Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, husband, father.

I was just a good person trying to provide for my kids, trying to do the

thing.

Bank robber.

I passed out on the kitchen floor. I said, you have the wrong man, not my

husband.

It's a second career, far away from the Manhattan trading pitch where he once

made hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He was a commodities broker doing bank robberies.

Just didn't fit.

Now his life and the lives of those who know and love him change forever.

My pride and my ego just destroyed me, literally, from the inside out.

Spring 2002.

Stephen and Jeannie Trantel appear to have it all. They're living the perfect

suburban life together on New York's Long Island.

The Stephen that I fell in love with was charming.

He was bright -eyed, cheery, generous, hysterical.

Hi, son.

Hey, look at the camera.

They have two young children they are devoted to.

I was involved with every aspect of my kids. You know, I wanted to just do

everything with them, from diapers to Little League to Taekwondo.

Stephen Trantel leaves the house early each morning, takes the Long Island

Railroad into Manhattan.

For 14 years, he's worked his way onto the New York Mercantile Exchange, where

he trades commodity futures for a private firm.

I fell in love with it, like being at a casino every day.

You can make $1 ,000 in a minute, or I can lose $10 ,000 in five minutes.

During his best year, Trantell makes nearly $300 ,000 trading on commodity

futures, like silver, gold, and oil.

He had his biggest day, which I believe was October of 2000, where he made $27

,000 in 90 seconds.

At work, he's screaming in the pits and moving money.

At home, the 38 -year -old donates his time at local soup kitchens and builds

houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Stephen was very involved in the community. He was a Little League coach,

he was really a stalwart member of the community.

In the spring of 2002, The Trantels sell their modest Long Beach house and move

to nearby Rockville Center, where Jeannie grew up. The effect on their

immediate. My mortgage was $1 ,100 in Long Beach, and

it was $3 ,300 when I moved to Rockville Center.

Bigger taxes, bigger electric water, blah, blah, blah, you know.

The move should be cause for celebration.

But Stephen Trantel has been keeping secrets from everybody, especially his

wife.

Since September 2001, Trantel has been on a steady losing streak at work.

He was hit very hard with some deep things that he just couldn't process

correctly.

Several friends are killed on 9 -11, and each day he walks past Ground Zero on

his way to work.

The economy falls into recession.

And then his mother passes away after battling a terminal illness.

With so many distractions, Trantell can't focus at work.

I was lost and trying to keep this all together and just losing a ton of money.

In late 2002, his boss is tired of backing a losing horse and firing.

To make money, any money, Trentel tries selling donut machines to local

convenience stores without success.

He dabbles in real estate, but never makes a sale.

He just ran out of time.

Something was going to happen. It just never did.

And he still needed to earn.

His only shot back on the trading floors is to get his own seat and trade his

own money.

But those seats cost more than half a million dollars.

Trentel decides to lease one.

It's still not cheap.

When I was trading crude, I had to make $20 ,000 a month to break even.

How crazy is that?

But his luck hasn't changed.

By the spring of 2003, he owes nearly $200 ,000 to the clearinghouse that

oversees his trades.

Soon, he's exhausted his credit line and the clearinghouse's patience.

In May, he once again loses his seat on the trading floor.

If you don't have money to trade, you can't trade.

I lost it, so I couldn't trade anymore.

Trantell begins a complicated deceit. He lives life as though nothing has really

changed. He went to work every day. That's what I thought. I kissed him

He called me throughout the day, told me he was at work, coming home on the

train.

But Trantell has no work to go to.

Instead, he kills time and watches his dream life slip away.

Mortgage, utilities, preschool tuition, medical insurance.

No income, the bills pile up quickly.

There was a message from Washington Mutual on my telephone that said, we

speak to you, it's urgent.

So I said, Steve, we are in trouble, aren't we?

Then he would snap at me and say, no, we're fine, just not to worry about it.

One morning in early July, he's sitting in front of the local library.

Broke and desperate, he makes an unthinkable decision.

I need money right now.

