Man With Bandages Covering Face Robs Home Savings Branch

A man wearing gauze on his face robbed the Home Savings of America branch on Telegraph Road on Friday afternoon, making off with an undisclosed amount of cash, according to an FBI official.

Agent Gary Auer said a Latino male in his mid- to late 20s entered the branch at 3310 Telegraph Road about 3:30 p.m.

“The subject stood in a teller line and passed a note to the teller that said this was a robbery,” Auer said.

Witnesses said the 5-foot-11-inch man had long black hair and was wearing blue jeans and a white, short-sleeved, pullover shirt.

Witnesses also told authorities the man was wearing “gauze bandages on his forehead, cheek and chin,” Auer said.

No weapon was shown and no one was injured, Auer said.

The man is believed to have been involved in two previous bank robberies in Ventura County--one on June 3 at the Glendale Federal Bank on Mills Road in Ventura, and on June 15 at a Bank of America branch in Oxnard, according to Auer. In addition, he is believed to have robbed a Bank of America branch in Carpinteria on June 27.

Bank officials would not comment on the robbery, and as an officer from the Ventura Police Department dusted a teller’s window for fingerprints, customers went about their business as usual.

“The only reason you know there was a robbery is because they’re talking about it,” said Terra Dobroth of Ventura, who came to the bank about 20 minutes after the robbery.

“I asked the teller if she was scared and she said it would have been a lot scarier if it had been a takeover robbery,” Dobroth said.