Inside Knowledge May Have Helped in ATM Robberies : Crime: One of five suspects was employed by firm that repairs cash machines. Two are ordered held without bail in string of South Bay heists.

One of five people arrested in connection with a string of ATM robberies worked for a company that repairs such machines and may have provided the group with technical information used to commit the crimes that netted $200,000, federal authorities said Friday.

The two men and three women suspected of committing at least eight ATM robberies in the South Bay during the past six months, were charged in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday with conspiracy to rob a bank and use of a firearm in a robbery.

In most cases, the robbers caused an ATM to malfunction by requesting cash, but failing to take it from the machine drawer--an action which disables the machine and automatically triggers a call for service from the repair company, FBI Special Agent James M. Laverick said in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

When technicians from Pedersen Communications (PedCom) of Compton would respond, the suspects would emerge from behind nearby bushes, bind and gag the bank employees and steal all of the cash in the machine, Laverick said in the affidavit.

“They were very sophisticated bank robberies,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Mike Davis, adding that the male suspects often wore stockings or ski masks over their heads.

Arrested were Tony Eugene McGee, 24; Eric Roy Barnes, 21; Trina Devay Harper, 21; Norma Lee Riley, 41, all of Compton, and Evelyn Emzie Anderson, 57, of Rancho Palos Verdes.

On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Joseph Reichman ordered that McGee and Barnes be held without bail. Bail was set at $50,000 for Riley and Anderson, and $35,000 for Harper, who was once employed by PedCom as a service technician, authorities said.

Harper became a suspect when investigators noted that she was the only one of three PedCom technicians who was not bound by robbers who took $108,000 from an ATM at a Bank of America branch on July 2, authorities said.

Later, undercover surveillance teams from four South Bay cities recognized Harper sitting with the two other women in a red Hyundai parked near reportedly disabled ATM machines.

Suspecting a robbery would occur when ATM machines were heavily stocked with cash for the Thanksgiving holiday, the group was arrested by undercover police from El Segundo, Torrance and Downey, backed by a Redondo Beach special weapons team in a stakeout near an ATM at an El Segundo branch of Bank of America on Wednesday night.

A search of Barnes turned up a loaded .32-caliber pistol, a roll of black two-inch-wide electrical tape, a nylon stocking mask and two surgical gloves, authorities said. McGee was carrying two surgical gloves and a nylon mask.

“This is the old story of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and getting arrested for it,” said federal Public Defender Robert K. Steinberg, who was representing Riley in the case. “She should have known a lot better.”

A customer who drove into the stakeout was shot by police who mistook him for a robber.

The customer, spotting SWAT team members armed and dressed in fatigues, apparently believed he was going to be robbed and slammed his car into reverse. Bernie Dendy, 41, was slightly wounded by a bullet fired through the rear window of his car that grazed his head, authorities said. Dendy was treated at a local hospital and released. Two women passengers in his car were not hurt.