And I'm going through all these options and I'm like, I'll just

go rob a bank.

The library becomes the perfect refuge to scour the Internet for bank robbing

tips.

It's not like I could ask, you know, anybody for advice. But, you know, how

do this?

You know, I didn't know anything.

First, Trenton learns that most bank robbers get caught during the getaway

witnesses ID their vehicles. He decides to leave his car blocks away from his

target. All right, so let me take that out of the equation.

And in a fingerprint, all right, I wear gloves.

And, you know, boom, boom, we're going through the whole thing. And I slowly

talked myself into it.

Trentel has spent his career betting on futures.

Now he's betting his future on bank robbery.

I wanted to try to get $15 ,000, $20 ,000 in my trading account.

And then I'd be able to go back to trading so I could pay bills.

He begins casing local banks, looking for quiet branch offices in nearby

neighborhoods.

Well, there was no guard at the door. You know, that was one thing.

And I guess, you know, accessibility.

There was no bulletproof glass. And if I could park my car far away and go

through a hidden area to get to my car, things like that.

He writes a stick -up note that says, I have a gun.

But Trantell says the note was nothing more than a bluff.

I mean, it's crazy. I was trying to, you know, be more like a gentleman. You

know, like, you know, just take this note and give some money and I'll be out

your head type of thing, you know.

He wears a heavy navy blue coverall over his street clothes and covers his face

with sunglasses and a baseball cap.

He puts latex gloves on his hands.

On July 11, 2003...

Trantel takes a deep breath and walks into the Fleet Bank, now a Bank of

America, in Merrick, Long Island.

I've never been more scared.

He waits nervously in line.

When he's called forward, he hands the teller his note.

It's like, you know, just, you know,

between me and you, you know.

A terrified teller quickly empties his drawer.

Moments later, he's out the door with a bag of stolen cash.

That first one was the smoothest thing.

I couldn't believe it. I was, like, in shock.

You know, I'm like, it's almost too good to be true.

Trantell walks across the parking lot and disappears through a hole in the

fence. Along the way, he ditches the coveralls he's wearing.

To avoid witnesses, he's parked his car on the far side of a nearby park.

And as I'm walking through this park, there was two cops, you know, they just,

you know, just sitting there.

I just, I just freaked out. I mean, I thought I was dead.

I'm like, wow, that was quick.

But I just kept walking and they never even knew.

At home, Trantell finds that he has stolen more than $10 ,000.

Most important, the money is clean. No dye packs, no GPS, nothing to trace back

to him.

It was a great feeling sitting at my desk, you know, counting that money.

He converts most of the stolen cash to money orders purchased from the local

post office and pays off the worst bills that are hanging over his head.

It put him back in a position where he didn't have to lie to his wife about not

going to work every day.

It gave him this sense of accomplishment and total lack of care that he would

ever be caught.

That night, for the first time in a long time, Trantel seems relaxed.

He and Jeannie enjoy a knife in the top.

We spent the night in the city. We had a hotel. We went for this gorgeous

dinner. I was like, wow, Steve.

You must have had a really good week at work.

And I had no idea.

Trantell wants to hold on to his lifestyle.

And bank robberies worked out better than he hoped.

Despite the risks, he soon decides to repeat the one successful business

he's had in 2003.

It's greed.

Anyone who thinks of money over their children or their family, it's greed.

Up next, how far will Stephen Trantell go?

And who will he hurt before he's stopped?

By the summer of 2003, Stephen Trantel of Long Island seems to have it all.

I was...

Just a good person, trying to be a good friend, good father, trying to make a

living, you know, trying to do the right thing.

But there's a catch.

The 38 -year -old one -time commodities trader, father of two and pillar of the

community, is living a secret life.

He's just successfully robbed a local bank.

Wall Street trader bank robbed the same thing.

You know, like a little joke.

It really frustrated me that a man like that, who had a beautiful home, a

beautiful wife, two beautiful children, didn't get up and go and get a job doing

whatever he had to do to pay the bills. He took the easy way out.

