Questioned by Little Rock police about why he would rob a bank, 47-year-old Ronald Byrd Hudson complained that he couldn't find a job after submitting 200 applications, a Little Rock police officer testified Wednesday.
Charged with four counts of aggravated robbery, Hudson is accused of holding up two Little Rock banks at gunpoint about two weeks apart -- the Arvest Bank at 16107 Chenal Parkway on June 25, and the Simmons Bank at 7401 Cantrell Road on July 12.
He was arrested about 30 minutes after the second holdup.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Hudson said in a police interview, according to Little Rock detective Grant Humphries, who was recounting for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson how Hudson blamed society for his problems.
Questioned by deputy prosecutor Phillip Underwood, Humphries testified that he was en route to investigate the holdup when he heard on the police radio that a suspect had been tracked to the area around Dickson Drive and Ridge Road, about a quarter-mile from where Humphries was driving.
Joining the search, Humphries said he saw a man run between houses in the 100 block of Ridge Road. While patrol officers chased the fleeing man, Humphries said he caught up with the man on Indian Trail, where he stopped the man at gunpoint.
The man dropped a black bag, which contained $4,570 and some other Simmons property, the detective testified. He had a blue latex glove in his pocket, and the bank robber had been reported as wearing light blue gloves, Humphries said.
"I saw him drop the items. When he dropped them, he stepped away from them and complied with my orders" to raise his hands and surrender, the detective told the judge.
The man, later identified as Hudson, had about $66 on him and was wearing bluejeans and a long-sleeved dark shirt, Humphries said. He had a black bandanna around his neck that looked like the dark handkerchief the robber was reportedly wearing to cover his face, the detective said. Witnesses said the robber had a small silver pistol.
Humphries told the judge that he asked Hudson only one question at the scene -- where was the gun? The detective said he hadn't read Hudson his rights but asked about the weapon out of concern that a child in the residential neighborhood might find it.
Hudson told him he never had a gun but had been carrying a lighter, which he had dropped while police were chasing him, Humphries told the judge. Neither a weapon nor a lighter was found.
Hudson complained of chest pains and was taken to a hospital. He was questioned after he was cleared by a doctor, the detective said.
Hudson agreed to an interview after waiving his right to have a lawyer with him but refused to have the interrogation recorded, Humphries told the judge. It was during questioning that he complained about not being able to find a job, the detective said.
Humphries said Hudson did not explicitly confess to the holdup, but made incriminating statements about carrying a lighter and why he would want to rob a bank. The interview ended when Hudson said he didn't want to talk anymore, the detective said.
"He never gave an admission like 'yes, I did it,'" Humphries told the judge.
None of the witnesses -- Emily Bowman, Adam Cox and Stephanie Warner from Arvest, or Tiffany Haynes from Simmons -- could identify the robber, according to testimony.
Detective Michael Lundy told the judge that Hudson was charged in the Arvest holdup in part because he matched the description of the robber, who was said to be a tall, bald, muscular man wearing a gray sweater, bluejeans and gloves.
Witnesses video-recorded the robber, just before the bank's closing time, fleeing with cash in his arms, Lundy told the judge. Lundy said cellphone records show that Hudson's phone "pinged" a cellular tower across the street from the Chenal Parkway bank just before it was robbed.
Lundy said the Arvest bank robber was seen getting out of the back seat of a silver Nissan Altima. Two minutes before the holdup, a woman entered the bank, picked up a deposit slip and walked out, he said.
In the holdup at the Simmons bank, which is now a Metropolitan National Bank branch, Lundy said, the daughter of Hudson's fiancee walked into the bank, picked up a deposit slip and walked out just before that robbery. The woman, who was not identified in Wednesday's proceeding and has not been charged, told police that she frequently shopped at a nearby grocery store.
Defense attorney Lou Marczuk asked the judge to reduce Hudson's bail from $50,000 to a more affordable $20,000 with electronic monitoring, saying that Hudson, who is on parole for attempted robbery in Missouri, hoped to be released from jail so he could return to Missouri to challenge an effort to revoke his parole.
Testifying on Hudson's behalf was his fiancee, Taisha Dabney, who told the judge that she'd known Hudson since November and that he would live with her at her Fairmont Drive home, if he was able to post bond. She said Hudson has had job opportunities but has had to pass them up since he's been in jail for the past 111/2 weeks.
The judge declined to reduce the bail. Prosecutors contested the reduction request, citing Hudson's 30-year criminal history.
The St. Louis native is on parole for a 15-year prison sentence that he received in Missouri after pleading guilty to attempted robbery in 2003, and he's on federal supervised release for a June 2005 conviction in Missouri for being a felon in possession of a firearm after having a .25-caliber pistol in a September 2002 case in Boone County. He was released from prison in February after serving his 10-year sentence, the minimum penalty for his offense.
According to federal court records, his supervision was transferred to the Little Rock area on July 29, about two weeks after his arrest in the holdups.
Court records show that Hudson has been sentenced to prison six times since a 1984 conviction for second-degree robbery in St. Louis, with subsequent theft convictions between 1986 and 1996.
Metro on 10/02/2014