Man Held After Bank Robbery Won’t Be Extradited, Is Freed

Florida authorities said Friday that they will not try to extradite a man wanted there on suspicion of theft, whose behavior after a Placentia bank robbery this week caused police to think he was a suspect.

Robert Charles Gregory, 30, of Los Angeles, who authorities later said had no part in the bank robbery on New Year’s Eve, was released from Orange County Jail on Friday night. He had been held on $50,000 bail because of outstanding felony warrants in Florida charging him with theft and passing bad checks.

But the Florida state attorney’s actions Friday morning meant Gregory was “being released as we speak,” said Lt. Pete Gannon late Friday night.

A sheriff’s spokesman told the Associated Press on Thursday that Gregory would fight extradition to Florida.

The Florida state attorney alerted Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials in a Teletype message that they declined to extradite Gregory, Gannon said. Gannon said the Florida officials did not give a reason. “They don’t give one, and we didn’t ask,” Gannon said.

On a tense New Year’s Eve in Placentia, when police thought that a robber had left a motion-sensitive bomb behind in a Bank of America, Gregory walked around in the bank and stayed on the telephone for several hours with police, angering 28 fellow hostages. Police had believed that Gregory could have taken part in the robbery because of his behavior, authorities said.

Gregory eventually emerged shirtless from the bank, at 160 E. Yorba Linda Blvd., and was interrogated by the FBI Tuesday night about the bank robbery.

In a jail interview Gregory contended: “I was trying to take control of the situation. I was trying to be like a detective and assess and figure out the situation.”