Trentel, educated, upper middle class, and unemployed, has turned to bank

robbing to keep his family afloat.

That's a little crazy to me, to go rob a bank and to come home to your family.

Like nothing happened.

Nobody believed it, and I didn't believe I was capable of it.

And I look back, and I'm like, how stupid was I?

Trantel's not the only one.

According to federal statistics, someone robs a bank in the United States nearly

every hour.

And on July 11, 2003, Nassau County detectives are determined to catch this

thief who's walked away with more than $10 ,000.

Lead detective James Skopek gathers what evidence has been left behind.

The first clue, a discarded robbery note.

In the note, he said he has a gun.

That note was hand -printed. Some of it was block letter and some of it was

changed. This is a stick -up.

I have a gun.

Give me the money.

Traumatized witnesses can't tell police much, except that the robber wore a

heavy blue jumpsuit.

It's July in New York. It's hot. It's humid.

She said, I should have known something wasn't right with him right away.

Crime scene investigators comb the nearby area.

In the back of the parking lot, they find something.

It's maybe 100 feet away or so.

There's a 12 -inch gap between two fences.

Stuffed in that was the blue jumpsuit.

The jumpsuit and surveillance photos inside the bank offered detectives vague

clues, but no answers.

So we had a male, white, 5 '8 to 5 '10, 30 -ish, blondish -brown hair, no facial

hair, sunglasses, hat, the blue jumpsuit, and that was about it, and we

have much more to go on at that time.

The suspect has disappeared.

He could be anywhere by now.

But Stephen Trantel is actually only two small towns away in nearby Rockville

Center celebrating with his unsuspecting wife.

I didn't know.

And he said he had a very good week at work because he came with a wad of

The robbery was supposed to be a one -time deal to get his family out of the

hole. But far from returning life back to normal, The bank high seems to make

Trantell even more impulsive.

Two days later, the Trantell family takes a short vacation in Wisconsin.

He couldn't relax.

And I remember getting there and he had to rent a speedboat, which was probably

like $2 ,000.

As bills pile up, Trantell realizes one bank job is simply not enough to pay off

his family's mounting debts and to maintain their lifestyle.

My bills are $7 ,000, $8 ,000, $10 ,000 a month.

So I was sticking a finger in the dam, you know.

And Jeannie, his wife of nearly 10 years, has no idea there's even a

Every day, Stephen puts on his tie and grabs a brown bag lunch on his way out

the door.

It's worse that he stole and he did these crazy crimes, but that he lied

it for so many months to me creeps me out. That's creepy.

Trentel needs more money, fast.

He starts casing Long Island banks for easy prey.

He even had the foresight to go and sit in a coffee shop across the street,

scope out the bank, go in and act like he was using an ATM machine in the front

of the bank to look to see whether or not the bank had a security guard.

On August 8th, he walks into the Fleet Bank in East Rockaway.

Trantel's already scoped out the head teller, the person with the most money

their drawer.

He obviously stood on that line to approach one teller and one teller only.

When he's called forward, Trantel hands her his stick -up note.

I felt horrible doing it.

You know, I'm basically a good person that did a very bad thing, but...

It's not like I went in, guns blazing, and you blah, blah, blah, give me the

money, you know, screaming like that. You know, it wasn't like that.

The note clearly states he has a gun.

If he were to come to me and indicated he had a gun and he was going to kill

if I didn't surrender money, I would have to take him on his word and comply

with his demands.

Trantell demands bottom drawer cash, where the larger bills are kept.

The teller hands him $7 ,500 and Trantell exits the bank.

He quickly disappears before witnesses realize what has happened.

Once again, he leaves his demand note behind rather than risk keeping it in

pocket.

You know, I just decided that since I'm writing a note with the gloves on, I

don't have to worry about getting a note back because who cares if they have it,

there's nothing on it.

That night, Trantell takes his sons camping.

Once again, seamlessly transitioning back to the role of doting suburban

He went with a couple of our friends and their kids, and he just robbed a bank.

He wore many hats, Steve, throughout those months.

