A third arrest has been made in last month's armed robbery of a bank on Martha's Vineyard, authorities said Monday.
The office of U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins of Massachusetts announced that 21-year-old Romane Andre Clayton of Jamaica had been arrested Friday in Connecticut. He is being charged as an accessory after the fact to armed bank robbery. Court paperwork shows the arrest was made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Authorities have been investigating the Nov. 17 robbery of Rockland Trust in Tisbury's Vineyard Haven community, where three armed robbers tied up employees and fled with more than $39,000. No one was hurt in the incident, which sparked a major search.
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Two other men — 30-year-old Miquel Anthonio Jones of Edgartown and 39-year-old Omar Johnson of Canterbury, New Hampshire — were previously arrested. Johnson was charged with masked armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery with a firearm. Jones was initially arrested on an accessory after the fact charge, but was later also charged with armed and masked bank robbery, prosecutors said.
Rollins' office says surveillance footage showed Clayton parking a silver sedan near the Steamship Authority, purchasing tickets and boarding a ferry a short time after the robbery. Johnson was then allegedly caught on camera getting into the same sedan, buying a vehicle ferry ticket and boarding a vessel with it.
Prosecutors also noted that investigators searched the Tisbury farm used by the landscaping company where Jones worked. There they found gloves, paper money bands, zip ties and multiple rubber bands which were all consistent with the bank robbery. They also found evidence of a recent fire and burnt pieces of material including a walkie-talkie, an antenna, batteries and pieces of metal consistent with a mask. Nearby, investigators recovered two semi-automatic handguns, still loaded with 9mm ammunition, buried in the ground.
Investigators also found three $100 bills and "clothing consistent with the robbers" in Jones' car. A black handgun was found in Johnson's home, and paperwork showing a money transfer to Jamaica and cash deposits to a Connecticut bank was found in his car, Rollins' office said.
