Elderly Woman Pleads Guilty to the Armed Robbery of Her Own Credit Union

A 75-year-old Ohio woman is expected to be sentenced in October after she pleaded guilty Tuesday to one felony count of aggravated robbery.

During a hearing in Butler County Common Pleas Court, Ann Mayers admitted she committed an armed robbery of a branch of the $192 million AurGroup Financial Credit Union — which she is a member of — in April. A second felony charge, tampering with evidence, was dismissed by county prosecutors, according to court documents.

During Tuesday afternoon’s court hearing, Mayers said, “I admitted what I did,” after she was asked by Butler County Common Pleas Judge Daniel E. Haughey whether she understood her guilty plea, WLWT in Cincinnati reported. The news outlet also reported that Mayers wrote apology letters to the credit union’s two tellers who had been working during the robbery at the Fairfield Township branch.

A psychiatric evaluation conducted in July determined Mayers is capable of understanding the nature and objective of the legal proceedings against her, court documents showed.

She faces a maximum prison sentence of 17 and a half years.

Police of Fairfield Township, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, reported that Ann Mayers walked into an AurGroup Financial CU branch on Creekside Drive on April 19 and demanded money while showing a handgun. She left the branch with about $500 and drove away in her car.

No one at the branch was physically harmed.

After police identified Mayers and her car, she was apprehended at a house in Hamilton where she lives with her sister. When police took Mayers into custody without incident, she admitted to committing the crime.

During their investigation, police discovered Mayers had financial issues and may have been a victim of an online scam.

“The family suggested that she’s been in contact with someone, an unidentified person, who they suspect has been scamming her out of money,” Fairfield Township Police Sgt. Brandon McCroskey told CU Times. “She had borrowed a lot of money from the family, according to her sister, that she lives with. She (Ann) had talked about robbing a bank leading up to this with her sister. They obviously didn’t take her seriously.”

Mayers told police her sister did not know about the robbery, according to Fairfield Township police body camera video posted by WMBF and WXIX/Gray News in Cincinnati.

Before she committed the robbery, Sgt. McCroskey noted Mayers had taken the license plate off of her car. “So she knew what she was doing,” he said. “Unfortunately, I think that (this) was just her solution to her financial woes.”

Police retrieved the $500 Mayers stole.

The weapon she used during the robbery, police believe, is an old, unregistered gun that has been passed down in Mayers’ family over the years.

Sgt. McCroskey said Mayers claimed to be a member of the Fairfield-based AurGroup Financial CU, but the branch she robbed was not the branch she frequented for banking. The credit union operates four branches.