San Antonio Army Sergeant Who Sold Stolen Brass To Buy a Food Truck…
…Gets Nearly Three Years In Federal Prison.
AnotherPat sends us the sad tale of SFC Darryle Robert Bankhead, 57, who was happily augmenting his nest egg with pilfered expended brass casings he sold for scrap. An amazingly bad career move, seems Big Army frowns on such behavior. He did make bank though, right before he was caught just prior to retirement. Of course that’s all gone now; instead of retirement after honorable service in the Army and reserves of 36 years, he gets three + years in Club Fed and three years probation. Dick stepping with hockey skates. He also managed to drag a first lieutenant into the mix. What a guy, here’s the story:
Guillermo Contreras
A former senior noncommissioned officer in the Army Reserves was sentenced Monday to 33 months in federal prison for stealing scrap brass shell casings from Camp Bullis and selling it to recycling centers.Darryle Robert Bankhead, 57, who was retiring as a sergeant 1st class, used some of the $117,775 he stole over a year to buy a food truck for a business he ran on the side, Bankhead’s BBQ, according to information disclosed at his sentencing.
Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra rejected a request from Bankhead’s lawyer, Tim Molina, for probation. Molina argued, in part, that Bankhead served honorably in the Army, then the reserves, for 36 years. He had been a drill sergeant, recruiter and operations NCO and said he was in the process of retiring.
The judge ordered Bankhead to serve three years of federal supervision after his release, to pay back the money, and to be more honest and open when probation officers want to examine his financial affairs in the future.
Ezra issued his mandate upon learning that Bankhead had not disclosed to the FBI that he had bought the food truck a day after agents interviewed him about what he did with the money from the stolen brass, and was not up front about his financials with probation officers. Ezra chided him for obstructing justice, which was an aggravating factor in his sentence.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Charlie Jenkins, Bankhead abused his position of trust. Bankhead told staff at Camp Bullis that he would take the scrap casings to nearby Camp Stanley when the Air Force’s recycler had broken and the brass was piling up at Camp Bullis. Instead, between May 31, 2017 and May 1, 2018, he and another soldier sold the brass to a recycling facility at least 16 times , according to the pair’s plea deals.
Read the rest here: AP News. It’s a must-read just for the location he was stealing the brass from.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Army News, Crime, Guest Link, Legal
Thirty. Six. Years.
hahahahahaha *gasp* BWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *snort*….hee hee hee hee hee hee hee…. *giggle*
Oh and the really bright Lt that joined him in the gig??
(“Darryle” and “Dominique”??? not sayin’ nuffin’)
And the LT was a Female 1st LT!!!
“Bankhead also got a young first lieutenant he worked with at Camp Bullis, Dominique Nicole Edmonds, 26, to participate in the crime. Ezra sentenced her in February to five years of probation.”
“He not only ruined his life, he ruined her life as well,” the judge said.
“Judge Ezra, who served in the Marines and was an officer in the Army himself, said that NCOs are normally supposed to keep commissioned officers out of trouble. Bankhead did the opposite, Ezra said.”
“This lieutenant seemed to be pretty naive,” Ezra said. “Boy, did he lead her down the wrong path.”
forthewantofafoodtrucktheltwaslost
Now that I think about it, this LT probably got lost during Land Nav…
😉
keepingasenseofhumor
The Army SFC is just as dumb as the Marine First Sergeant who conspired with three Defense Department civilian employees in stealing nearly $1.5 million in Gillette razors.
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=82523
Food Trucks and Gillette Razors. Who knew.
Talk about walking on the razor’s edge Pat, the Sgt wasn’t too sharp.
Kind of a bold and brassy move.
Ruined a perfectly good career for a little bit of money.
What a marooon!!!
Would have made three times that selling it to reloading folks.
Yet Hilldibeast walks free…We should snicker a little bit, but still be pissed off.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, hardly anything surprises me anymore.
He traded him military retirement in for scrap. Brilliant! I’ve known a few people who did the same thing by lying on their travel vouchers. I will never understand those who exchange a few bucks now for a lifetime of retirement pay and benefits that would have otherwise been earned.
Who’d have thought expended brass was worth that much? But I guess it was a volume operation:
“He took thousands upon thousands of pounds of…brass and took it to recycling centers, so much that one recycler told him, ‘I’m a little uncomfortable with this. Do you have any paperwork showing you have authority to do this?’”
Sheesh. When your fence is telling you that you’re stealing too much, you’re probably stealing too much. What’re the odds he did this all in uniform and with a government owned vehicle?
Doesn’t sound like he was court martial-ed for this, so does he get to keep his retirement?
“Sheesh. When your fence is telling you that you’re stealing too much, you’re probably stealing too much.”
That’s some funny stuff. OK, Google says brass ammo scrap is about $1.30 a pound. He got a little less than $120,000? So, he stole roughly 90,000 pounds of ammo brass? Can that be right? Jeez, the stupid is huge with this one. He forfeited potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars plus medical for THAT? Damn, how can he be so stupid?
