A Spokane woman who claims she needed money to make her delinquent home mortgage payments was formally charged Thursday with five bank robberies.
Lisa Marie Dressel, 32, is accused of taking $8,362 in five bank robberies in Spokane, beginning Dec. 15.
She was arrested Jan. 8, a short distance from one of three banks that were robbed that day.
Dressel confessed to an FBI agent shortly after her arrest, court documents say.
A federal grand jury, after hearing testimony from an FBI agent, indicted Dressel on Thursday on the robbery counts.
She initially was charged with one of the bank robberies in a criminal complaint filed before the case went to the grand jury.
Dressel, out of jail on $30,000 bond, likely will be arraigned next week on the indictment, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Hopkins said.
She must remain at her north Spokane home as a condition of her release. Her trial is scheduled to begin March 16.
The first count in the indictment accuses Dressel of stealing $1,752 in the Dec. 15 holdup of Inland Northwest Bank, 3321 W. Indian Trail Road. She is accused of displaying a weapon in that robbery. The FBI said Dressel told them she used a toy gun.
On Jan. 7, the indictment says, Dressel took $2,132 in the robbery of Washington Mutual, 9414 N. Division.
On Jan. 8, she is accused of taking $2,049 in a holdup at a SeaFirst Bank, 1616 W. Northwest Blvd., and $417 in a robbery minutes later at Inland Northwest Bank, 210 E. Foothills Drive.
The fifth count accuses her of robbing U.S. Bank, 5101 N. Market, of $2,012 on Jan. 8.
Twenty minutes after that robbery, police arrested the suspect outside a bank in a Fred Meyer store at 525 E. Francis.
