A West Virginia man is facing up to 18 years in prison after he left a casino, robbed a bank, and then returned to the casino to continue playing.
52-year-old Kerry Johnson was having a bad day at the blackjack table inside the Mardi Gras casino near Charleston. He put down a $25 chip to hold his spot while he stepped away. He then headed to a bank, where he handed the teller a note saying he had a bomb and another weapon. The teller handed him $5000 and Johnson ran out of the bank.
Moments later, he returned to his spot at the blackjack table and continued playing. The next day, police acted on an anonymous tip and visited Johnson at his house. There, they found a yellow legal pad matching the paper used in the note he handed to the teller, and also a hat that matched the one he wore in the surveillance footage. A subsequent search turned up large sums of cash stuffed inside his couch cushions, and detectives later found out that $500 of the stolen money had been used at the casino.
Johnson claims he was on a lot of drugs at the time. He's scheduled to be sentenced in March.
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