Trantel's take from both robberies is nearly $20 ,000.

Not bad for two days' work.

I think he thought it was providing.

He thought, I'm bringing home the bacon.

You know, I'm being the man in the family and bringing home the money like

supposed to do.

But that stolen $20 ,000 disappears quickly, and Trentel soon decides to

his luck again.

He easily could have gone out and gotten another job, gotten two jobs. You do

what you have to do when you have two small children and a mortgage to pay.

don't go out and rob banks. You don't go out and take somebody else's money.

He sits in his office late at night wearing latex gloves and printing more

demand notes.

The notes would change to fit the bank. If the bank teller was handing him tens,

twenties, he didn't want that, so he amended his notes to read fifties and

hundreds. But this, I have a gun, this was in every one of the notes that he

a gun.

Next on American Greed.

Trantell throws caution and common sense to the wind as it becomes more

dangerous.

It was obvious he was getting desperate. I have to stop this. I have to get this

guy off the street.

On September 4, 2003, Stephen Trantel walks into a fleet bank in Linbrook,

Island, and presents the teller with a note demanding cash.

By now, he has his M .O. down pat.

You know, everything went smoothly. I'm in and out, no problems. The girl just

gave me all the money, and I was admitted. I was out.

Trantel steals more than $11 ,000.

This is the third bank the one -time commodities trader has successfully

off in less than two months.

The hat, the sunglasses, the physical characteristics of the face, comparing

one photo to the other photo, looking at it to say, we have the same guy.

In many ways, bank robbing has become his new career.

It was almost like picking up a coffee, getting the keys, getting his briefcase

and going to work. At some point...

It was like a normal occurrence to him.

I had gotten into so much, the mortgage, the house, the kids, the lifestyle, and

I couldn't do anything else, you know, even if I wanted to.

Drantel has already blown through almost $30 ,000.

Two weeks after the third robbery, he finds himself as broke as ever.

I think initially he had anticipated getting more money than he really was

getting. But at some point when the money started to decrease, that's when

incidences started to increase.

During the fall of 2003, Trantel masterminds a bank robbing spree across

Island. This was not a guy who just on a lark runs into a bank, sticks it up and

runs down the street with the money. This is a guy who planned meticulously,

researched on the Internet.

This was deliberate and, in that sense, not a momentary act of insanity or

irrationality.

His methods evolved with each successful heist.

I tried to, like, change things.

If a cop drove by, I wanted to look like a normal, everyday guy.

You know, chinos, maybe my briefcase, maybe a shopping bag.

He had also gone and bought a cup of coffee or brought a cup of coffee with

He would go in and commit the bank robbery and come back out and pick up

coffee so that he would just look like an average passerby and not somebody

running from a bank robbery.

In September, he steals nearly $6 ,000 from banks in Glen Cove and Island Park.

And then he just kept robbing. He probably robbed like twice a month.

And he pretended he worked every day.

So far, he's robbed fleet banks, mostly on Long Island's south shore.

Police stick out likely targets there and win.

But this time, Trantell hits an HSBC branch on the north shore, taking $6

,500.

I remember I really pissed off all the cops.

They kind of figured out a pattern or whatever, you know, fleet banks, south

shore, Long Island.

And I'm like on the North Shore, waltzing out of a bank.

Days later, he steals $7 ,100 from another bank in Jericho.

The banks he targets are all in Nassau County and located less than 30 minutes

from his home.

Each time, he presents tellers with a handwritten note demanding money.

All his notes said, I have a gun.

Don't do any funny business. Don't do any funny games.

Of course, I knew that they weren't going to get hurt, but they didn't know

that. And the guilt I feel for that is just overwhelming.

Though Trentel never physically harms anyone, he does leave behind a number of

traumatized bank tellers.

This isn't putting a card into a slot and getting money out.

You're... going to an individual and telling them, if you don't comply with

I'm telling you, I'm going to kill you. I have a gun in my pocket.

All told, he's taken nearly $50 ,000, far more than the $20 ,000 he

originally needed to lease his seat back on the commodities exchange.

