SR bank heist suspect phones home

Santa Rosa bank-robbery suspect Christopher Wenmoth idles in a Minnesota jail following his arrest by a state trooper who ran his license number on Interstate 90 and discovered he faces felony charges in Sonoma County.

On Monday, Wenmoth phoned The Press Democrat collect from a jail cell in the south-central Minnesota town of Blue Earth, home to the world's largest Jolly Green Giant statue.

The one-time candidate for the Santa Rosa school board would not say directly whether he did or did not rob the Montgomery Village branch of US Bank on July 23.

Speaking calmly and genially, and seeming to suggest a possible defense strategy, he did say he has a gambling problem and he may need help with "brain chemistry issues."

"Whatever comes of this, I hope I can get some help," said Wenmoth, 37. "Hopefully, this situation will have a silver lining."

Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Lisa Banayat said investigators believe Wenmoth is the US Bank robber because of a high-quality photo snapped by a security camera at the branch and because Minnesota troopers found evidence in his car that links him to the holdup.

Wenmoth said from jail he doesn't know what the evidence might be that authorities claim to have found in his Mazda. Asked if he had any bags of cash in the car, he replied, "When they arrested me, I had 56 cents in my pocket."

He explained that he was in Minnesota because he and a friend, a woman from Iowa, had taken a road trip to the Mount Rushmore area of South Dakota and he was driving her back home.

He had no money on him, he said, because they'd agreed that he would buy all the gas and she would reimburse him her share of the cost once they reached her house.

They weren't far from there, Wenmoth said, when he noticed a Minnesota state trooper following him Thursday afternoon. He said he pulled into a rest stop, and the trooper followed and pulled him over.

Wenmoth said the officer told him he was wanted on a $50,000 felony warrant out of California, then arrested him. Apparently troopers searched his car and removed possible evidence, then allowed the woman to drive herself the rest of the way home in neighboring Iowa.

"She's not too happy with me right now," Wenmoth said. He said troopers impounded his car after his friend drove it to her house.

Wenmoth phoned a Press Democrat reporter twice Monday afternoon from Faribault County jail in Blue Earth, a farming town at the confluence of two branches of the Blue Earth River. The calls came several hours after the reporter phoned Wenmoth's mother's home in Santa Rosa and left his office number.

Wenmoth, who told of having moved with his family to Santa Rosa in 1984 and attending both Piner High and Santa Rosa Junior College, skirted the question of whether he robbed the bank.

"I don't know exactly why I'm a suspect or what the evidence is, so I can't comment on that," he said. At another time he said, "I'd rather not comment until I know the details of what is going on."

He did allow that he may have been in the area of the bank branch that was held up the afternoon of July 23. Police say the bandit, a white man, showed no weapon but handed a teller a note demanding cash.

"I am familiar with that US Bank," Wenmoth said.

Sounding as though he was pleased to be talking with someone in Santa Rosa, Wenmoth said that he does have troubles in life.

"Basically, I'm unemployed," he said, adding that his mother and grown brother in Santa Rosa are out of work, too.

He said that earlier this year he was living in Marin County and doing clerical work at a drug-and-alcohol treatment facility in San Rafael.

"But the rent was going up and I couldn't afford to live in Marin County any more on the salary that I made," he said. He said he returned to Santa Rosa and to his mother's house and for the past six months looked for work, without luck.

Wenmoth also offered that at the time he left the job at the treatment facility, he stopped playing poker at card clubs.

"I used to play poker frequently in Petaluma and Emeryville," he said, adding that at one point he entered a self-help program but didn't stick with it.

He declared, "I do have a gambling problem. I realized (early this year) I had a pretty serious problem and I stopped. I haven't played poker since the end of January."

Santa Rosa police said they do know that Wenmoth has frequented Bay Area card rooms.

"I've had some problems, not serious legal problems but some life problems," he said.

Despite the discussion of his gambling, financial and mental issues, he continued to resist the question of whether he robbed the bank.

"With the matter at hand, I want to speak with legal counsel and learn more about it," he said.

Sgt. Banayat, of the Santa Rosa police, said Wenmoth was pulled over by another patrolman prior to the stop by the Minnesota trooper, but at that time the arrest warrant hadn't been issued.

Wenmoth said he was indeed stopped earlier by a trooper in Nebraska.

"It was weird," he said. "I was just driving down the road and this cop came out of nowhere. He seemed convinced that I had drugs."

That patrolman, unaware of the bank robbery in Santa Rosa, let him continue on his way toward Iowa.

Asked how he was doing at the Minnesota jail, Wenmoth said, "I've been in the Sonoma County jail, and this one is better. They're feeding me here and there's a television and newspapers and books and writing paper."

He said he was jailed following a drunken-driving arrest in Sonoma County in 1992 and later was jailed again for failing to meet the obligations imposed on him in the DUI case.

"This is the first time I've been arrested since 1996," he said.

That year is also when Wenmoth ran unsuccessfully for the Santa Rosa school board.

He said he appeared in court in Minnesota and did not oppose being returned promptly to Santa Rosa.

He said he expects to be back in town soon and to learn more about what he's accused of doing at the bank at Montgomery Village.

You can reach Staff Writer

Chris Smith at 521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.