By T.L. Petersen

Observer Staff Writer

An attempted bank robbery in La Grande Feb. 28 apparently foiled when the teller told the robber she didn’t have the bills he wanted and he fled is one of 17 charges a Washington man has pleaded guilty to in U.S. District Court.

Thomas Austin Kinerk, 42, confessed in a plea agreement document earlier this month that between Nov. 26, 2002, and April 15, 2003, he had robbed 17 banks in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Kansas of a total of $25,036, often getting less than $2,000 from an individual bank.

In the plea agreement, Kinerk said he entered the US Bank in La Grande, walked up to a bank teller and handed her a note.

According to the court document filed in Tacoma, Wash., Kinerk’s note said, "Stay calm. Be quiet. Give me all your $20’s, $50’s, $100’s."

But unlike all the other banks Kinerk confessed to robbing, the La Grande teller talked back.

The plea agreement said the teller realized she was being robbed, but also knew she had been short of large bills all day. The teller looked at Kinerk and said, "Good luck because I don’t have any."

Kinerk said he fled La Grande without getting any money.

Kinerk has been charged in federal court with 17 counts of bank robbery, said Lisca Borichewski of the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington. He faces imprisonment of up to 20 years, a fine up to $250,000 and a $100 penalty assessment on each count.

Following his last confessed robbery of the Washington Mutual Bank in Chehalis, Wash., April 15, Kinerk was arrested in Yakima July 17, Borichewski said. He was picked up after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

With the plea agreement, Kinerk is being held in the federal detention center at Seatac, Wash., until his sentencing hearing Oct. 9.

According to the agreement, Kinerk used the same tactic to rob each of the banks asking a teller, via a note, to give him bills. At no point in the court papers does Kinerk ever mention having a weapon.

He was accused in a felony information court document of using "force and intimidation" to take money. He also supposedly tried to disguise his appearance during some robberies, perhaps by using false teeth.

In addition to the attempted robbery in La Grande, Kinerk confessed to robbing banks in Centralia, Tumwater, Auburn, and Vancouver, Wash.; Portland, Gladstone, Gresham, Hood River, and Beaverton; Commerce City, Colo.; Boise and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Overland Park, Kan. In some communities he returned and robbed different banks.

The robberies in late 2002 and early 2003 are apparently not Kinerk’s first foray into taking money from a bank. In a complaint for violation filed in the district court in April, Kinerk is reported to have been on active supervision with the Washington State Department of Corrections following a 1997 bank robbery conviction involving a Hoquiam, Wash., bank.