Teller Danielle Stephens was a witness to the third straight hit on this Sovereign Bank. (Daniel Shapiro)
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Now that’s customer loyalty.
A greedy bank robber starred in his own criminal version of “Groundhog Day” — holding up the same downtown Sovereign branch on three consecutive days before he was finally busted yesterday, police sources told The Post yesterday.
Charles Burnett, 29, allegedly stole a total of more than $26,000 before cops thwarted his unprecedented crime spree.
“Maybe a handful of times I’ve heard of a guy come back a few weeks later,” said a law-enforcement source. “I’ve never heard of a guy come back two days in a row, let alone three.”
Burnett began his heist hat trick at 9:19 a.m. Monday, when he boldly entered the bank, shoved a customer out of the way and handed a teller a demand note that read: “Put money in the bag, I have a gun.”
To show he was serious, he produced a brown paper bag and banged it on the counter to indicate it had something heavy, and threatening, inside. The teller gave him $2,258 and he walked out while peeling off a blue glove.
The next day he came back at 10:54 a.m., aggressively cut the line and demanded loot.
Danielle Stephens, 25, a teller who was on her first day at work said she told him she didn’t have any cash, so he went to another teller.
“He told the girl next to me, ‘I will shoot you in the f–king face if you don’t give me all your money,’” Stephens said. “He walked out with like $14,000.”
After the second heist, the suspect’s security-camera photo was put up in police stations and published in yesterday’s Post. Still, he couldn’t resist taking a third shot at the bank yesterday.
Just after 9 a.m. he passed a demand note that said, “I have a gun put all the money in the bag.”
“It was the same dumbass who hit us yesterday,” said one worker. “He was huge.”
As Burnett left the bank with some $10,002 in loot, he was spotted by two police officers who happened to be driving by.
They saw him carrying a dark-colored knapsack and recognized him from his wanted poster, and one officer chased him down.
“They tackled him today as I was coming in,” said Stephens. “He ran out onto Gold Street and they tackled him.”
Burnett, a Teaneck, NJ, resident who has only two previous minor arrests, was slapped with three counts of robbery.
He was awaiting arraignment last night in Manhattan Criminal Court.
“Same guy, three days in a row,” said Stephens. “Obviously he wanted to get caught. He didn’t seem like he was all there.”
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan