Dominyk Antonio Alfonseca, 23, emerged as the front runner for Stupidest Criminal of the Year this week, after he robbed a bank with a ridiculously polite note, posted photos and video clips of the robbery to Instagram, and got caught.
And all of that would be pretty dumb by itself–but it’s the reason Alfonseca thinks he won’t be prosecuted that has people shaking their heads especially hard.
First up: The robbery itself. Alfonseca entered a TowneBank in Virginia Beach VA with the following note, which he handed to the teller before smiling and saying “Please”:
In case you have difficulty making out Alfonseca’s handwriting and / or syntax, the note reads:
I need 150,000 Bonds Right Now!! please Police take 3 to 4 minites to get here, I would appricecate if you rung the alarm a minute after I am gone…
make sure the money doesn’t BLOW up on my way out. 🙂
Alfonseca is nothing if not a polite criminal.
Unfortunately for him, he is also not an especially sneaky criminal. He posted the ransom note, along with a short cell phone video of his transaction with the teller, to his since-deleted Instagram account. Police were able to catch him approximately 20 minutes later.
Then, after he’d been booked and jailed, Alfonseca offered the following explanation to a news crew:
I went and I gave a note and I asked actually politely. A robbery is demanding, going and demanding something and taking the money or whatever like that. I didn’t do that….If it was a robbery, I don’t think I would videotape it, post the picture of the letter and do that all to come to jail.
In other words: The man’s defense is that he never threatened the teller, and didn’t have a weapon, and so the teller was just handing him $150,000 of the bank’s money out of the goodness of her own blessed heart.
The police of Virginia Beach disagree with Alfonseca’s interpretation of criminal law. Alfonseca will next appear in court on June 12.
(Photo credits: Virginia Beach PD; Alfonseca via Instagram)
