Banks like return business, but not the kind Jeffery Jerome Mitchell gave an M&T Bank branch in Lebanon County in early 2012.
Mitchell was convicted of robbing the place, not once, but twice in the span of a month.
The Lancaster County man was convicted of both holdups and is serving a 12- to 30-year state prison sentence.
The 50-year-old Mitchell will be staying behind bars because a state Superior Court panel upheld his convictions this week.
As court filings show, those convictions hinged on Mitchell's own mistakes, his distinctive eyes and some CSI-style investigation by the South Lebanon Township police.
According to investigators, Mitchell walked into the bank during the first holdup on Feb. 16, 2012 with a red bandanna over his face, threw a bag at a teller and told her to fill it up with cash. He told the teller he'd kill her if she put a dye pack in the bag, then escaped with nearly $2,600.
A red bandanna and a knit cap that witnesses also identified as the robber's garb were recovered by police from nearby yard, and were linked to Mitchell using DNA from cigarette butts he discarded during an interview with a cop.
Mitchell's DNA also was found on latex gloves found near the bank after the second robbery, which occurred on March 1, 2012 under the same basic scenario as the first holdup. The second robbery netted more than $2,600.
Multiple witnesses identified Mitchell as the robber because of his "big, dark, distinct eyes," court records show. And after the second robbery, witnesses got the license plate of the getaway vehicle, which was registered to Mitchell, and police promptly arrested Mitchell at his Manheim home with more than $2,500 in cash in his pockets.
In his failed appeal to the state court, Mitchell claimed the evidence didn't support his convictions by two separate county juries. Also, he argued that he didn't receive a fair trial because of friction with his court-appointed lawyer.
Judge Cheryl Lynn Allen rejected both arguments in the Superior Court's ruling.
Mitchell's dispute with his lawyer wasn't substantial and was resolved via county court intervention, Allen wrote. She noted as well that Mitchell told a county judge after his first trial that he was satisfied with the attorney's representation.
There is no doubt, either, that the evidence supported Mitchell's convictions for both robberies, Allen concluded.