But the takes are getting smaller.

In fact, he's only averaging about $6 ,000 per robbery.

I think the misconception is that banks have a lot of money.

and they are a source of vast wealth and revenue.

And it's very far from the truth. We don't have a lot of cash. We are

entering into a cashless society.

And later robberies don't go nearly as smoothly as the first ones.

Once, while waiting to hand a teller a note... A cop came in and used the ATM

I'm waiting on line.

And he was gone.

Talking about having to change your underwear after that one, you know.

During another escape, he hops the wrong fence.

Running away from this bank, I jump the fence. There's a German shepherd chasing

me. I jump back over the fence. I mean, that's like a comedy show.

But, yeah, that was all part of it, too.

And one time, a teller hands him money with a little something extra hidden

inside. An exploding die pack.

The dye pack went off when he was going towards the parking lot.

I thought I got shot.

I'm running, and then I look down. There's just pink smoke everywhere.

Trantell dumps most of the useless money.

We found stained money all over that back parking lot.

He flees with the remaining $4 ,300, most of which is stained bright red.

I'm driving around, I had this pink smoke all in my car, and I'm lost.

I got pink everywhere, smoke, dye, I got pink money.

He eventually ends up at the family's cabana at nearby Leto Beach.

He actually cleaned and washed a lot of that dye off that currency so he could

use it again.

The very next bank, he had put in the stick -up note.

No dye pack. So you could clearly see that he was evolving as a bank robber.

Trantell frustrates investigators by leaving his image everywhere.

He knows cameras are taking his picture. He just doesn't care.

I figured they can get a thousand pictures of me in a disguise.

Nobody could ever prove anything from a picture with a guy in a hat. I'm wearing

my hat down and sunglasses, you know.

But eight successful robberies come with a physical and emotional price.

I saw a deterioration of Steve, a deterioration of him caring about his

he wore, his weight loss, not working out anymore.

Janie never suspects her husband is robbing banks, but she gives him a nasty

jolt in October when she surprises him with matching costumes for a Halloween

party. We were jailbirds, Mr. and Mrs. Jailbird.

And I remember that night when we got dressed and we were in the kitchen.

He just, something didn't look right with Steve.

His eyes were very dark.

But Stephen Trantel has little time to dwell on Halloween.

Once again, he's broke and losing ground.

It's time to plan another robbery.

I think he started to lose sight of... The risk, because he was going in and he

was walking right out. You know, nobody had any idea who he was. He would go

home and lead this completely separate life of dad, husband, friend, and just

forget sort of about what happened.

On October 28, he steals $4 ,100 from an Astoria federal bank in East Rockaway

and makes a clean getaway.

Coming up.

Like a deranged gambler who's convinced he's beaten the house, Trantell thinks

his winning streak will last forever.

Listen, he falls, we're going to be jumping all over. He makes that one

that one mistake, and he steps out of line just one little bit, we're going to

be all over it.

And Stephen's grief is about to become his undoing. All of a sudden his world

fell in.

November 2003.

During the past four months, eight banks on Long Island have been robbed and

more than $50 ,000 has disappeared.

Physical evidence, including demand notes and discarded clothing, has led

nowhere. The robber taunts police with each success.

Once he got away with that first one, a certain bravado came with it. And I

think he really started to feel like, wow, this isn't...

So hard.

For nearly six months, Stephen Trentel has lived the double life of affluent

suburban family man while secretly knocking off nearby community banks.

She's so desperate and at a dead end.

I'm an action guy here, you know, I mean, come on. I can't just sit on my

got to do something to provide.

Trapped in a cycle of debt and theft and more debt, living a lie around his

family, Trantell has just about reached his breaking point.

He'd come home angry all the time, would snap at me all the time, but obviously

I didn't know at the time how much pressure he was under and how much fear

was under and what he was hiding and probably so scared about getting caught

minute.

But he can't or won't stop.

Towards the end of the robberies, you could see that there was a sense of

urgency and a sense of desperation that was growing and a sense of sloppiness.

