ST. GEORGE — An unsuccessful attempt to steal an ATM from a bank in Hurricane in February has led to the indictment of seven suspects, five of whom are in custody, while two remain at large.
The incident was reported Feb. 8, when several suspects attempted to steal the ATM from the Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of State and Main streets in Hurricane shortly after 4 a.m.
The police responded to find the ATM machine and the surrounding foundation significantly damaged. Video footage later obtained by authorities showed a Ford F-650 commercial grade dump truck hauling a track hoe/excavator on a trailer pull into the Wells Fargo parking lot and park near the ATM.
A man was seen climbing into the excavator and then using the equipment to dismantle the cash machine – “all while the excavator remained on the trailer,” federal prosecutors noted in the indictment.
In the process of doing so, the equipment struck the canopy that hung overhead of the ATM and drive-thru lanes, as well as the ATM machine in an attempt to dislodge it from its foundation.
Unable to remove the ATM, the suspects fled the scene and crashed the truck a short distance from the bank just east of 600 East where officers later found it abandoned. From start to finish, the incident took just over four minutes.
Officers scoured the area with K-9 teams but were unable to locate the suspects.
Through the course of the investigation, officers learned that a woman had called 911 minutes before the ATM incident. Prosecutors recounting the phone call state that the woman said she was calling from the Clarion Suites and told emergency dispatch that her husband had “gone crazy – he has a gun and I’m scared he’s gonna kill me.”
According to the investigators, the phone call was part of a ruse to divert the officers’ attention away from the bank.
Security footage showed a sedan pulling off the highway near the hotel parking lot, where it remained for more than an hour before it drove off right after the 911 call was made. Investigators also pinged the cell phone to determine where the call was made, which turned out to be from a vacant field near the hotel, and even though the cell phone remained active for several days, it was never recovered by police.
As the investigation continued, detectives were able to identify the owners of the construction equipment that was used by the group, equipment that all was ultimately reported as stolen the night before the incident. The truck was taken from a subdivision nearby where there was ongoing construction off North 1450 West in Hurricane. The trailer was taken from the parking lot of a local plumbing company, and the excavator was taken from a golf course that was under construction.
While the suspects were unable to break into the vault or remove the ATM machine from its foundation, according to the indictment, the attempt came at a cost of more than $81,700 in damages.
During the analysis of the cell phone used to distract police, investigators found a number called multiple times before, during and following the incident that came back to the primary suspect, Jordan Lucia, 33, who was indicted in federal court last month. They also discovered a number of “burner phones,” which are not registered under an individual’s name and difficult to trace.
While in custody in a federal prison in Arizona, Lucia met one of the codefendants, James William Costello, 40, the suspect who allegedly purchased the cell phones and who was also serving out his sentence in the same unit Lucia was assigned to.
As agents continued to follow up on multiple leads and obtain cell phone data and security footage from several locations throughout Washington County, five additional suspects were also identified and later indicted for taking part in the scheme: Bradley Joseph Brostrom, 31; Trevor Jon Moss, 24; Tyler Ray Rustali, 30; Daniel Jacob Harris, 26; and Haylie Alise Smith, 22.
Lucia was arrested in August and remains in custody in Iron County, while Brostrom, Moss, Rustali and Smith are in custody in Washington County. Costello and Harris have yet to be apprehended by authorities.
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