Man Pleads to 2 NJ Bank Robberies, Attempted Disarming

PRESS RELEASE
June 20, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO

Thomas A. Struss, (DOB 9/4/75) a former West Deptford NJ resident, pleaded guilty today (6/20) to committing two bank robberies in Gloucester County NJ within days of each other in July 2010, and admitted he attempted to disarm a Gloucester County sheriff’s officer at Underwood-Memorial Hospital in Woodbury NJ in August 2010.

Under terms of a negotiated plea, the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office will recommend that Struss, currently serving a three-year state prison sentence for narcotics possession, be sentenced to ten years in New Jersey state prison. He will be ineligible for parole until he serves 85 percent of the sentence, and will be subject to five years of parole supervision after leaving prison.

Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. accepted the pleas and set sentencing for Aug. 1.

Struss admitted he entered a TD Bank office in Mantua NJ on 7/22/10, threatened a teller that he would use a deadly weapon and fled with $922. He acknowledged doing the same at a TD Bank office in West Deptford NJ where more than $2,000 was taken from a teller. No weapon was shown in either robbery. West Deptford and Mantua police identified Struss from bank office camera images and prior law enforcement contacts by distinctive pointed tattoos on his neck. He was arrested at his residence in St. Regis Court in West Deptford on 7/28/10.

Struss also admitted that he attempted to gain control of a Gloucester County sheriff’s officer’s service weapon during a scuffle at Underwood-Memorial Hospital when officers escorted him there for treatment of an injury on 8/11/10.