Jeff Walser, FDIC Economist, Charged With Attempted Bank Robbery

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An economist on leave from the federal agency that insures bank deposits has been charged with the April 11 attempted robbery of a Kansas City-area bank.

Jeff Walser said he had a bomb in his briefcase and demanded money at the Bank of America branch in Independence, but did not take $41,000 brought to him by an employee, according to an indictment filed Tuesday.

Walser, 51, surrendered to police and was being held in federal custody, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Walser told police that he has health problems and was "alone, discouraged and tired of working" and that his plan was to be arrested and not tell police he required thrice-weekly dialysis treatments to survive.

"I wanted to be arrested and I wanted to die," he is quoted as saying. "But after my arrest, I did not have the will to kill myself."

Walser worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s Kansas City office and was on leave at the time of the robbery, agency spokesman Andrew Gray said.

Messages left Thursday for Walser's public defender were not immediately returned.

___

Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com

Comments

[Soulsurfer]

10:54 AM on 05/17/2009

Pretty sad..............on the bright side, JOB OPENING AT FDIC!!!!!!

[stargazer13]

05:26 PM on 05/15/2009

I hate to admit it but at fifty years old I agree with him it,s B,S, what has happened to our country where sick people have to work in stead of work to get well

[RandVictims]

09:04 AM on 05/17/2009

This country is a Plutocrats Utopia, it's Hell on earth for 70% of Americans and those who enslave us terrorize the world.

Let's hope our political (peaceful) revolution succeeds so Americans don't turn into suicide bombers.

[secret38b]

01:43 PM on 05/15/2009

My heart goes out to this man. However, if he is lying, Lord, please have mercy on his soul...............

[Scorch20]

12:21 PM on 05/15/2009

LMAO..the love of the green with these WBys. Da.mn.. where are all those values,.."thou shall not steal" wait..that was the everyone else's version. Theirs is "thou shall steal every chance one gets"

[jeffp26]

11:53 AM on 05/15/2009

If he ran a bank, say Citi, he could steal all he wanted, and then get a billion dollar bonus from the taxpayers.

[The Ghost]

01:57 AM on 05/15/2009

The Triumph of the American Heath Care System.

[DonCosenza]

12:48 AM on 05/15/2009

Oh, the irony!

[The Ghost]

01:59 AM on 05/15/2009

What up, Bob?

[dadw5boys]

12:23 AM on 05/15/2009

Jail is the new Retirement Community ???

3 Hots and a cot , now with Medical Treatments.

In Alaska some Eskimo's try and get 120 days every winter. Nice and warm in jail and free food.

.

[manfromsnowy]

11:16 PM on 05/14/2009

What is depressing is the lack of compassion that this man's fellow citizens are showing him.

This country had a President who said "do not ask what your country can do for you , but what you can do for your country", this is talking about the sustainability of a society, the most successful adaptations in nature is not based on survival of the fittest, but it is the organisms that are supportive of other life forms. Like the birds and the bees and the trees.

With ideals expressed like Kennedy's, that what do you think happens in the citizen's head when the opposite applies, when government and the administration of the law gets taken over by, the fittest, alpha male meat eaters. Cannibalism.

Get with the program and show some kindness, you maybe the next to get your heart ripped out because you were not paying attention, to the way nature works and the way that spirituality transforms.

[vippy]

07:26 AM on 05/15/2009

Before I do anything for this country I want for congress and the senate to take the first step!

[Joethepauper]

11:30 AM on 05/15/2009

I agree with vippy. I already have a job and I do my job. The people who are supposed to be working for us aren't doing their jobs. Paulson said something about repairing the economy with duct tape and fishing wire, so my question is: Is that what an Ivy League education taught you? Duct tape and fishing wire seems like a quick fix band-aid to me. SOLVE SOMETHING!! DO SOMETHING USEFUL!! Sorry for yelling, but these people should all be fired. We are still dealing with problems that haven't been correctly solved for decades, and in some cases, centuries. Solve them or resign.

[gcallaghan]

10:13 PM on 05/14/2009

Dude's got issues

[schatsie]

10:06 PM on 05/14/2009

Sounds like a deal to me. roof over his head, 3 squares and dialysis treatments... he can probably keep people away from him by saying he has hepatitis or aids or something... Poor man, dialysis is not fun and it sounds like he is just warn down and used up....

[Seamus45]

11:05 PM on 05/14/2009

Sad, very sad.

[CaptainStormfield]

09:25 PM on 05/14/2009

Jeez.. He should have just gone to work for Goldman Sachs or AIG and he could have robbed the public, if not the banks for real.. and gotten away with it..............

[Rangergirl]

08:31 PM on 05/14/2009

Oh my gosh...... that is unreal...

[RationalityPlease]

08:11 PM on 05/14/2009

Phooey. The headline got my hopes up that at least one of the Big Bank Robber-Barons was going to jail. Instead it's just one more of our fellow citizens in need of serious mental health help... probably from working to close to toxic assets...

[petef59]

10:12 PM on 05/14/2009

Probably from working for the feds under management put in place by Bush administration operatives.

[filo]

07:40 PM on 05/14/2009

From the headline I was sure it was going to be embezelment.