager who knows his stuff. But the gentlemanly demeanor is incongruous in the 3,800-bed maximum security pen that houses notorious crooks and killers, among them Danilo Cavalcante, a two-time murderer whose August 2023 escape launched a three-week manhunt and national headlines.
“There’s one thing I want you to know,” Boyle said, his voice barely audible in the chatty din of the prison visitor center. “I’m not the Straw Hat Bandit.”
He leaned forward, fixing his eyes on his visitor.
“I did the first eight (bank robberies) ... It’s something I’m ashamed to admit.”
But not the others, he said.
Let’s be clear on that first string of robberies -- they were unplanned, he said. He didn’t case the joints. And he dismissed, laughing, a published statement by his lawyer, Craig Penglase, who told a reporter that Boyle’s motivation was that he’d read a newspaper story about a botched bank robbery, and decided he could do it better.
“Ridiculous,” Boyle said.
His motivation was money. He was broke. His rent was past due. He had a family to support. His small businesses, which included house painting, among other gigs, wasn’t cutting it.
“So I did one a month to pay my bills,” he said.
He snagged $102,000.
He also has another explanation for robbing banks, this one medical.
“I was suffering from hypothyroidal psychosis,” he said.
He takes a minute to explain what that is, but the shorthand is a kind of temporary insanity. He’s on meds now, he said.
“I was in a psychotic state of mind and made a terrible decision that I will regret for the rest of my life. That’s what happened,” he said.
He’d randomly pick a bank, park his ’86 BMW out of view of surveillance cameras, and rob the place. Just walk in, suit and tie, polite, “Please” and “Thank you,” and saunter out.
He was so polite, one bank teller told investigators she felt that if she had said, no, I won’t give you any money, he would have turned and left.
The robberies went smoothly.
“It was too easy,” Boyle said. “There was no careful planning, so I don’t know why they didn’t catch me right away.”
Eight holdups later it came to an end in Perkasie on Feb. 8, 2008. He got sloppy.
“I parked my car too close to the bank. They got my tag, and that was it,” he said. “I couldn’t stop. I think I wanted to get caught.”
He confessed, signed the confession, and was sentenced to 11 years, but was out after three-and-a-half, in November 2011.
On June 8, 2012, another string of bank robberies began through Montco and Bucks.
These bore striking similarities to the ones to which Boyle had confessed. The robber would sometimes wear a suit and tie, and casually stride in and out. But unlike the gentleman robber of ’07-’08, this robber was menacing.
He had a gun. He made threats. He ordered frightened bank employees to open vaults and unlock cash-laden ATMs. The robber spread bleach on the floor to cover DNA evidence. He wore some sort of communication earpiece. He wore green nitrile gloves.
Prior to the robberies, 911 hoax calls were placed to divert police away from the bank that was robbed. One call claimed an active shooter was loose on Temple University’s Ambler campus. There was a terrifying shelter in place order. A bomb threat to St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown resulted in mass evacuation of patients, and the FAA cleared airspace over the hospital.
The robber also wore a frightening scarecrow-like full-face cloth mask, eyes cut out, and various hats. Photos sent to the press for publication showed the robber, in one instance, wearing a straw hat. A Courier Times reporter coined the name “Straw Hat Bandit.” The name stuck. Two federal judges, Gene Pratter and Paul Matey, used the name in their written opinions about the case.
Boyle resents the tag.
“I have never worn a straw hat,” he said. “It wasn’t me. I haven’t robbed a bank since Feb. 8, 2008.”
Investigators in Plymouth Township and the FBI knew they were dealing with a pro. But they had no suspects. Eyewitnesses gave wildly different descriptions of the robber. He was young. He was middle-aged. He was older. He was 5’ 8” and 200 pounds. He was 6’ 1” and average. He walked with a limp. He walked with a side-to-side gate. He skipped when he walked.
The robber was shrewd. The heists occurred near holidays or at the end of the week, when banks have more cash on hand.
Boyle became the suspect when he was identified at the Warminster library on June 27, 2016.
An employee said Boyle had asked if he could use the library’s computer terminals without a library card. He was logged in as “guest.” Shortly after, a TracFone was activated from that terminal, and used to make a phony 911 call. As police responded to the hoax call, a nearby PNC Bank was robbed.
All lies, Boyle said. He’d gone to the Warminster library after seeing a newspaper story about the value of reading to children. He was getting a book to read to his two grandsons.
“A book of fairy tales,” he said.
The book was unavailable, so he left.
A police sketch of him, maskless, at the library, was broadcast on local television news programs. Boyle’s neighbor saw it and called police.
“She said, hey, that’s my neighbor who was in jail for robbing banks,” Boyle said. “That sketch looked nothing like me.”
Investigators struck circumstantial gold. When they looked into Boyle’s personal finances, they found he had no steady income, yet made large cash deposits that tracked the bank heists. Total haul: $459,386.
He was spending big. He bought a Nissan Sentra for one of his daughters, paid her college tuition at Temple, took a month-long vacation to Florida with one of his sons, and purchased a $4,700 Rolex for himself.
Boyle chuckled. The cash came from his house painting, drone businesses, eBay sales of medical devices, and from gambling winnings at Parx casino in Bensalem, he said.
Charged with bank robbery and money laundering, and facing 200 years in prison, he was offered a deal: plead guilty and get 15 years. He turned it down.
“Why would I plead guilty to something I didn’t do?” he said.
His 2017 trial in federal court in Philadelphia lasted two weeks, and included 70 witnesses, among them 22 eyewitnesses.
“No physical evidence ever connected any of these crimes to me. It was a circumstantial case,” he said.
He knew he was sunk, he said, when Judge Pratter allowed his confession to the previous bank robberies to be read to the jury.
“You could feel the energy in the courtroom shift against me,” he said.
His defense lawyer, Nino Tinari, said that while reading the confession to the jury was a blow, it wasn’t what sunk the case. It was when Boyle insisted he take the stand in his own defense, a dicey move defense lawyers avoid. The prosecution sliced and diced Boyle on the stand.
“He blew it,” Tinari said. “I told him absolutely not, don’t take the stand. But, see, he’s smart, he’s smarter than everyone. I mean, he is a bright guy, but he walked himself right into jail.
“He had to answer questions regarding his financials,” Tinari said. “That testimony was critical. Had he not said anything, if he didn’t take the stand, they had nothing.”
Boyle’s gambling explanation bombed.
“They determined that the only amount of money he ever won at gambling was a couple hundred dollars,” Tinari said.
“He comes off as a grandfatherly-type guy, and he thinks everybody’s going to believe him because he’s mild-mannered and that’s how he portrays himself, even to his family,” he said. “But the jury didn’t believe him.”
Boyle has unsuccessfully appealed his case, but he’s not giving up.
The man branded as the “Straw Hat Bandit” spends his days studying in the prison law library, has filed a Right to Know request with the Plymouth police, and a Freedom of Information request with the Department of Justice.
“The DOJ has 7,012 documents related to my case, including emails,” he said.
He’s eager to see them.
Otherwise, he counsels other inmates on their cases, reads the Bible to a blind inmate, and keeps in touch with family who want to keep in touch with him. He’s still married, he said.
He’s upbeat about his chances of beating the rap, freeing himself from prison and the tag “Straw Hat Bandit.”
“I have no intention of dying here,” he said. “I might be a very old man when I’m out, but I have no doubt I will beat this. I’m really excited about it, too. I’m Irish, so I really enjoy the fight.”
JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bank robber "Straw Hat Bandit" fights convictions in Bucks, Montco
