Let’s Rob a Bank About It

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Yo, Elizabeth Dutton, Dave Kusten.

You know what's ridiculous?

I do, I do? Okay? Do you like whiskey?

Yes?

In the jar or not in the jar? Sure?

Sure?

Do you like peanut butter? Of course I'm gonna do to you what I do Tom. On one side, you have good old Whiskey, a bold, loud and strong partnering crime who exudes confidence. I don't know who wrote this, but godspeed. On the other we have peanut butter is. Yes, it's part of the Perry Mason series, a rich, smooth and irresistible spread that's as dependable as they come for all your late night cravings. And you know kindergarten lunches.

What wrote this?

Like, I don't know, but like first communion, poor me out's up. So yeah, Screwball peanut butter whiskey. How does it push bound Well, the boundaries of decency. I don't know.

Is like, is jelly like the steady and the whiskey like the peanut butter stepping out?

Like oh yeah, yeah, it's the side, it's the A little strange. This came from Emmy. Emily. I think she goes by Emmy. Someone read the emails that we get and passed it along. That never happens. They're kept in a dark, dank vault and no one but this one made its way to the top bubbled up. So yeah, thanks Emmy.

Well, no, thank you, Emmy. That definitely is ridiculous. Yeah, oh I got one for you and for Emmy.

Yes.

How about a guy who robs five banks in the same region in a span of less than a year. That is some that's some criminal density. That's ambitious, but that's not all. He then makes one of the more remarkable career shifts you'll see from a member of the Five Timers Club. After twelve years of hard time, he comes out of the joint with a running start on his best life. This is not normal, No, This is

I've dreamt of criminal adjacent or criminal things.

Yeah, I mean, how about like mildly mischievous things?

Yeah, oh yeah, totally. We I used to work in a copy mat on campus, the copy play the printing shop, and we would be really slow during the summer. We'd like print up a bunch of stuff and they just kind of sit around, and we used to come up with how could we builk this operation out of money? We didn't do it, but you know, we would contemplate it and make lists of all the ways you could steal money. From the copy mat from.

The I guess, I guess that's technically conspiracy.

Oh yeah, yeah, and we could if we had carried it out. I'm sure that you know. First of all, it would have gone on our permanent records.

Yeah, have been busted.

Yeah.

So well, this guy, so the story I'm about to tell you. This guy got a case of the little town blues, right, you know how he decided to melt them away with a number of bank jobs.

Hey, that's spicy. That'll do it, pretty.

Big league stuff. His name is Sean Hopwood, but it's spelled s h O n oh, so like the same Sean Sean. It's like, I think of it as like the sound of a sword coming out of the sheath Sean, or like cutting a slice of chocolate cake Sean.

If he went to a first grader and he said, his friend's name is Sean, how do you spell it as h O N?

Take out a big crayon exactly h if Zaron, we're here, God bless Yeah. Point, I'm pointing to the ceiling for no reason.

I'm pouring my water out down on the or of the studio here. But if he was fine, by the way, everyone he's fine, we hope. Yeah. No, he's just out. He's off traveling the world and giving speeches because he's, you know, important.

If Zaren were here, he this guy would qualify for my man status. I'm pretty okay, okay, So let me tell you a little more about where he come from. Sean hails from the small town of David City, Nebraska. I wish I came from there. It would be like the right place.

I know, right, this is like the origin story. He just rose up out of the ground.

David City is about an hour and a half west of Omaha, or forty five minutes northwest of Lincoln. Lincoln's kind of like the biggish small town, you know, biggish small city college town, because that's where the Huskers are, right exactly. But David City is pretty flat, nothing but corn and cattle, lots of grain, silos, old brick, and everyone's all up in each other's business. Of course, Sean quickly outgrew that town. He craved a life that felt

He just wanted He just wanted to let his body express itself.

The freak flag needed to fly. So let me tell you a little more about his upbringing. He had loving parents, Robert and Rebecca. His dad was a member of the Nebraska Cattlemen Association. Robert he worked labor intensive jobs in the cattle industry, and he ran a local youth basketball league, which Sean eventually would participate in.

Do you think his dad loved the cattle more than he loved his son.

That's a good question. I mean, he being a part of the Nebraska Cattlemen Association is as I think, a big efforts.

Yeah yeah, that's high steaks stuff.

But you know, Sean, unlike the cattle, had his share of successes. I think the cattle just hang out.

So m m.

Sean made the local paper. In elementary school along with his buddy Tom, who will hear more about later. They won some kind of financial literacy competition, like they had to budget out meals for a week and YadA, YadA, YadA. Yeah, I don't know. But then in high school he was a bona fide basketball star. He took his team to the state champs. They took home the trophy and Tom too. Tom was a part of that crew. Go Pride, Go

Using shorts short short shorts.

Using glu stick to keep their cow licks down. They're working on their trash time.

Wait what year is this?

This is actually so he's he's my age, so I think it was like he so he would have gone to high school in like the early early nineties. Like yeah, and you know, watching the basket College like.

When you're talking about gluing down Cawlyx, I like, was this in the fifties? Is no?

I mean I just imagine, like, how else is Larry Bird going to keep that cow lick down?

Yeah? These kids are probably using that gel that La Palmer. Yeah, looks there you go.

And you know, so they're doing all that and they're dreaming about doing something vaguely impressive with their lives.

That's good.

