Man: Woman, 70, Tricked Me Into Helping Bank Robbery

By Amelia Santaniello, WCCO-TV

ELYSIAN, Minn. (WCCO) -- Luke Weimert thought he was just giving a 70-year old woman a helpful lift to the bank. Imagine his surprise when police pulled over his car, ordered him and Sandra Bathke to the ground and said he was driving the getaway car in a bank robbery.

"I guess when I looked out [at the police] and saw the guns drawn [is] when I knew something serious was wrong, but I had no idea," said Weimert of Janesville, Minn., east of Mankato.

Weimert looks like a nice young man, and the woman on the surveillance tape from the Elysian Bank looks like a nice, elderly woman. But while Weimert was waiting in his car, Bathke was actually robbing the bank, saying she had a gun.

"She owed my mom some rent and we've been trying to get it from her forever and help her out and make any accommodations, and she never, ever once said that she didn't have the money," said Weimert.

When Bathke came out of the bank Weimert started driving her home, he still had no idea what was happening until the cops pulled him over. They still have his car and belongings.

While he waits to get them back, he is helping shovel snow at his mother's house. It gives him time to think about what he has learned from this adventure.

"You can't trust anybody, you just can't," he explained.

He said he wanted to talk to the media and clear his name so potential employers don't think he is a bank robber.

"There I am, front page in handcuffs. Everybody knows it's my face. It was hard and not having a phone, not having any kind of contacts, friends in the cities, friends down here, I just hope they know that I would never do anything like that," he said.

WCCO-TV's Amelia Santaniello Reports