TRENTON, N.J. -- A retiree, his son and the son's military college schoolmate pleaded guilty Monday to a $4.5 million armored car hijacking in which the two younger men dressed as police officers to catch the car's guards by surprise.
The three men appeared in U.S. District Court and pleaded guilty to one count each of interfering with interstate commerce by robbery, in exchange for the agreement by federal prosecutors to drop charges of conspiracy.
Each of the three faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. Sentencing was set for Aug. 9. Conviction on all charges originally filed against them could have led to a 40-year sentence.
Robert W. Jasinski, 51, of Boonton, N.J., told U.S. District Court Judge Garrett Brown that he was the master planner of the Dec. 22, 1988, hijacking of a Coin Depot Armored Car Co. vehicle outside a bank in Clifton.
'I planned the robbery,' Jasinki told the judge.
Jasinski, an American Telephone & Telegraph Co. retiree, was a part-time guard for Coin Depot at the time of the robbery and allegedly used his inside knowledge of the company's routes and procedures to set up the heist carried out by the two younger men.
The car contained about $4.5 million in cash and was beginning its morning run to New Jersey banks when it was hijacked by two men wearing police-style uniforms and carrying a sawed-off shotgun and a semi-automatic Luger machine pistol, authorities said.
William Jasinski, 22 and Bryan Smals, 21, of Columbus, Ohio, schoolmates at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va., at the time of the robbery, admitted Monday that they bound the guards in the back of the armored car and drove it to a nearby area where the elder Jasinski waited with a getaway van.
'I was one of two men that transported money from the armored car to the van,' William Jasinski told the judge. 'Myself and Smals followed my father's plan.'
Both cadets have resigned from VMI since their arrests in January.
A fourth suspect, Ronald Stromp, 55, of Union, N.J., a long-time friend of the elder Jasinski, was arrested last month, implicated by the two Jasinskis. Stromp allegedly monitored police transmissions by two-way radio and acted as a lookout during the heist. The Jasinskis claimed that they paid Stromp $122,000 for his watch-dog services. No trial date has been set in his case.
The two Jasinskis and Smals were allowed to remain free on bail pending their sentencing. Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. Lacey said the Aug. 9 sentencing date could be postponed if the Stromp case is not resolved by then.
Stromp has been charged with interfering with interstate commerce and with interfering with interstate commerce by force, violence or robbery in connection with the Dec. 22, 1988, armored car robbery.