On November 4th, Trantell steals $7 ,200 from the state bank of Long Island.

He rushes out, leaving his demand note behind like he's done so many times

before.

Detective James Skopak, who's been pursuing this serial robber for months,

examines the notes soon after.

This time, there's something very different about it.

This note was ripped out of a spiral -style notebook that's not consistent

what the other notes are. So I was hoping that possibly that this note may

have had solid evidentiary material, that being his fingerprints.

During the time it takes police to examine this new evidence, Trantell

his tenth and final robbery.

Ironically, he's come full circle.

On November 21st, he robs the Fleet Bank in Merritt.

It's familiar territory.

This is the first bank he robbed back in July.

He knows exactly what to do, and he thinks that the time has elapsed that no

will be watching.

Trantel's take on his last robbery, $5 ,700.

All told, he has taken more than $65 ,000 during his five -month crime spree.

I believe that if we didn't catch him, he would still be doing it, absolutely.

But as you can see, when you look at the progression from Bank 1 to Bank 10, he

definitely started to get more sloppy.

During this final robbery...

Trantel leaves behind a note with fingerprints on it.

Criminals make screw -ups, and I think that's what he did. I don't think he was

ever arrogant.

I certainly don't think he tried to be careless. He just made a mistake.

Detective Charlie Costello is working the fingerprint lab when the note is

brought in.

He begins searching for latent or nearly invisible fingerprints.

When you have a letter in your hand that...

perspiration, the sweat, is transferred onto that paper.

Costello sprays a chemical called DFO on the evidence note.

I spray it onto the paper, give it a certain amount of time to dry off and to

absorbed into the paper so it will react with the protein that is in that sweat.

Costello then runs a hot iron over the note to draw the chemical into the

The final step was to put the note under an alternate light source.

Using that light source, I am now able to fluoresce the latent impressions.

In this case, I was able to recover identifiable fingers and palm

In other words, Costello has hit Peter.

The print he's found is photographed and tested against national databases of

known fingerprints and criminals.

But there's no match.

Now, Detective Costello tries running the prints through the local Long Island

database. We call it an IDB number, which is Identification Bureau number.

That number references a name. In this case, it was Stephen Trantel.

The match is almost 20 years old.

Back in 1984, a teenage Stephen Trantel has been arrested for DWI and

fingerprinted. He's had a clean life since, but his fingerprints are still in

the system.

Fingerprints don't change and fingerprints don't lie.

It never came off my racket.

And 20 years later, that was the death of me.

That one bad night.

Scopeck does some additional digging just to make sure.

I go to our New York State Department of Motor Vehicles computers.

And I bring up his photo.

I've been staring at Stephen Trantel since bank robbery one. There's no doubt

my mind that this is Stephen Trantel who's done these bank robberies.

Seeing is believing.

But even so, Trantel's identity catches investigators by surprise.

We were shocked.

We were shocked that it was somebody who had no criminal history.

He did not fit the characteristics.

of a robbery subject.

Family, well -established in that community.

He was a commodities broker on Wall Street in New York City doing bank

robberies. Just didn't fit.

Trantel's been on a roll for five months, but nobody wins forever.

Now his luck's run out.

Next, as police close in.

Trentel's carefully constructed facade crumbles.

By Thanksgiving, I was a wreck.

It was getting really hard to juggle, you know, and really hard to keep

everything hidden.

I knew it was all coming to an end.

With time running out, what options does he have left?

By Thanksgiving 2003, Stephen Trentel's short, strange second career as a bank

robber is almost over.

Ultimately, he's had no more luck in his new profession than his previous life

as a Wall Street commodities trader.

He threw away everything he had because he didn't want to get a job. He didn't

want to go out and go to work.

Pride come before the fall.

You know, I mean, my pride and my ego just...

destroyed me, literally, you know, from the inside out.

His face is in the paper, and Trantell suspects he's being followed by police.

He considers fleeing, but decides he can't leave his family behind.

That was probably the scariest thing.

I knew it was all over, and no matter what happened, my life would never be

same.

