BREAKING NEWS

Authorities have arrested two bank robbery suspects this week, including one accused of seven stick-ups in Huntington Beach alone.

Fingerprints from a bicycle suspected of being used in a Huntington Beach bank robbery on Nov. 25 led investigators to Robert Nelson Rowell, 45. He was living in a private drug and alcohol rehabilitation center on the 1100 block of Hellman Street in Long Beach, Huntington Beach Police Det. Sgt. David Dierking said.

Rowell was arrested at 4:55 a.m. on Nov. 29 at a coffee shop on 7th Street near the rehab center, police said. Authorities delayed release of the news of Rowell’s arrest because investigators were still working the case and were afraid that revealing some details would compromise the investigation, Lt. Craig Junginger said.

After combining forces with Long Beach police and the FBI, Huntington police concluded that Rowell was the bank robber known as the Skinny Legs Bandit, who is suspected of nine bank heists in Orange County, seven of which have been in Huntington Beach.

When Huntington Beach police searched a storage unit rented in Rowell’s name in Cerritos they found a replica handgun in it, Dierking said. Rowell is a janitor at Best Label, a printing company in Cerritos.

Alfred Nepomuceno, Best Label’s human relations manager, said he was shocked when police notified them that Rowell was suspected of nine Orange County bank robberies.

“He was a good employee, to the point that we felt confident that he could be left alone on the night shift to be the maintenance guy,” Nepomuceno said.

Rowell was hired in July, two weeks after police allege he committed the first robbery.

On Oct. 26, the Skinny Legs Bandit allegedly walked into the Bank of the West at 6881 Warner Ave. at 4:15 p.m., brandished a handgun and demanded money, authorities said.

The same robber is accused of holding up another bank at 16811 Algonquin St. on three separate occasions — once each in July, August and September. Skinny Legs is also suspected of holding up the Pacific Western Bank at 19950 Beach Blvd. and another Bank of America on Valley View in Garden Grove, authorities said.

According to Dierking, Rowell had been convicted of bank robbery in 1984 in Colorado. He served six years in prison for those crimes.

Authorities refuse to say how much money the Skinny Legs Bandit stole in the robberies.

Rowell pleaded not guilty to five counts of second-degree robbery at his arraignment on Monday at the West Court Justice Center in Westminster. He was being held in the Orange County Jail on $2 million bail.

Another unrelated suspect accused of sticking up a downtown Huntington Beach bank is also being held in Orange County jail, authorities said.

At 2:21 p.m. Tuesday, Huntington Beach Police responded to a robbery at the First Bank, 501 Main St., where a man wearing a fake mustache handed a bank teller a note demanding money. After the teller gave him an undisclosed amount of money, he left, police said.

Gary Bourette, 39, of Garden Grove, was arrested by three officers after they found him hiding behind a trash bin in an underground parking lot, Dierking said.

Bourette had been released from federal prison three weeks ago where he was serving a sentence for serial bank robbery, Dierking said.

Bourette is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday in the West Court. He has been charged with one count of second-degree robbery.