Unfortunately, things started to go south for Sean around college time. So in the fall of ninety three, he enrolls at Midland Lutheran University with a basketball scholarship.

Good job, Sean, Yeah, hooray.

He flunks out after five months. Oh boo, did you ever go from being really good at something to realizing you're just okay at it? People way better than God.

Yes. I junior high I tried to play basketball, couldn't do it. To save my life. Coach pulled me aside. This is like seventh grade, pulls me aside, is like, this is not for you. Oh man, I mean come, I'm like, must give me a break, dude.

Yeah, it was.

Oh, I was horrible. And then also then so I go from high school where I'm like overachiever, top of my class, blah blah blah, go to college, can't pass calculus, can't pass chemistry, wind up on probate, academic probation, and I got taken down a notch. Like girls, I'm a class of sixty. Wasn't hard to be super good. And then you go to a college with like thirty thousand people in it. It was reckoning, David, You.

Never forget that first d or fduh.

God it brought me lou and then I got Then I went and did it again. I got another F in calculus when I tried to retake it.

Lesson learned, let's learned, don't take calculus.

I was humble. Yeah, oh yeah, me and math don't mix.

So this is what happened to Sean. He's got like the ghost of Ricky Bobby Future on one shoulder, saying, if you ain't first, you last, right, And he's got the dad from searching for Bobby Fisher on the other shoulder, who's like, Joshua, there are no losers in this family. You must always win. I mean, you give yourself a break, brother, right. You know that anxiety dream where you dream you've never been to class.

I have those all the time.

Yeah, me too, Oh yeah, me too, Like where like the last day you're coming in to take the exam and you've never been there.

Yeah, you find out that you've been registered for a class this whole time, and it's for me, it's always a math class exactly.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's what he did, basically. Yeah, he just never showed up for class. So he flunks out of school, packs up his CD disc man, his Tivas, his tapestry, remaining cases of clearly Canadian, his reservoir dogs poster. I'm talking about this. He deflates his basketball, puts it in the briefcase, and his buddy Tom drives him back home to David City. There he gets a tiny apartment and jobs a riveter in a trailer factory, which sounds kind of dismal, kind of cool, but.

Kind of does kind of yeah, like it could go either way.

He quickly burns through his money. His dad is going to bail him out, but only if he joins the Navy. Tough love. Yeah, Sean figures it at least get him out of David City for a while. And that's like his whole m right now is like I hate this city. I heard this town. I hate this town. So he's like, okay, I'll go in the Navy. So now we're in June ninety four. He goes through boot camp, he gets an advanced Stinger missile certification shipped out to Bahrain. Oh and

Oh yeah, yeah.

And way better than shoveling manure in David City.

Right yeah, or riveting trailers.

Yeah, riveting trailer parts.

Now, when you fight people in like the street or in bars, do you tell him like, I'm gonna take you downtown in David City.

There's there's trouble in David Cities, and it's in city and it starts with it starts with his fist. But again it wasn't enough. He gets that itch like he did, you know in college, where he was like I really wanted to do basketball, but I'd suck at basketball and I don't know what to do. He must have been pretty insufferable to the dudes around him, you know. He gets a military promotion and is like I am better than this.

Yeah.

So he's under twenty one in a strange place, living with a bunch of other enlisted dudes where it's legal to consume alcohol at eighteen. What do board soldiers do you under those circumstances.

Elizabeth, Oh, I don't want to know. What I do want to know?

Actually they play Tetris no lots and lots of booze. He drinks so much booze that he comes down with a cute pancreatitus and nearly dies.

Like at the under twenty one a cute Oh goodness, that's a lot he's drinking that that rot good.

He's got like a seventy year old liver. Uh So, after a week at the Bahrainy Hospital, they ship him back to Bethesda to finish off his term, and then when the enlistment is done, he ends up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and then back in David City, which you know is thrilling for him. This time he takes up residence in the glamorous shapeer Mayor his parents' basement. Okay, I made that up myself.

I like this. That was really good. That's totally good. So he's just sitting in the basement all jaundiced.

Yeah, he gets a job in the cattle industry, actually shoveling manure this time. Oh, cleaning out barns and dealing with that side of the business, which you know fair enough does suck.

So he's got to do it. Yeah, someone's got to do it. Might as well be the kid with pink creatatus. He again creatitis.

He runs into money problems again. Mister financial genius you know, fifth grader or whatever, runs into money problems. It seems he was either passing bad checks or very bad at personal bookkeeping. Either way, Johnny Law catches up with him his dad again, this time very sternly bails him out of any immediate danger. After the bad Checks incident, he goes back to what he knows, tries to reenlist in the Navy. The Navy says no, thank you. They look

Yes, so it's gruesome Toosome. They're just going around, like just living the worst life in David City.

Yeah, Like you know, they're working, you know, sixty hour weeks at work and then they're boozing and they're like, you know, looking for looking for college girls and Lincoln the whole thing and visible all the time. After you know, about a week after the fight, they end up in a bar after exchanging awkward apologies like bros, de like, oh, dude, I'm so oh my god, dude, I am so sorry, like I was from. Then they have the kind of conversation that those of us in the hindsight business call

Oh? That is like the worsd especially coming out of Oh boy.

Yeah, that was it though, that was it. They found their cure for their terminal small town boredom and suffocating small lives. Here's what Sean says, Here's how he remembers it. Most people would have laughed that off. But to me, the world was newly framed in that instant, Everything once bleak was now interesting and new. The beauty of the idea was that we would either go down like Butch and Sundance, or we would have the money to really live.

