Astoria Bank Heist Teen Pleads Guilty
BY LIZ GOFF

A 16-year-old former Astoria high school student received a slap on the wrist when she was sentenced on felony robbery charges June 22 for her role in two local bank robberies.

Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin-Brandt told Chrystie Almestica she must complete a Fortune Society vocational training program or go to jail for 1-1/3 to 4 years for her role in the attempted robbery of one bank and the robbery of another on January 5.

While handing down the sentence, Chin- Brandt told Almestica she would "absolutely" send the teen to prison if she failed to complete the program.

Prosecutors charged that Almestica walked into a Commerce Bank branch at 31-09 Ditmars Blvd. on the afternoon of January 5, where she handed a teller a note demanding cash and asked the teller, "Is your job worth your life?"

When the teller laughed off the threat and walked away to call police, Almestica sensed what was happening and ran from the bank, police and prosecutors said.

Moments later, police received a call of another, successful heist at a First Central Savings Bank branch at 37-28 Ditmars Blvd., where Almestica handed an identical note to a teller who took her threat seriously and handed over $3,090, prosecutors said.

Law enforcement sources said eyewitnesses told police Almestica ran from the bank and handed the cash to a man who fled along Ditmars Boulevard. Almestica took off, running down 38th Street, followed closely by a bank employee and the manager of a nearby cellphone store- both shouting, "Get her, she robbed the bank," the eyewitnesses said.

The store manager later told investigators Almestica "got nervous and stopped as he caught up with her". The manager said he yelled, "Freeze, police!" and Almestica fell to her knees. "I told her to put her hands behind her back and she didn't put up a fight," the manager told police.

Almestica, a student at the Academy of American Studies H.S. in Long Island City at the time of the incidents, was facing nine years behind bars for the crime spree.

Almestica originally told investigators she was approached by two men armed with a knife, who forced her to take the note into the Commerce Bank branch on the afternoon of January 5.

The teen told police the men, both known bank robbers, told her they knew where she lived, law enforcement sources said. "She said the men told her they'd hurt her family- murder her mother if she didn't follow their orders," the sources said.

Almestica, who was free on $5,000 bond at the time of her sentencing, at first claimed she hadn't done anything wrong. Her story changed when she was told she had been caught on surveillance cameras at both banks, the sources said.

"When she realized she was caught on tape, she said the men put a knife to her throat and forced her to rob the bank," the sources said. "It seemed at first, as though she had been coached on what to say if she was caught. But when she learned that bank robbery is a federal crime and she could be tried as an adult, she got skittish and began crying."

In the weeks following her arrest, Almestica pointed a finger at John McCormick, 18, implicating him as one of two men who forced her at knifepoint to rob the banks.

McCormick pleaded guilty recently to felony robbery charges involving the January 2 holdup of a Bank of America branch in Flushing.

McCormick is scheduled for sentencing in mid-July.