Where's Waldo bank robber -- apologetic and 'Zen' -- thanks judge for 5-year prison term

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The surveillance photo from a Key Bank in Tualatin gave Ryan Homsley the Where's Waldo Bandit nickname by the FBI.

(Federal Bureau of Investigation)

After two memorable bank robberies, time behind bars, angry outbursts and nearly dying for refusing to take his insulin, Ryan Homsley – the Where's Waldo Bandit – stood in a Portland courtroom Tuesday to apologize.

"I feel so ashamed for my actions," Homsley told U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown at his sentencing. "I'm so sorry for everything I've done since I was arrested."

And what a memorable stretch of public pathos it was.

Homsley first drew headlines in September 2010, when he robbed a Key Bank in Tualatin wearing a striped shirt and horn-rim glasses. He looked a lot like a live-action version of the Where's Waldo cartoon character.

Examples of Ryan Homsley's art work appeared in a federal sentencing memorandum in July 2012.

He had walked into the bank and set a box on the counter with a note that described his cargo as an explosive. He wanted $2,000. No dye packs, said the note, "or boom." Homsley got $505 from the till.

Police sent surveillance photos of the robbery to news organizations. Homsley responded by playfully posting his image on Facebook, declaring himself a bank robber. At the time it seemed like he was taunting police.

Perhaps it was a call for help. Homsley, who suffers from diabetes, had been homeless and addicted to heroin.

Investigators caught up with him three days later. Brown sentenced Homsley in 2012 to three years, four months behind bars, with credit for time served. He did his time at the medium-security federal prison in Sheridan.

He was released on Aug. 20, 2013.

Six days later, broke and homeless, the former heroin addict went to a dentist complaining of tooth problems just to get pain pills, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer. But when that failed, Homsley took another tack.

Later that day, he walked into a downtown Portland bank and pulled another note job.

"No sudden moves," read Homsley's note. "No alarms (do not follow.) No one gets hurt. 100's 50's 20's 10's 5's. NO DYE-PACKS. BE COOL + no one gets hurt." He also drew a smiley face.

As Peifer put it in court, "Mr. Homsley knows how to commit a bank robbery."

Left unsaid was how bad he was at hiding out. The day after his robbery, he was arrested in an abandoned home in Aloha and sent to jail.

While awaiting trial on the new robbery, Homsley acted out behind bars by refusing to take his insulin. Jailers repeatedly rushed him to hospital emergency centers, and he came close to death on at least one occasion.

Peifer said the episodes were manipulations – more drug-seeking behavior. But he acknowledged that in the last several months, having finally gotten the right medication, Homsley's attitude had changed.

Defense lawyer Matthew A. Schindler told the court that he had spent about 100 hours with Homsley over the last year. At first, he said, his client was volatile, out of control, challenging. Once he broke a window at a hospital.

But he has made a 180-degree turnaround, Schindler told the court. And he recalled how his client with the hair-trigger temper had changed.

PROFILE: Where's Waldo Bandit: Ryan Homsley talks about his transformation to a bank robber

"Matt," he recalled Homsley telling him, "for the first time in my life I feel like I have 5 seconds before I blow up."

Schindler told the court that Homsley was a talented artist with great intellect, not a man who should be sitting next to him in a criminal courtroom.

Homsley now stood and apologized to Brown. He said he had resisted the diagnosis that he suffered from a personality disorder, which made him sound like a broken toy. And he felt like he was watching a movie of someone else's life.

His medication has helped him return to his poetry and drawing. Now, he said, he's feeling "Zen."

"I regret what I did, and I'm sorry."

Brown, who had seen Homsley in her court several times before, gave him another chance.

She sentenced him to four years in prison for the 2013 bank robbery, with an additional year for violating the terms of his post-prison supervision on the 2010 case.

"All I can do is implore you (to) act on the sentiments you expressed today," she said. "If you do not, bad things are going to happen."

Brown looked down from her bench at Homsley.

"Good luck, Mr. Homsley."

"Thank you, your honor."

-- Bryan Denson

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