They were just following their spirit.

Well hot damn. Needless to say, Sean said, that sounds like an absolutely capital idea. My good man. So Sean gets home, he opens up Microsoft word Clippy pops up. Yes, it looks like you're about to rob a bank? Can I offer some suggestions? First, you should figure out which bank you will rob. Click more for more ideas, And.

He clicked word art and wrote bank robbery across the top and wavy script like it was thinking totally.

So they get into Tom's car and they go north to go bank shopping. Tom's father owned a small property in that direction. Their plan gets a little bit confusing, but let me tell you really quick, this is like the thing they put the most thought into. They're gonna stash their actual getaway car at Tom's dad's farm before the robbery. That's location one. Okay, they pick out an abandoned cornfield somewhere and stash an old grain truck there.

But what's a vehicular shell game?

So they find their target, they decide to hold up Petersburg State Bank. They case it three times. Tom wears a baseball cap and a wig and probably put on a missus doubt fire accent, and he asks for a tour of the safety deposit area. Oh really, really obvious. Sean goes in twice and asks for a roll of quarters each time.

It was playing it low. There.

They made hand drawings what they found. You know, they tried to let some time pass in order to remember the weirdos obviously casing the joint right now, Remember that whole passing bad checks issue. Yeah, Sean blew off his court appearance for that, So now he's got a bench warrant on top of it. Oh my god, call it a sporting handicap.

I wonder why he wasn't able to follow through with call.

So Sean and Tom are now back in David City. Now they'll need to steal a car and also locate some heaters because it gets cold in Nebraska. No, I mean guns.

They're have to locate some gus the blower, Yeah.

A couple blowers. So Sean goes back to Clippy, who says, you'll need something to put the money in, and then waves at the screen and minimizes. Sean grabs his dad's old toolbox and puts some canvas bags in there. He pulls together a duffel bag full of criming supplies and back to Clippy. You'll need to get away car. And then Clippy blows a kiss over its shoulder.

That's weird.

They find a car a few towns away in a church parking lot with the keys still in it, a nice Chrysler New Yorker.

God, God bless a Chrysler New.

York good old American leiaha car. Yes, uh so they stashed the car in the grain truck where they need them to be. They check into a CD motel using Tom's real name.

Oh dumb?

Smart?

Okay, is it so dumb? It's smart?

It might be what will say? In fact, you know their room isn't ready yet. So let's take a.

Break, okay, and I'll wait in the car.

I'd like you to find things to do in Petersburg, Nebraska for a few hours while we take in some lovely advertisements.

Easy enough, all right.

Elizabeth, Elizabeth, wake up. You fell asleep on the nasty couch of the motel lobby, reading hemphlets about ghost tours and corn mazes.

Where am I? Did you?

Did you even hear any of those top shelf ads?

I feel like they like it was by osmosis, something about LifeLock.

I don't know. I don't. Should we go back? Should we?

Yeah?

Run?

Okay it again?

Well we'll spare you. It's Monday morning, August eighteenth, nineteen ninety seven, and it's go time.

Mm.

The boys wake up, shake off the bed bugs. They drive the Ford Tempo to the grain truck, the grain truck to the Chrysler. They're about to set sail towards the bank in the stolen Chrysler. As they entered the town of Petersburg, they see a cop car parked about half a block away from the bank.

Woolf oh no.

They tool around outside of town a while and keep making passes around the bank, but the cop core is still there. Think Rooseph's think, Elizabeth, Yeah, close your eyes.

My eyes are closed.

I would like you to picture it. You're a large quadrupedal cree chewing on some delicious acorns by the side of the road. You see, Elizabeth, Your highly active salivary glands produce enzymes that help deactivate secondary plant compounds such as tannins that disrupt digestion, so convenient. You're a white tailed deer and you've got no particular place to be. You're standing outside your for now home, the remnants of

I have great hearing.

Your great hearing picks up, squealing as the Chrysler flips a you bone and comes to rest just outside of the barn structure. What is this? The boys hop out and head for the barn, but by then you've spotted some discarded okra. You're chowing down goons. Be damned, you don't care. But the next thing you know, you smell something. No, your friend, the rabbit doesn't have the winds. That's a fart joke. Uh, that's burning hay that you smell.

Uh.

Oh, the boys have started a fire in the barn. What are you gonna do?

Wait, they start, Oh dough.

You panic, and then you do the only thing you know how. You run real fast in the middle road and just stand.

There and then get hit by a truck. Pretty much, well that's pretty much all they know how to do.

There's an ellipses here, so we don't know what.

I filled in for you.

You see, the boys, we're hoping to lure the patrolman away with this fire. Oh in their car, yeah right, they get back in their car, they thoughtfully avoid you, and they park up on a hill to watch. Nothing happens. It's like an entire sleepy town rubbed its collective eyes, looked at the weak plumes of smoke and said, who knows, who cares?

They probably thought it was someone just burn and brush.

Yeah, apparently it was a It was a really like, it was more of a campfire than a raging barn fire. It didn't work. Undeterred and driven by Shawn's need for money to pay his lawyer for that bad checks thing, and despite that stubborn patrol car's continuing presence, the bros pressed on. They're locked in Elizabeth, Are you ready for the terminally bored, thrill seeking gen X twenty somethings big bank heist.

