Wingate charged in VB&T robbery

Robber admits

taking $81,000

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

MINNEAPOLIS -- An 18-year-old rural Courtland man admitted to a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Tuesday that he stole about $81,000 on Friday, Sept. 27, from Valley Bank & Trust, 1823 S. Broadway.

Peter C. Wingate was taken into custody by the FBI Tuesday from the Brown County Jail after a federal criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

Wingate made his initial appearance Wednesday in a Minneapolis federal court room and was charged with with one count of bank robbery.

Maximum penalty for the crime is 25 years in prison. Wingate waived his detention hearing and preliminary hearing and was ordered detained pending further court proceedings. It is anticipated the federal criminal complaint will be presented to a federal grand jury within 30 days.

Last Friday, Valley Bank & Trust, which was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, was robbed by a single subject who threatened the use of a gun, but did not display the weapon, the complaint said.

"Don't do anything. Don't move or you will get shot," Wingate told the bank teller before he escaped with $81,579 in loot, according to the complaint.

About two hours before the robbery, New Ulm Police investigated a suspicious car fire that appeared to be intentionally set. At that time, police did not connect it with the bank robbery.

A 19-year-old New Ulm man told an FBI agent that Wingate told him and several others on Thursday, Sept. 26, that he intended to rob a bank in New Ulm the next day. He also divulged a plan to set a diversionary fire in a car on the other side of town to draw police attention before the robbery.

The New Ulm man said Wingate admitted to him and several other friends that he robbed the Valley Bank & Trust and left the loot hidden in a backpack in woods near the bank, the complaint said.

The man said he took Wingate to the woods near the bank the morning after the robbery and retrieved the backpack containing the loot, a second backpack with clothes used in the robbery and a .22 rifle with a short stock.

The man drove Wingate to his rural Courtland home and helped him count out about $81,000 in bank robbery loot and store it in his room. Wingate gave some of the money to his friends, according to the complaint.

Wingate's friends, when interviewed by law enforcement officials, corroborated the man's testimony. Two of the friends returned money that Wingate gave them.

A state search warrant was obtained in New Ulm Monday and executed at Wingate's home later that day. Large amounts of cash, some of it bundled in Valley Bank & Trust money wrappers, a .22 caliber Savage survival rifle with no stock and clothes in a backpack, which matched the description of the clothes worn by the bank robbery suspect, were recovered.

After being advised of his constitutional rights, Wingate waived his rights and agreed to be interviewed while the search warrant was being executed.

Wingate admitted robbing the bank of about $81,000 in loot and setting a car fire as a diversion, the complaint states. He also admitted that the money found in his room during the search warrant was proceeds from the bank robbery and that the clothes found in the backpack were those worn during the bank robbery, the complaint states.

Wingate admitted he carried the .22 caliber survival rifle recovered in the search warrant in his pant leg during the bank robbery and that the gun was loaded during the robbery, the complaint states.

The investigation was a joint effort by New Ulm and St. Peter Police, Brown and Nicollet County Sheriff's Departments, the Minnesota State Highway Patrol and the FBI.

Wingate is in custody in a federal detention facility in the Twin Cities.