Louisville armored truck driver accused of stealing nearly $1M takes plea deal
Louisville KY Sept 5 2019 The Louisville man accused of taking nearly $1 million from an armored truck parked outside Jefferson Mall last year and fleeing to Connecticut has entered a guilty plea in federal court.
Mark Espinosa, 29, agreed to plead guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Louisville to stealing more than $900,000 from a GardaWorld armored truck parked outside Louisville’s Jefferson Mall on Dec. 5, 2018.
The guilty plea came one day before a jury trial was scheduled to start in Espinosa’s case.
Espinosa is facing one count each of theft from a common carrier, bank robbery, interstate transportation of stolen money, monetary transactions involving stolen money and money laundering.
According to the plea deal, federal prosecutors have agreed to recommend 21 years in prison as punishment, far less than the maximum of 60 years he was facing.
The money laundering charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a term of supervised release, while the other charges each carry a maximum of 10 years.
As explained previously by authorities and outlined in a plea agreement, Espinosa, who worked for Garda at the time of the alleged theft, took the money and left while his co-worker went inside the mall to pick up money.
When Espinosa’s partner exited the mall, the truck was there but Espinosa was gone along with $932,285.22 in cash from the back of the truck, according to court records.
Authorities had initially said Espinosa could be a suspect or a victim but then issued an federal arrest warrant for him in December, saying he took steps to plan out the theft.
Within days of his disappearance, Garda officials told a Louisville licensing agency that Espinosa no longer worked for the company, the Courier Journal previously reported.
He had started working for the Montreal-based private security services firm in the summer of 2018, according to court documents.
By late 2018, Espinosa began creating identification documents for the alias “Sam Smith” on his computer, court documents state.
Espinosa was eventually arrested Jan. 30 at a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he allegedly tried to get a new driver’s license with a forged birth certificate.
Following his arrest, a Louisville police detective said Espinosa grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, which is about 8 miles west of Wethersfield.
Authorities later discovered he was living in an apartment in Middletown, Connecticut, where they found $892,737.89 in cash, according to court documents.
Espinosa allegedly put some of the stolen money to his personal use.
An indictment said Espinosa, using the alias of “Sam Smith,” purchased a Chevy Malibu for $21,193.28 on or around Dec. 10 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with stolen money from the armored truck.
On Dec. 21, Espinosa used the same pseudonym and deposited $3,300 stolen from the truck into a bank account in Middlesex County, Connecticut, the indictment said.
Espinosa has been represented by a public defender.
According to court documents, Espinosa must pay back Garda $892,758.14 in restitution and also give up the Chevy Malibu and funds in a bank account under the “Sam Smith” alias.
Espinosa’s prison sentence will ultimately be decided by U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. on Dec. 11, nearly one year after he vanished along with his loot from Louisville.
courier-journal
