The bank accounts of an ex-Santa Rosa police officer on trial for a series of armored car robberies fluctuated wildly between the dates of bank heists and reveal a pattern of travel to cities offering gambling, FBI agents testified Friday.
Former officer Robert "Steve" Starling, 36, was falling behind on car payments and was all but broke before the Sept. 27, 2007 robbery of $180,000 in cash from a Brinks truck at the Exchange Bank on Stony Point Road, Special Agent Noel Boswell testified.
Within days, Starling's bank balance soared and he began spending money in places like Lake Tahoe and Reno, where he dropped $3,000 for dinner and spent more than $800 in a boutique sunglasses shop, Boswell said.
He managed to stay below the radar by making a number of deposits under $10,000 that didn't trigger reporting requirements, Boswell said.
"They call it structuring," she told jurors at the end of the second week of trial.
Starling, who left the Santa Rosa Police Department after three years and later worked as an armored-car driver, is accused of four robberies in Sonoma and Marin counties from 2007 to 2009 that netted him $510,000.
He also is blamed for an aborted fifth robbery in Rohnert Park in which he allegedly instigated a fake 911 call, claiming there was an armed man on a Rohnert Park high school campus, to divert the attention of police. Other charges include threatening a witness and conspiracy that could get him 40 years behind bars if convicted.
Boswell's testimony showed that months after the first robbery, Starling's accounts were again depleted.
By April 2008, a few days before the second robbery of more than $200,000 from an armored car outside Montgomery Village bank, Starling had a negative balance, Boswell said.
Starling repeated the boom-bust cycle, this time with trips to Las Vegas and Bay Area card rooms. He opened a safety deposit box where authorities believe he kept large amounts of cash. All told, he deposited about $116,000 over a two-year period in which he said he was self-employed, she testified.
His accounts dried up in the months leading up to the date of a third armored car robbery on May 18, 2009 outside a Bank of America in Sebastopol. Prosecutors allege he robbed the car and fled with $97,000 in cash, prosecutors said.
This time, he paid off the loan on his Dodge Dakota pickup, Boswell said.
But the FBI agent said his spree would soon end. Cell phone calls made during a failed robbery in Novato a month earlier were traced to Starling and an accomplice, Andrew Cooper Esslinger, 27. He became a prime suspect when witnesses to the Sebastopol heist described the gunman as sounding like a police officer when he shouted, "Get down," Boswell said.
Starling's lawyer, Jeff Mitchell, conceded in opening statements that his client committed three of the heists. But Mitchell has said Starling didn't use a real gun. If jurors agree, it could shave years off any prison sentence.
Starling's accomplice, who reached a plea agreement with prosecutors, is expected to testify Monday morning. Starling is expected to take the stand Monday or Tuesday.
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