{"id":30642,"date":"2013-02-08T04:48:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T12:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=30642"},"modified":"2013-02-13T18:03:05","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T02:03:05","slug":"armed-robbery-case-against-damon-banks-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2013\/02\/08\/armed-robbery-case-against-damon-banks-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Armed robbery case against Damon Banks dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Banks<\/a>
Banks was exonerated Thursday (Feb. 7) when\u00a0prosecutors\u00a0said they could not proceed with the armed robbery case against him.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LANCASTER \u2013 All charges have been dismissed against Damon Banks<\/strong>, the 28-year-old man accused of robbing three Lancaster restaurants within a two-hour span on June 10, 2012.<\/p>\n

At a pre-trial hearing Thursday, prosecutor Thomas Trainor announced he was unable to proceed with the case. A motion to dismiss by Banks\u2019 defense attorney, Stephen King, was then granted.<\/p>\n

Family members clapped after the judge\u2019s ruling. \u00a0Banks choked back tears and clenched his fists as he tightly hugged his mother outside the Antelope Valley courtroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m staying as far away from Lancaster as possible,\u201d Banks said to no one in particular.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, Banks described how his trip to Lancaster last summer turned his life upside down and nearly cost him his freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my job, I\u2019m in financial hardship, I lost my place, my fianc\u00e9e got her car repossessed, my daughter\u2019s school had to be changed\u2026 as of right now, I\u2019m a 28-year-old man staying at home with my mother,\u201d Banks said. \u201cI lost my life, my character, my name.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Banks, this ordeal began when he drove up to Lancaster from Long Beach on June 9, 2012 on a trip to see his grandmother. He attended a fight party in Lancaster, instead, and postponed plans to see grandma until the following day. On the afternoon of June 10, Banks grabbed a bite to eat at Subway, made his visit to Grandma, and then headed back down the hill to Long Beach.<\/p>\n

\"Defense<\/a>
Defense attorney, Stephen King (far left) said he was happy the case was resolved.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Between 7 and 9 p.m. on June 10, two armed robbers struck Lancaster and held up Subway, Little Caesars and Wienerschnitzel. (Read more here<\/a>.)\u00a0Less than two weeks later, authorities identified Banks as one of the suspects.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did go into the Subway, but it was earlier that day,\u201d King said, adding that his client\u2019s fingerprints were at Subway because he\u2019d pushed the door on his way out. \u201cInitially, because he was dressed in the same garments as the person that actually perpetrated the crime, that ended up being enough\u2026 unfortunately, when you\u2019re not from a certain ethnic group or racial group, you may think that all Black people look alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities put out a $300,000 arrest warrant for Banks and a second suspect, 27-year-old Lee Vance McQuilkin. The men were placed on a \u201cMost Wanted<\/a>\u201d list that was circulated to the local media. Banks had no criminal record, so his California Driver\u2019s License photo was used for the list.<\/p>\n

When Banks saw his image in the media, he contacted detectives on the case. He drove back to Lancaster on July 3 believing he would clear his name and walk out of the station. Banks was arrested and jailed, instead.<\/p>\n

On July 5, Banks pleaded not guilty to several counts of armed robbery. (Read more here<\/a>.) He said his public defender at the time urged him to admit guilt because his fingerprints were at one of the stores and there were five eyewitnesses.<\/p>\n

Banks dropped the public defender and secured a private defense attorney to fight the case.<\/p>\n

At a preliminary hearing on August 6, three of the eyewitnesses fingered Banks as the robber, one even said Banks was the gunman. But their stories were inconsistent. The three witnesses gave different accounts of Banks\u2019 clothing, teeth and facial hair. And one witness had been unable to ID Banks in the days following the robbery.<\/p>\n

King focused on these inconsistencies but could not get the judge to dismiss the case. (Read more here<\/a>). Banks was ordered to stand trial on four counts of robbery and faced up to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n

At the time, King said he was waiting on records from cell phone towers, which would prove that Banks had made it all the way back to Long Beach before any of the robberies were committed.<\/p>\n

The records were slow to come. Banks sat in county lock-up for seven weeks before his family could gather the money for bail.<\/p>\n

By the time he bailed out on August 13, Banks had been fired from his job as a maintenance mechanic in Cerritos. He was deemed a flight risk and ordered to wear an ankle bracelet. The pending case kept him from landing another job and destroyed his morale.<\/p>\n

\"Cecilia<\/a>
Cecilia Duckworth said she had already spent more than $25k on her son’s defense.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHe was crying, right now Damon can\u2019t sleep, he lost weight,\u201d said his mother Cecilia Duckworth. \u201cHe felt like nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banks finally caught a break when prosecutors carefully reviewed cell phone and GPS records.<\/p>\n

The tower records for Banks\u2019 cell phone showed a hit on a tower in Long Beach around the time the robberies were committed, King said.<\/p>\n

King said the prosecutor called him Wednesday and said they had independent forensic evidence that put Banks elsewhere during the crime. The prosecutor said\u00a0the district attorney\u2019s office would no longer pursue the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that the matter has been resolved but I do wish that there was a way to be more diligent with how cases get filed,\u201d King said. \u201cLooking at it from his shoes, it\u2019s like ‘I came all the way up here, I showed you my work records, I showed you everything, you locked me up anyway, you put me through this, then eight months later you say we should have listened.\u2019”<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is good that this case is dismissed, but how do we recoup from this?\u201d said Duckworth, adding that she drained her savings to assist with her son\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve already spent well over $25,000 cash out of my pocket, and I still have to finish paying the bail,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I felt like it was a risk to take, because I did not want my son incarcerated for something he did not do.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the saga behind him, Banks said he\u2019s hoping to pick up the pieces of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really feel bad that this is still going on in 2013, that people are still prejudiced and biased\u2026\u201d Banks said. \u201cI\u2019m seeking some type of justice and retribution for them turning my life upside down and then saying, \u2018oh, I made a mistake.\u2019 That\u2019s not even fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charges were also dismissed against Lee McQuilkin<\/strong>, the second suspect in the case. McQuilkin was released from county jail at 12:17 p.m. Thursday. He had been locked up on armed robbery charges since his arrest on September 20, 2012.<\/p>\n

Related articles:<\/p>\n

Armed robbery suspect to stand trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Armed robbery suspect pleads not guilty<\/a><\/p>\n

Armed robbery suspect arrested<\/a><\/p>\n

Two sought in armed robberies of three restaurants<\/a><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANCASTER \u2013 All charges have been dismissed against Damon Banks, the 28-year-old man accused of robbing three Lancaster restaurants within a two-hour span on June 10, 2012. At a pre-trial hearing Thursday, prosecutor Thomas Trainor announced he was unable to proceed with the case. A motion to dismiss by Banks\u2019 defense attorney, Stephen King, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}