On Friday the 28th, Trantel leaves before sunrise to go deep -sea fishing.

At noon, he calls Jeannie to tell her he's on his way home.

When he called me, he's like, I'll be home in an hour.

An hour went by, two hours went by, three hours went by, but his car was

hijacked, that he was kidnapped, or he was in a bad car accident.

We called the police and got no information.

You know, we thought maybe there was an accident.

And I kept thinking, well, he'll come back.

The day drags on with no news.

I was calling him constantly.

I'm like, okay, something really bad has happened here. I called every hospital

in the area.

Nobody knew of him or anything.

Finally, much later that night, the police called.

Well, the minute I got the phone call, I did not believe it. I passed out on the

kitchen floor. I said, you have the wrong man.

Not my husband.

Trantell has been in custody since noon, when squad cars surrounded him less

than a mile from his home.

During questioning, Trantell denies everything.

Detectives show him security camera photos.

I laid them on the desk and said, who is that?

And he just looked down and put his head down, didn't really respond.

I said, Stephen, that's you.

Detectives also search his GMC Suburban.

Trantel has not been careful about discarding evidence.

We did recover a number of the baseball hats that he had worn in some of the

separate banks in the surveillance video, the sunglasses, the whole nine

Further searching reveals even more damning evidence.

This was his son's backpack.

And when we went through this to see if there was anything of evidence or

evidentiary value, we opened up the flap and found where he was holding his

latex gloves.

And these were the gloves he would use and put on prior to entering the bank,

obviously to hide his fingerprints.

And then detectives find one piece of irrefutable evidence under the floor

of Trantel's SUV.

In the back trunk area, still sticking to the carpet, is this $50 red -stained

bill to where if you moved or peeled the $50 off, was the exact rectangle

shape of the red dye all around this carpet and the bill sitting right

it.

The stained 50 is one of the stolen bills Trantell tried to clean after a

pack exploded during his sixth robbery.

It's been stuck to the floor mat ever since.

He just put his head down and said, fellas,

you know, do what you got to do. I'm done.

After nearly a month in jail, Trantell is finally released on $500 ,000 bail.

And after weeks of denial, he finally tells his family the truth, albeit with

some spin.

It was probably the worst day of my life.

You want to be a good role model to your children, you know, and breaking the

law is not being a role model.

But I wanted to tell the truth, you know, and tell them that I made a

and I did a wrong thing for the right reason.

Confronted with overwhelming evidence, Trantell has little choice but to accept

the plea deal.

At that point, I could see the look on his face. He was defeated and scared.

If he lost a trial and we won, he'd be facing anywhere up to life.

No gun is ever recovered, and the money stolen, nearly $65 ,000,

it's all gone.

We did not recover any money other than the money that he had left behind when

the dye pack exploded.

But as part of the sentence agreement, he is to pay restitution back every

dollar of money that he got.

On May 2, 2004, Stephen Trantel is sentenced to nine years in prison for

crimes.

24 days later, he says goodbye to his family before heading to prison.

I feel that Mr. Trantel always thought about Mr. Trantel first and everybody

else later.

Every single time he thought about this or did what he did, he should have

realized what he was doing. Any normal person would.

Less than a year later, Jeannie files for divorce.

Today, she still lives in the house they once shared. Now, she works multiple

jobs and has written a book documenting her story.

And the lessons she's learned.

When Stephen was arrested, I did not know how to use the bank.

My girlfriend said, Jeannie, where's your ATM card?

I said, I don't have an ATM card.

My head was in the sand. And now, I mean, I'm doing it all on my own. And

not hard to actually write out a bill, just to be aware of what's going on in

your household.

Stephen Trantel serves his time in upstate New York.

He's working on his own book to make restitution to his victims.

For Trantel, ten banks, nine years, countless victims, and a family

I risked too much for the reward.

Everything I was trying to hold on to, I lost.

You know, it is a saying that it's like trying to hold on to water in your

hands, and the more you squeeze, the more you lose.

I was squeezing so hard I lost it all.