Metro

‘Bouquet Bandit’ busted in Brooklyn: police

Cops were the ones who came up roses today after nabbing the “Bouquet Bandit” for pulling off two Chelsea bank robberies.

Edward Pemberton, 44, was busted just days after cops said he robbed a pair of Chelsea banks while carrying flowers or potted plants as props, police sources said.

Charges against Pemberton — who also uses the alias “John Lowe” — are pending.

Cops said Pemberton, who worked several odd jobs in Chelsea where the robberies took place, lives in Brooklyn. He has had 14 previous arrests, mainly for drugs.

Pemberton was arrested at a relatives’ home in Bed-Stuy, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Cops used fingerprints left on the pink paper around the flowers to nab Pemberton.

The chrome-domed Pemberton packed fresh flowers and potted plants instead of a weapon for two heists, and even whipped out a threatening note from a bunch of sweet-smelling perennials demanding that a teller fork over a different kind of green.

The brazen Pemberton strolled into the Bank on Smithtown on Seventh Avenue and 18th Street last Thursday morning bearing a romantic, blooming bouquet — and bad intentions, police said.

Pemberton, dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt, allegedly entered the bank just before 9 a.m. with his carefully wrapped flowers and gave a quick nod to the financial institution’s in-house greeter before making a beeline for a male teller.

The creep clutched his bouquet — a colorful assortment wrapped in pink tissue that any woman would be happy to receive — with his left hand and removed a stick-up note attached to the bouquet with his right.

“Give me all your hundreds, fifties – don’t be a hero,” he allegedly snarled, brandishing the note while still holding the flowers like a loving Valentine’s Day offering.

The clerk handed over $440, a police source said — in a bundle with a dye pack.

With his money in hand, the bouquet bandit dumped his floral array behind on the teller’s counter and then fled.

It’s unclear if the dye pack ever detonated.

The bouquet contained yellow chrysanthemums, orange and red daisies, a stem of yellow gladiola buds, baby’s breath and assorted green leaves, police sources said.

The heist came a week after another horticulture hit by the same suspect at a Capital One bank on West 23rd Street and Ninth Avenue.

But this time, the bandit armed himself with a small potted plant, the kind that one would normally find on a city apartment windowsill.

In that instance, Pemberton allegedly went up to a female teller, set his plant down on the counter and hissed, “Give me all your 50s, 100s, no dye pack, no bait money” referring to marked bills, authorities said.

But the teller was taking too long getting his bucks, so the man angrily reached into the drawer and helped himself to $2,325, cops said.

He fled with his loot and the potted plant.