ROGERS — A Rogers man apparently used a trick ankle to slip in and out of a monitoring bracelet, leaving the device at home Tuesday morning while he robbed a bank, said police and court officials Friday.
Benton County prosecutors filed formal charges of aggravated robbery and theft of property Friday against Anthony Timothy Barnes, 33, of Rogers. He is accused of holding two employees at gunpoint and taking more than $25,000 from Metropolitan National Bank on Pinnacle Hills Parkway in Rogers on Tuesday morning, according to the charging documents.
Barnes was out on bail awaiting trial for three 2009 bank robberies in Rogers when he was arrested Tuesday night after investigators said the robber in the Metropolitan surveillance footage resembled him.
Barnes was required to wear an electronic ankle monitor as a condition of his bond on the earlier robbery charges.
“It seems he took advantage of a physical abnormality that allowed him to slip the monitor off,” said Stuart Cearley, a deputy prosecutor for Benton County.
The monitor indicated Barnes was at home during the time of the robbery. It also recorded Barnes as being at home Oct. 7 when he was arrested on unrelated charges in south Texas.
“It wasn’t cut or disassembled. His anatomy appears to have let him take it off. The device itself was functioning just fine. It’s just that he was able to slip out of it,” said Johnny Wagner, president of Sentencing Options Specialists, the Fort Smith-based company that provided the monitor and monitoring service. “Hundreds of people have tried to bust them, but I’ve never encountered this before.”
The company provides monitors to both Benton and Washington county authorities. Several other monitoring companies also are used.
“We’ve never had problems with any of the units failing or not working right,” said Maj. Randall Denzer of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. “This is a really bizarre incident.”
Barnes could be charged with absconding for removing the monitor, Cearley said.
Drew Ledbetter, Barnes’ attorney , declined comment Friday on the exact nature of Barnes’ abnormality.
Police found most of the missing money late Tuesday at a Rogers storage unit Barnes rented that morning.
Barnes also is being investigated as a suspect in several Springdale bank robberies, but no formal charges have been filed, said John Threet, Washington County prosecutor.
Barnes remained jailed Friday in lieu of bonds totaling more than $750,000.
“I wouldn’t put another monitor on that guy unless it was around his neck and you had to take off his head to remove it,” Wagner said.