Oh you have no idea? Yes, okay, so.

Now it's Tuesday. They suit up Sean, who they agree to call mister Red. They've seen reservoir.

Oh oh no.

Shawn is dressed as a construction worker with boots, coveralls, a hard hat, and a big mask with eye holes.

Wait, a mask with like a I guess.

Scarecrow looking thing? Yeah?

Probably, Oh that's not suspicious. Was the other one dressed as an Indian?

Just wait? He's carrying his dad's metal toolbox with the canvas bags inside of it. Okay, you know he keeps that thing on him.

And also he's got his daddy's toolbags.

And he's strapped. Also, patrol car is still there. But screw it, we've gone this far. So he walks in. First thing he does, he drops the toolbox, bang, gets everyone's attention. He unzips his pant leg and pulls out his ruffle, which is kind of the coolest scene. Wow, he shouts, you.

Know, his pant leg he's got like a.

Zip up like those Adidas track suits.

Like, oh, I was kind of hoping he just unzipped his fly and.

Just dropped trout. He pulls out his heater.

Or he has like this the snap that like rip away warm up pants.

This is a family show.

And then there's just him and his skid marked on pants. I've just got a whole other mental picture right now.

He pulls up his cover all zip. Yeah, he's got his uh, he's got his long gun. He shouts, this is a robbery. A people are kind of smiling uncomfortably and sweating profusely. There were lots of fibers in the late nineties.

Oh yeah, totally.

So. Now Tom, who they agree to call mister Black, comes in. So they've got mister red, mister Black. A teller asks if this is some kind of joke. Sean yells again, everybody get down. Now. People start to move a little more alacrity. They hit the floor. Those bodies, they allow them to hit the floor.

But they let the bodies hit the floor. Come on.

Tom grabs the canvas bags and pulls all the cash into the teller drawers. Tom is getting nervous. He wants to know what's going on outside, and in a moment of unprofessionalism, Tom yells check the windows Hopwood instead of check the windows, mister Red.

Yeah, oh my god, oops, always bet on black.

Now, all that's left to do is secure the bags and lock the would be hostages away so they can execute a quick getaway. Sean's checking his watch, seeing they're already three minutes in. He's panicking a little. But they managed to get everyone in the bank vault, lock him in. They mosey on out of there and into the chrysler. You know, it's as big as a whale, so there's plenty of room for all those canvas bags that cant They can.

Just set sail exactly. Wait, now, is he still wearing the scare crow mass? That is terrifying. If I'm in the bank and I work there and this dude's sweat like limps in because he's got one leg as a rifle and he's wearing a construction hard hat and then like a potato sack with holes cut. Yeah, God, I would just I would just I would just collapse if I saw that.

Yeah, I mean, there's it's funny you should say that. Because there were a lot of articles in the paper, local paper. He gets the banner press about what trauma these people went through. And like I'll tell you disclaimer. All these five bank robberies, no one shot, no one's pistol whipped, Like, no violence happens. Yeah, and yet there are all these like articles about the trauma these people

It's like it's a bank robbery and he's dressed like nightmare fuel. Get out of here, yeah, like come.

On, uh so where are they? They high tail it down the highway to the abandoned farm. They stashed the Chrysler deep in the woods and pull their jukebox money out of it. They switch their clothes from construction worker to farm hand. Now they hop in the grain truck and they head towards the location one. As they get on their way, the portable scanners go nuts. The police had gotten there already and removed everyone from the vault. They had already had really good descriptions of Sewan and Tom,

Oops, small wearing construction clothes.

Yeah, you're roughly the shape of humans, five foot something and you have two arms. So, Elizabeth, they done did it. They got away with about fifty dollars fifty grand.

That's a lot, because most of these stick ups they seemed to only come away with like, you know, several thousand.

At the moment. They were kind of smart about it, Like they picked a bank that had had an ATM, that seemed like it was in a big enough town that would have some commerce, but not big enough they would actually have a police station, which is part of why they were surprised there was a cop there. Yeah, let me tell you about how they split it. Tom took the bulk of his earnings in rolls of quarters. He had taken everything from the tills, including the quarters.

Oh my god, little pinball wizard, how heavy is that twenty five grand in quarters?

Yeah? I mean maybe it was like five grand. I don't know, Like, yeah, blessed.

And so you said they got fifty Yeah they did.

But oh but he took the bulk.

Of it each Yeah, or like he took a section of it.

Okay, I got it, and it's you know, it's Sean's recollection.

Like, yeah, dude, buy a washer and dry that's right, your head on, Dan Sears. Get a warranty.

Yeah, like, get an apartment that has a washer dryer. How about that.

There are a lot of options.

Tom, you know, as you can tell, is thinking about other things. He decides he's going to get off the fast moving bank robbery train and uses money to go to college. Oh, which is a smart move. Sean, who remember needed the money for his previous legal entanglement, does no one to quit. He's going to press his luck. Maybe he's finally found his special purpose in life. Perhaps, and it's in this time. So we're around October. This

Wait, so he robs a bank but doesn't get caught by his alcohol for a miner gets caught.

Yeah, just like, oh my god, Keystone cops.

Right.

So after all that he gets out, he's thinking about his next job, his next bank job. He moves to Lincoln. He finds an apartment with a bunch of college dudes. This guy Craig, a friend from high school and fellow traveler, shows up. Craig had a much tougher start to life than Sean, and then he'd gone through a remarkably similar patch as Sean had, kind of like you know, getting kicked out of armed forces for one reason or another. But now Sean, now Craig is living in a car.

