Police seek robbery suspect
REDSTONE TWP. – State police are looking for a Fayette County man in the robbery of the Newell Federal Credit Union office in Redstone Township Thursday afternoon. According to state police, a man wearing a mask and carrying a knife entered the credit union on Simpson Road around 2:10 p.m. and demanded money. State police said a passerby identified the suspect as Jeffrey Shannon Stokes, 46, who is known to frequent the Brownsville and Uniontown areas. Stokes is 5-feet-8-inches tall, 205 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair.
“He took a woman’s purse with all of her I.D. in it. He also took a couple hundred dollars,” said Lt. Bernard Petrovsky, the station commander for the state police Belle Vernon barracks.
Stokes allegedly fled the scene carrying two green moneybags, a beige moneybag and a black purse.
The purse that was taken belonged to credit union employee Carrie Kromer.
“He just walked in with this knife and said, ‘Give it up, give it all to me.’ We’re not like a bank. We don’t have any money here,” Kromer said.
Kromer said she and another employee were looking through their draws for money for him when the man grabbed items out of one purse, as well as some moneybags.
“Then he saw my purse and grabbed it,” Kromer said.
The suspect then ran out of the building and was nearly struck by a vehicle while crossing Simpson Road on foot, heading toward the Fort Burd Church driveway.
“He just ran across the road with the bank bags and a purse in his hand. We almost hit him,” said the driver of the vehicle. “He turned to the side, then he just kept going.”
The driver recognized the suspect and was able to give police a name and description.
The driver of the car initially called the cell phone of a Brownsville police officer she knew, who contacted Fayette County 9-1-1.
“The credit union had already called it in and 9-1-1 called the state police,” said Brownsville police officer Tom Bush. “When the young lady told me who it was, I went to Hunter’s Ridge to try to spot him, then I came back up here to meet the state police.”
Bush said he was familiar with the suspect from past cases. The most recent criminal cases against Stokes, according to the Fayette County Common Pleas dockets, occurred in 1997 when he pleaded guilty to charges including possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver, tampering with records, forgery and conspiracy. Stokes was sentenced to 21 to 42 months in prison on the one case and one to two years on the other, to be served concurrently.
The Pennsylvania State Police and FBI are investigating the robbery.
State police Thursday evening filed charges of robbery, theft by unlawful taking and terroristic threats against Stokes, obtaining a warrant for his arrest from District Justice Jesse Cramer.
According to the state police, Stokes should be considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact the state police at Belle Vernon at 724-929-6262.
Petrovsky said the case against Stokes would be reviewed by both state and federal officers to determine if federal charges should be filed at a later time.