Police arrested a man yesterday for setting fire to the Ford Bank on South 3rd street. Mark Adler, the suspect, was arrested after police caught him running away from the bank with a bag full of money. He was charged with arson and armed robbery.
Adler says he didn't do it. "I was just walking by when I saw that the bank was on fire. I opened the door and yelled, 'Is everybody okay?' That's when I saw the bag of money. I couldn't resist when I saw all that money." Adler says he then picked up the bag and began running. "I may have stolen the money,” he said, “but I didn't set the bank on fire.”
Several witnesses, however, gave testimony that they saw Adler hanging around the bank several hours before the fire with a blue backpack. Adler didn't have a backpack when he was arrested, and there was evidence of the blue material from a backpack at the scene of the crime. Police suspect that Adler used the backpack to hide a fire bomb.
The detectives who investigated this case got a search warrant and then searched Adler's house. The detectives found evidence which included a blueprint of the bank and also materials for making a fire bomb, the same kind of bomb that was used to set the bank on fire.
The Chief Detective said that when they interrogated the suspect, he kept changing his story about what happened. The suspect also did not have an alibi. He said he was with his girlfriend just before the crime, but when detectives spoke with her, she said she hadn't seen her boyfriend in a week.
Even though the suspect wasn't carrying a gun, the district attorney's office has charged him with armed robbery. “We classify the fire bomb as a weapon,” said the assistant D.A. (district attorney).
Mark Adler's case went to trial. He was convicted of arson and armed robbery, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.