Mason commented:
“Do you have any paperwork showing you have authority to do this?”
And what does the NCO do?
“Jenkins said Bankhead ceased the activity for a while before returning, this time with paperwork purporting to give him that authority. In reality, Bankhead had forged the signature of a commissioned officer, Jenkins said.”
dumbasabagofmice
Once the Feebs went after him, the Army CID pencil pushers likely closed their file on him and said “our work here is done.”
What a pair of brass balls and you could Bank Heads to jail.
teh stoopied is strong in this one.
I like BBQ, but a thief….not at all.
Dumbass!
Jarheads at Pendelton did this in the 90’s as I remember. They only got $80,000 in Vista as I recall.
Wait! This is illegal??? Would any of you lawyer types happen to know what the statute of limitations is on this?
Asking for a friend.
Likely somewhere in the four to eight year range. But that is without bothering to look up the statute on larceny of federal property. Hope your friend’s misdeeds are older than the upper limit.
45 years ago. I think he’s OK.
Like I always say, even when you don’t think it’s the case, someone else is always watching what you do.
Shooting range I use has signage saying ‘only pick up your brass’. Now I know why.
That’s a lot of Brass. Imagine the amount of lead down range.
Intead of prison have him police up the lead.
I wonder if the BBQ was any good…
Wonder if they let him keep the truck. Gotta have SOMETHING to fall back on since he lost his pension.
His truck appears to still be in operation. Maybe he has partners or family running it for him.
https://m.facebook.com/BankheadsBBQ/
Thank You for sharing this, Mr. Bill.
If his partners or family are still using the truck, I can imagine they will have to sell ALOT of BBQ in order for the NCO to pay back the $118,000.
Wonder WHO he has to pay reimburse that amount?
Am also wondering if he will be able to “retire” from the Army after he serves his 3 years and draw a pension.
Am also curious if the L-T has to resign her Commission or if the Army Reserves will let her continue serving.
She most likely will never see those Captain Bars.
Since the truck was purchased with his ill-gotten gains, I am surprised the Feebs didn’t seize it.
I see no mention of a Court Martial here. I imagine he will be administratively separated with an OTH and reduced.
He basically would have gotten the same time from a CM.
He got a felony and a fine through this, so the discharge of OTH and reduction torpedos his pension.
Shit this guy is a year older than me and I cashed in almost 20 years ago.
He should have retired 15 years ago.
DOH !!!!!
(Forehead slap)
It seemed like a good thing to do at the time…..
Something I remember during my time with Uncle Sugar, was E-7 mess sergeants, getting close to 20 years and retirement, getting busted by CID for selling steaks off post (or banging some PFC female cook, much to the chagrin of their spouse). Happened more than once.
Had the same happen when I was on I&I duty in Charlotte. Food Service Chief (Gunny type reservist) was busted ice skating on his dick when he got nailed frauding food service orders then sending the food orders out the back door to fund his own restaurant out in town. Oops. Reduction to E-3, BCD.
It appears one of the orders was for a Big Chicken Dinner
It barely surprises me anymore when I see just what some people will do thinking they’re SUCH slick Rocket Surgeons!
Go big or go home.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/16/1-2-m-stolen-fajitas-prompts-employees-arrest-texas-juvenile-center/768257001/
I know that when I was a support platoon leader and was coordinating brass turn ins at the area ASP, if I wasn’t within 10% of estimated dunnage weight I would have to have a shortage statement signed by the first O4 in my chain. I guess if you work at the ASP, the rules must be different. I hated shortage statements. I could never get the responsible company XO’s to turn in the statements on time so then I’d have to have a letter of lateness too, signed by my first O5. LOL
Where is Hack Stone? He needs to rescind Bankhead’s “Precious Metals Recovery Badge”.
He sold Hack’s Precious Metals Recovery Badge for scrap.
This clip works for any situation.
Cut the guy some slack. At least he didn’t strong-arm his troops into joining a multilevel marketing scam to augment hi income.
It sounds like he would fit right in at either APL or FirsTech!
When I worked in the shipyard there was a big bust of employees selling Copper to the recyle center right outside the gate.
Had foreman paying weekend overtime for guys to strip electrical Cables ( some of which were 3 inch diameter). They actually used a shipyard truck and hauled it off the yard during company time.
About 6 guys were caught up in it. They were making huge bank.
Food Trucks. Gilette Razors. Tamales.
And now this (Sheesh!)
“Theft of 18 Colonoscopes Worth $450G Under Probe, Police Say”
https://www.foxnews.com/us/theft-of-18-colonoscopes-under-probe-police-say
“Police in the suburbs of Philadelphia say three suspects broke into a medical facility in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, last Saturday and fled with 18 colonoscopes – devices used for examining the health of patients’ colons.”
“This is not something that a typical pawn shop might accept,” Lower Merion Police Detective Sergeant Michael Vice told Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV. “My feeling would be that it was some type of black market sales.”