BANK BLAMED FOR ROBBERY.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- A real estate investor robbed of $20,805 in cash in a bank parking lot after a teller refused to give him a cashier's check is suing Washington Mutual.

The robber had been inside the Palmdale Boulevard bank lobby and followed out Jaime Quiroz Sanchez after watching as the teller counted Sanchez's 208 $100 bills, then told him to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles office to get an extension for his driver's license, which had expired a few days earlier, the lawsuit said.

``The teller held up $100 bills, kind of exhibiting them to the entire crowd in the lobby,'' said D. Scott Mohney, one of Sanchez's attorneys. ``The logical, foreseeable result occurred. He walked outside and got attacked.''

Bank representatives declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed in Antelope Valley Superior Court and accuses Washington Mutual of gross negligence.

Caught on a bank security camera, the robber walked out of the bank after Sanchez and got on a bicycle. He rode up to Sanchez in the parking lot and pedaled around him while trying to start a conversation, the lawsuit said.

Recognizing the man as someone who was inside the bank while his money was being counted, Sanchez became suspicious and placed the envelope of cash in his car, the lawsuit said.

The man then lunged at Sanchez and tried to stab him with a knife. Sanchez fell backward, tripping over the man's bicycle, and the assailant grabbed the envelope and fled on foot across Palmdale Boulevard, according to the suit.

The robber jumped a fence into a backyard and told the resident that gang members were chasing him, sheriff's deputies said.

The robber hid in that home's garage for a while, then left and jumped more fences. Deputies, aided by a helicopter, searched the neighborhood and brought out a bloodhound to try to track the robber's scent, but couldn't find him.

The lawsuit described Sanchez as a well-known customer who had been going to the bank in the 1700 block of East Palmdale Boulevard about twice a month for several years to make payments on various mortgages and transact financial business.

Sanchez went to the bank about 4:30 p.m. May 24 to obtain a cashier's check for about $375,000 -- to be funded by approximately $355,000 in equity credit he had with the bank, along with cash -- to purchase a commercial property, the lawsuit said.

After examining the cash, the teller -- who was apparently a new employee -- told Sanchez that he needed to the see the bank manager. The teller returned and told Sanchez that he needed to see identification, the lawsuit said.

Sanchez took out his driver's license, which he didn't realize had expired a few days earlier, the lawsuit said.

The teller told him that the bank could not complete the transaction and suggested that Sanchez go to the DMV, obtain a license extension and return to the bank to finish the transaction, the lawsuit said.

Sanchez told the teller that he was concerned about leaving the bank with so much cash after numerous customers had seen it, but the teller said there was nothing else he could do, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the bank failed to protect the transaction from the view of the general public, should have attempted to verify Sanchez's identification through some other means, failed to provide security or protection to Sanchez upon his leaving the bank, and arranged the teller stands in such a manner as to permit other customers waiting in line to easily observe what Sanchez and the teller were doing.

Robert Scott, one of Sanchez's attorneys, said any sense of privacy is lost with the bank's layout, in which tellers work at individual tables in the lobby, as opposed to behind a traditional teller counter.

``It's much different than a regular bank,'' Scott said. ``I think they designed these as a way to thwart bank robberies. You have to go to a separate place to get cash. They didn't design it well to protect customers who are trying to conduct private personal transactions.''

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

[phone]