Thirty-five-year-old Dallas man Kenyatta Dante Canady, who's daring enough to wear an eyepatch into a federal courtroom, claims his chief influence in the bank-robbing game is television -- the Discovery Channel, to be precise, which he says is where he picked up his brilliant technique that apparently also involves getting caught "a few minutes later." A doc on bank robbers gave the Texas Southern University student the bright idea to rob a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Hillsboro on October 12. That's when the 6-foot-4, 300-pound Canady put on a pair of sunglasses, a white shirt and a baseball cap and handed to a teller a note that read, "Don't push the alarm! Give me all the 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s, 100s. NO tracers! NO dye packs!" Dye packs -- apparently, Canady also watched Out of Sight before staging his stick-'em-up. Too bad he also forgot his gub.
Being a bright student at all, he picked up the following tidbits from the show, according to this story this morning from the Waco Herald-Tribune: Bank employees always do what the bank robber asks and hand over the dough-re-mi, the goverment will "replace the money" when it's stolen so it's OK to take, and if you do get caught, the cops'll go easy on ya if you don't have a gun.
Genius. Really, that's what Canady's attorney said. Well, actually, the lawyer said Canady's "a very bright fellow." That's why he's facing a maximum 20-year prison term and a $250,000 fine when he's sentenced in Waco on February 28. All for $1,400. --Robert Wilonsky