Course they're getting gus I guess.

So now it's about five months on. Sean's money is running dry because we've established he cannot handle money, so he's prepping for his next bank job. He offers to cut Craig in and see if you'll come along. Craig's like, sure, doesn't batter not. Now, we've talked on the show about a lot of ridiculous criminals who loved us at the details, right mm hmmm, where like the whole heist becomes kind of an extended Martha Stewart craft project.

Oh totally, and I love them.

This is very much not Sean. No sew Sean. A lot less planning goes on into the second one, and Sean himself admits that as time goes on, his heist get more and more half assed. He goes from elaborate multi car slide of hand and costume changes to more of a brute force and prey kind of thing. And as much as he manages to slog through five of these things, you don't get the sense that he loved the criming life.

No, No, it doesn't sound like it.

So like is falling out of college after the scholarship, and like he's drinking his way out of the Navy, and like his small score of a free happy meal in McDonald's monopoly game, Elizabeth, he got a taste of something bigger and didn't really care for it all that much. No, it doesn't sound like it, So okay. The second arm robbery. This time they target a bank near Lincoln, which is a little riskier because it's like, you know, a bigger,

Eh, bigger city, and they didn't get more money.

Yeah, they just you know, they didn't. They didn't case the place.

They lucked out that first one.

I think so too. But by this time Sean had rung up a big tab with that lawyer representing him on the bad checks. Most of his six grand goes to the attorney fees a Hopwood always pays his debts.

Yep.

He hands the lawyer a paper grocery bag full of cash, mostly ones, and tells him they are tips from a restaurant job. Who would you have told him?

Yeah, no, I'd say, like, you know, I run a coin op laundry.

I'm a dancer, I think is what I would have gone with, Like it's your second job.

No, well, I mean it's sloths. People don't tip in dollars. They've tip in twenties.

The acorns or.

Corn cobs. I don't know what do like leaves? I guess I don't know, something like low calorie because they don't expend any energy. So yeah, they're like fiscal. That's for Koala is down the block.

David, you got you gotta wait, like your home growing your look at this tree until it's like there's leaves again, and.

They just come and they like squeeze hot chocolate into our mouths. Way there, you.

Just dropped the g O, I know. So that's it for the second bank. Craig gets his cut. Sean's descriptions of these robberies get shorter and shorter in his book. Maybe he's too grosseddad about all his own behavior, or maybe they're just all a blur.

Yeah, did you say book?

Yes, so this is not a spoiler. He did not his his like amazing second career is not.

Author just okay, okay, I like that.

That wouldn't be fair. No, so let's see. So they're now a duo though, Craig and Sean the magnificent pair. The next the next rob York State Banking, Gresham. A few months later, we're now March twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight. They get about sixteen grand and now we're at the fourth Bank, Bank of Peru. Sean artfully goes in disguised as quote a dirty homeless guy and started screaming like the characters in pulp fiction who robbed the Diner. Oh no, you just can't escape movie references.

And in the nineties you can't get away from Tarantino references.

No, I mean, yeah, but it is just.

That cinematic draw for them.

For yeah, I wish he had done the be cool. That probably would have been a yeah move.

That's true.

Total take on this one is about twenty five grand, Okay, but this time they are a hair's breadth away from getting caught, like a dog's hair away from getting.

Adent hair away.

Yeah, you get it. After the Caper, Sean gets pulled over in a speed trap, just after dropping Craig off Creigor's.

McGregor.

He's got a handgun and fifteen grand in the trunk and he's pulled over in a speed trap. That's a good look, and you know they look him up. Beep, Seawan's warrant from the bad checks come up. When the cops do their search, they get so excited about having him dead to rights for the warrant that they forget to search his car.

No way, well, I mean on a speed ticket. I mean, even if he didn't have the warrants, I don't think they would have searched it for a speedy ticket.

So he gets picked up in jailed friend coming.

Made a warrant for that.

Yeah, the gun and the cash are all still there in the trunk when he picks up the car. No way, he's like he's blessed, like absolutely hashtag blessed. So now there have been four armed robberies the Greater Lincoln area in a pretty short period of time, right from the first one in August ninety seven, this fourth one was in May ninety eight.

Oh wow, he's really cram him in there.

Nine months by now. The FBI is looking over local law enforcement's shoulder and scouring for patterns, and the local cops have a reasonable sketch of Sean now with the face. His dad actually sees this on local TV and like lock himself in the office and starts crying, so his dad knows what's up. Yeah, yeah, Sean could sense that the walls were closing in. Though that's such a podcast cliche. I'm really embarrassed that I put it in this. There should be like a jar, I have to drop a fiver.

Into something exactly well, head head down to sloths five.

Yeah, like we're take your cares away.

If you tip, if you tip a dancer at sloths five bucks, she'll just roll over on the stage, pull the blanket further up.

Is that wow? Okay? Is that good or bad? You want to Victorian?

It's very Victorian. Show a little bit of ankle.

Getting I'm getting heated. So let's take another break. When we come back, I will take you through the final ill advised bank job and how Sean's life gets flipped turns upside down Elizabeth Dave after the Four Capers. Now Sean has a reputation among his friends and family. It's like he sent out an email and he was like, hey, everybody, it's like twenty percent off.

