A man on trial for a half-a-million-dollar bank burglary is hoping a supposed ‘friend with benefits’ will provide sufficient alibi to prove his innocence.
Defendant Statan Omar Clarke, one of four people on trial, told a Grand Court jury on Wednesday 8 May that he couldn’t have been the getaway driver for the Royal Bank of Canada heist because he was busy that evening helping his then romantic partner move homes.
Clarke, providing evidence in his own defence, told jurors that on the evening of 22 June 2016, he took his work van to a bar and drank a beer. He said he then left to help his “friend with benefits” and her roommates move across George Town from one apartment to another.
“I was upset with her at first because she was supposed to move, but when I got there, she wasn’t ready, and we got in argument, so I left,” Clarke said.
He told the jury that he returned to her house around 7pm and spent three hours helping her pack.
Clarke is charged alongside David Bodden Jr. and Elton Webster, each facing one count of burglary in relation to the theft of CI$464,910 and US$126,187 from cash-dispensing machines at the Royal Bank of Canada’s Shedden Road branch.
Webster’s wife Eliza Webster is charged with possession of criminal property, sequential US dollar bills linked to the case.
‘It couldn’t have been me’
Clarke told the court that he became friends with Webster when they worked for the same electrical contractor company.
“My ‘friend with benefits’ was friends with his ‘friend with benefits’ because they worked together as bartenders,” Clarke told the court.
He responded to questioning by his attorney Amelia Fosuhene that he could not have participated in the “criminal gang” that burgled RBC because he was with that same “friend with benefits” that evening.
“She lived with two other persons who saw me, because I was helping them pack up, so it couldn’t have been me [at the bank],” he said.
The case against the Websters
The prosecution’s case has been nearly a decade in the making. Police officers worked for years to piece together clues, and the matter took eight years to come to trial.
An early clue, however, came two weeks after the burglary, when Customs and Border Control officers stopped Eliza Webster with several US$100 banknotes in sequential order at the Owen Roberts International Airport.
The cash was linked to the RBC branch, having arrived on island less than a month before.
Eliza Webster denies the allegations, maintaining that the approximately US$4,000 found in her possession were from her savings account and loans from her parents and friends.
Elton Webster denies any participation in the burglary, and has yet to give his account of his whereabouts on the night of the incident.
The case against Bodden Jr.
Bodden, in his capacity as a former employee of RBC, is alleged to have served as the ‘inside man’ who deactivated the bank’s security system and enabled the burglar to unload the cash-dispensing machines without a trace.
While on the stand, Clarke said he knew Bodden as a teammate from football but that they were not friends.
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Although no video evidence of the theft was recovered, the prosecution provided the jury with information showing Bodden’s key fob was detected on the floor with the cash-dispensing machines at a time when the bank’s security protocols were breached.
Bodden denies the allegations and the trial continues. The four defendants remain on bail.
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