Bank Robbery Suspect’s Host Proves His Undoing

It was a rather good idea, and worked for awhile, but in the end it didn’t keep Kia Ghobad Ghaemmaghami of Van Nuys out of jail.

Ghaemmaghami, 39, took refuge in a mobile home in a Topanga trailer park Monday, saying he was afraid there could be shooting, because police had surrounded the park looking for suspected bank robbers.

The 50-year-old woman who gave him refuge had no notion that he was the man deputies were looking for, said Lt. Bob Barrier of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Deputies wound up at the park following a wild car chase that began when two robbers held up the Union Federal Savings and Loan in the 5000 block of Kanan Road near Agoura Road in Agoura Hills.

Ghaemmaghami talked his way into the woman’s home and chatted with her over drinks while deputies and Los Angeles police carried out a manhunt using dogs and helicopters, Barrier said.

“She had no idea he was the man we were looking for,” said Barrier who declined to identify her.

His gracious host was, however, Ghaemmaghami’s undoing, Barrier said. The helpful woman called out her door to some nearby deputies: “This man came into my home and wants to leave. Is it safe for him to leave yet? He seems very worried.”

Deputies were only too happy to see that her guest left, especially after they found $7,000 in cash in his pockets, Barrier said.

Ghaemmaghami and his alleged accomplice Augustine Rivera Galindo, 32, of Los Angeles, were arrested on suspicion of armed robbery, Barrier said.