His Christmas letter. He sends herund well, this year robbed a couple banks.

But they all know. And he's got siblings, his brother Brooke. He's got another brother, Brett, who thought it was really cool. Like I said, his dad knew. There's this other guy named Tyler who is like a medium level weed dealer and gun supplier who also hooked him up with stolen cars. And Sean was spending a lot of time with Tyler, a far cry from his old Larry Bird lifestyle. Seawan is now, you know, taking bong hits, playing video games and watching reruns of Cheers in the Cosby Show.

Do we know that's so different from the Larry Bird lifestyle. Well, that's who's to say. I don't know. I don't know how he lives now. His brother is named Brooke.

He's got to Brooke and Brett.

Do you think Brooke's name is spelled b are uk?

I wish? Yeah, he's got the double o's.

I'm sorry, No, no, I'm telling you his brother's name is belled b are you seeing?

Well, how about how about we compromise. He's got the double o's, but that becomes his nickname. Everyone calls him double oh.

Oh. Okay, that's perfect. That's how this happens.

Okay. The big problem for Sean, though, is not with Double Oh. It comes when he finds out his brother Brett, Craig, Craig's little brother Cody, and their friend Harley, bunch of seventeen year olds are all themselves now planning a bank job. He had captured, Yes, he had captured the hearts and minds of a generation.

Oh my god.

So Shan tries to play the big brother card on Brett and order him not to and you know, give him noogies and rope burns and all this, like, hey, don't rob the bank, come on the But at that point, what credibility does Sean have.

Right, Who are you going to tell me what to do from watching you, Sean?

If you don't let me do this, there's never gonna be a bank left for me to rob, exactly. But you know, Brett wasn't about to let Sean have all the fun for himself. So they make a deal. The David City U twenty two's as I call them, which in soccer that's what they call the under twenty two professional leagues.

M huh.

They could help out Sean on Sean's next and final big bank job, and Sean would allow them to what their beaks in case you.

Were worried, right, a little apprenticeship, Yeah, but under.

No circumstances could they go inside the bank with him. And after that they all agree, We're going to retire from the game, like this is our last score, which always works in the movies.

And we've heard that on this show so many times as one last score, and then I'm retiring.

So Sean reflects, bringing in Brett is the moment of my past for which I have the least patience or understanding.

It's not that he has a regret, he has the least patience or understanding of what he was.

He was out of his mind. Yeah yeah, I mean, well that is the thing, like we don't know of any any drug activity going on here other than you know, just like a little yeah, yeah, a little too. But but it's not later on like like there's an allegation. It's not clear anyway. Uh s. Shawn and Craig at this point had already selected their fifth and final target, which is going to be Farmer's National Bank in Pilger or Pilger p I L G E R.

You can say it both ways. I mean, who knows from Nebraska, but I'll say on authority you can. You can say it how.

Oh I see, Okay, Yes, it's both a different eras in time it was owned by different.

If you're on the left side of town, you say it one way and on the right side, and it's not northwest you no, it's left or right side.

I'm there when it was French occupied and it was called perfect Okay. So the U twenty two's Bretton Harley steal the car for the getaway use. This time, that's like their big job, but they do a half assed job, like a seventeen year old is gonna do. They stashed it in a nearby abandoned farm, which seems like a theme mysteriously like the next day it's back where it was, So they picked a not so abandoned farm.

Is basically yeah. Yeah.

So they find another car, but it runs out of gas. Now they all walk up to a farmhouse to borrow some gas, which again seems like a dumb ass move. Yeah, and those old folks charm the pants out of this robbery crew. Sean's there. Sean gets so warmed up he even tells them they're all from David City. Oh no, but they have no gas. So then the robbery crew

They say on a stolen car, on a stolen car, Oh my god, so it's out of gas. Transmission is on its last legs. Yeah, gives out when they have it.

They finally dump that one. They find a third car and that one sticks, so finally, And I think I'm actually getting sick of bank robberies and describing them at this point like yeah, yeah, YadA YadA, stick it, I get it, I get it. Sean does all the dirty work right, so he doesn't have much of a plan. He's running out of patience too. He walks into the bank brandishing a handgun and screaming blah blah blah. He walks to the registers. It said he like used the

Well let's say he did. Let's say that the gun, like the handle at the bottom he had welded like a large serving spoon on it, I like, or like a soup ladle.

Or what about one of those grabbers from the Straight Story?

Perfect, perfect good. He's like, Look, if you're going to modify a weapon, do it in a utilitarian way.

I love it. And some people like a bump stock. I like, you know, a grab like a grabber. Yeah. Uh so okay, so he's got that.

He gets all the grabbers.

Yeah, he's got the grabber gun. Uh he uh. He goes into the vault, he gets the stuff out, maneuvers into a bag. Customers and staff not okay. People are running out of the back screaming. I'm picturing like they've waving their hands around like the But Sean manages to get done. He gets out. Craig's little brother Cody is there waiting in the getaway car, like leaning against it.

Yeah.

So they're also like those crisp bills that smell real good.

I like my dead president's crisy.

So Sean heads to Omaha. He buys a fancy our money suit for an upcoming wedding he checks into the Double Tree for some of them free cookies. I love those free cookies. At this point, the FBI had all but made Sean and much of the crew. The first one to go down is little Harley, one of the U twenty two's Harley. Well, Harley gets popped for something minor but had way too much cash on him.

As you know, I'm going to pretend in my head that Harley's eight years old.

Continue, so all the mistakes start adding up on Sean. I've got some details. I think you're gonna have to skip them. One that I'll give you is there's just, like you know, a comedy of details. Sure, the couple they tried to get the gas from.

The ones that supplied them with baked goods befriended them though.

Yeah, last couple they talked to the people at the gas station who they had stiffed, and then they all go to the cops together like I think of a clue.

Yeah, there's detectives.

So that last job is on June twenty sixth, nineteen ninety eight. The FBI arrest Sewn at the Double Tree in Omaha. On the thirtieth of June, like four days later, they also grabbed Cody Bach. That's Craig's brother, little brother. So I have Sean, Harley and Cody, two of whom are under eighteen. Oh boy, so that's it. This is all just for the part, for that one bank job.

Right, Yeah, he used his Yeah, he exactly used it to pay for college.

Well, a year and a half later, the Feds nabbed Tom right on his college campus. They are no, yeah, they're waiting outside of his classroom. He's taking a test. They put the cuffs on just as he finishes up and walks out.

Well, he's now the coolest guy on campus.

Yeah, he was also in a criminal justice degree program.

Oh stop it. Yeah, oh my god.

He pleads guilty. He gets four years, nine months in prison, then supervised release, and forty eight k in restitution. I don't know how that's like half the job plus some maybe damage or something.

Yeah, yeah, probably.

Younger brother, Brett Hopwood not double O. He's a senior in high school, but they try him as an adult ouch. He pleads guilty. He gets twelve to thirty months. They do let him finish off his extracurriculars since technically the robbery happened while school was not in session, so you know, he can play his baseball playoffs or whatever.

Oh my god, like before he asked to report for jail. Yeah, oh my god, that's incredible.

Among the other U twenty two's, Harley gets one to three years minus time served. Corey gets two to four years minus time served. His brother Craig Big Daddy, he gets thirteen years thirteen Yeah.

I mean that's like four bank corrupting minors. Yeah.

Yeah. So now we get to Sean. Sean starts off pleading not guilty, but changes his plea because each of the five robberies carried a max of twenty years in federal penn each, he becomes a cooperating witness against Tyler, who I think has the government named Glenn Woodard. I wasn't positive, but it seemed like they must be the same dude, or else he's two or separate. Yeah, Glenn

Oh wow, good luck.

And the judge, this guy's name is Judge Kopp says this is a tragedy. It sickens me to have to sentence this young man. By all accounts, Sean came across as like a pretty even keeled person in court. He was smart, he was attentive, he told the truth. He's a former basketball star who everybody knew, like people in the courthouse knew. One of the dispatchers from one of these crimes who had called it in she was marrying his point guard from the basketball team. Like it is a small town.

Small town, Yeah, it's David's city.

So yeah, like it just didn't make a lot of sense. And the judge was just like, I hate that all has happened. I don't know why it happened. And the thing that I was going to say is, like Sean in his what is it called, like his declaration, there's a word for that.

Declamation, no allocution.

Allocution, that's right in Sean's what's another funny word for that? Yeah, and Sean's cuticle, he says husness. Yeah. He says that he did it to get money for drugs, and I didn't I didn't see that anywhere, Like you don't need that much for weed, And he didn't say he was dealing, and like it's just not in the narrative. So I don't know if he just like weird fludged that one because he didn't have another answer.

But well, maybe what he was getting the money for was so embarrassing that it would be better just to say it was for drugs.

Yeah, or maybe it was. And when it came to book time, like he didn't want to talk about that, which is fair, you know, maybe yeah, I don't know, but anyway, he does say, it's sentencing. Quote. Through this whole thing, I have become a better person. Unlike most people in the system. I had a good, loving family that raised me the right way. I have no excuse, which is mobile of him, right, Yeah, that is Judge. Kopp replies, we'll know in about thirteen years if you

Yeah, I'm shocked, right, Like, this doesn't happen, right, It never works out this way.

So he does his time at FCI Peakin in Illinois, Pekin.

Or Pekin it goes any way, you like, Oh okay.

But Paul, and you know, federal prison is extremely difficult, but he figures out how to navigate the system over time. Most of his book, which is called it's called law Man Memoirs of a jailhouse. Hmmm, I'll tell you later. Most of this book is really about that time in his life, so if you're interested, I highly recommend picking it up. Okay, But what's important is that while he's in prison, a job opens up in the prison library

This is it. Yeah.

Yeah, And remember he walked in doing absolutely nothing about the law and like five months of college.

Yeah.

So in two thousand and two he has a major breakthrough. He uses the library typewriter to bang out a a cert petition for his fellow inmate, John Fellers. A cert is basically an appeal to the Supreme Court. This is a crapshoot kind of fireling. Like every inmate fills one out, nobody expects to get it right, and even the best lawyers in the country they're like, yeah, this probably isn't

No way, and.

Next it lands on the desk of the US Solicitor General at the time, Seth Waxman, who said it was one of the best he had ever seen.

You're kidding, wow, And this is for another inmate.

It's not for himself, right, this is for this guy, John Feller's another inmate who is serving time with him. Waxman likes it so much he's like, you know what, I'll hop on. He takes the case on with John Hopwood. They win a nine zero unanimous decision in the Supreme Court.

You're kidding.

His fellow inmates sentence is knocked down by four years.

Wow.

At this point, if you're not rooting for the guy out in rude, dude, Land, I don't know, go fly kite exactly.

He's now David City's finest.

Yeah. So then in two thousand and five he does it again. He lands another Supreme Court appeal hearing for an inmate getting his decision vacated and sent back to a lower court. Oh wow, he does that. He helps other guys get sentence productions from three years to ten years, right, like his best one. Incredible, I'm not kidding.

Yeah.

While he's in prison, he also reconnected with the girl he had a huge crush on in high school and Marie Metzner. Is she a CEO from a little David City. No, she's like coming to visit him. Here's what happens. Shawn's mom was working for Anne Marie's dad at a pet medicine supplier back in David City. Anne Marie asks Shawn's mom about him, like, hey, how's that guy doing, writes to him in prison, and she visits and they hit

Oh dang, but she's just cheeking him some gaba penin.

I didn't know that was the thing. So they discover they both had crushes on each other in high school. And when he gets out in August of nine, they get married and they've been together ever since. They have two kids.

Wow, happily. Ever after, what does he do now that he's out?

So his meteoric rise in law circles continued once he got out, right, he tracks down a job opening first thing at Cockle Law Brief Printing Company, which is a great name that they're only one of five firms in the country that helps lawyers prep filings for the Supreme Court. Kind of perfect for that, right, Yeah, but he's worried about, you know, having the record, he's a felon and everything. So his buddy Fellers, who had helped get out four

Whoa so.

Twenty fifteen, he lands a highly competitive teaching fellowship at Georgetown's Litigation Clinic. Oh you're kidding, like yeah, And he does so well with that they then give him a professorship at Georgetown Law School. And that's what he's doing.

Now what Yeah, this is amazing.

Dude has made it.

Oh my god.

But that's not all, Elizabeth. Oh, the most most satisfying of all these things, he gets a Maya kulpa in writing from the federal judge who sentenced him.

You're kidding as perfect?

You remember blogs?

Yeah? I do remember blog Okay.

So in twenty thirteen that Judge Richard G. Kopp, He wrote an entry in his personal public blog which.

Was called blogging it Out blogging it out.

It was called Hercules and the Empire. This was the era when like everybody who was anybody had a blog.

Everybody had a blog.

This this blog is now defunct, but you can still see it in the Internet archives.

Oh yeah, way back.

Nice support the Internet archive, by the way, you know, like such good work.

It's incredible.

So his post is reflecting on an article all about Shawn hopwoods accomplishments to date. In the body of the post, Judge cop Frights. These are like bullet points. One. Hopwood deserves all the credit in the world. I hope he makes the best of an astounding opportunity. Two. Hopwood proves that my sentencing instincts suck. When I set him to prison, I would have bet the farm and all the animals that Hopwood would fail miserably as a productive citizen when

Can you imagine, But he his sentencing. I don't think his sentencing was wrong. I think that he Sean would not have done this were he not put in the position of being confined and being forced to do this, you know.

Well, let's see what Sean says back.

Oh, yes, let's see what Sean says because.

You've got this like in the comments. The comments go on and on and on, and you've got like, you know, wife guys and reply guys in there, but like eventually Sewn shows up. Yeah, this is just the first paragraph, do you judge Kopf. I wouldn't say that your sentencing instincts suck. While I meant what I said at sentencing, I was hardly the person that could back it up. I was a reckless and selfish young man back then.

Yeah, is not that amazing. I think the thing is is that we act like everyone that education is one size fits all and that when you're eighteen you go right to college and that's the time for you to do it. And if not, then you know, you go into the workforce. But not everyone neat can do that. And obviously for Sean his I mean, it's not good to rob banks in the meantime, but his development was later on, like his you know, figuring out what he wanted to do, where, why he was supposed to be here.

Did I just hear a ridiculous takeaway?

I think you just heard a ridiculous takeaway. Well, my other takeaway is it please tell me that when like that, you often say to your wife like, hey, welcome to David's city, and then she just rolls her eyes at you.

Oh wow, Yeah, no I haven't, but I'm using that.

I think you should. I think you should.

Yeah. The other thing about Sean is so he's now obviously like a huge advocate for criminal justice reform. It's kind of what he does and one of the things, the other thing he's said on this blog is that he has a firm belief that it should be five years and that's it. Nobody should be in prison for longer than five years.

Oh that's interesting.

It's going to do whatever it can do in that time, and the rest is just absolute garbage.

Mm hmm.

I think that's a yeah, a really remarkable way of looking.

At that is that's a really interesting, interesting way.

My ridiculous takeaway is, Yeah, the flip side of yours is like, welcome to David City for one thing, but for the other thing. You know, criming is not for everybody, no, no, and some of our criminals really get into it and it's like it becomes their special purpose. I think Sean like did a crime and he was like, all right, that was okay, but I didn't get any spark from it, like, yeah, it's not really me.

He wasn't taking the boxes for him.

Yeah. So, and you know, in a very gen x sort of way, he had to wear a lot of hats before he figured out what his thing is.

Ain't that the truth? Yep?

So yeah, bless him, God bless job, blessed, and God bless you rude dudes.

Yes, thanks to the story, Dave. That is a good one.

You're so welcome. That is what we have for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com, where we have you know, dancing gifts, dancing girls, merch, bad typography. You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at at ridiculous Crime. You can send us an electronic mail at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We probably won't read it. Or you can use the iHeart app and send us a thirty second audio message called a talkback. Go to the app, go to the episode.

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