A man who held up a string of banks across the Lower Mainland in a week-long drug-fuelled robbery spree will spend the next three and a half years in jail, after being sentenced Thursday by a judge in North Vancouver provincial court.
Mikael Macek, 27, was sentenced after pleading guilty to seven robberies and two attempted robberies, as well as using an imitation gun in one of those robberies of a bank in Lynn Valley.
The robberies took place between June 19 and 28, 2017, and included hitting banks in North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Abbotsford, Burnaby, Vancouver and New Westminster – as well as one in Calgary.
Judge Bryce Dyer noted that while the robberies didn’t involve any physical violence “there was at least psychological violence” as Macek told most of the tellers he was armed and would shoot them if they didn’t comply with his demands.
Crown prosecutor Snover Bains told the judge during a sentencing hearing this week the crime spree began in Calgary on June 19, 2017, when Macek approached a bank teller with a note telling her to hand over $1,000 without a dye pack.
Two days later, Macek was in B.C., where he passed a note to a Royal Bank teller in Abbotsford saying he wanted $4,000 in 50- and 100-dollar bills. She gave him a bundle of cash, and he left the bank, said Bains.
The teller later provided a description, which included a tattoo on his hand and the right side of his neck.
Macek repeated the pattern at a number of other Lower Mainland banks over the next several days, producing a note for tellers and demanding money.
All told, Macek made off with less than $6,700.
Macek’s last robbery took place at the CIBC in Lynn Valley Centre on June 28, 2017, where he entered the bank with a fake handgun and demanded that cash drawers be emptied. He was handed between $700 and $1,300 in cash and left the scene in a North Shore Taxi, said Bains.
RCMP tracked down the taxi driver, and police were able to get a fingerprint from the taxi door.
Investigators were also able to link photos from bank surveillance videos with a Facebook photo of Macek, which they traced to a hotel room in Vancouver’s West End.
Hotel staff told police the man had registered under a different name and had already checked out, said Bains.
Police got a warrant to track the phone number that Macek had given the hotel and taxi driver, and got a signal tracing it to a Greyhound bus.
Macek was arrested as he boarded the bus. He later provided a statement to police, admitting to the robberies.
On Wednesday, Macek also pleaded guilty to a charge of distributing child pornography, stemming from a U.S. Homeland Security investigation in 2015, which led to a Calgary IP address.
Prosecutor Adrienne Lee said that investigation eventually led to police seizing Macek’s cellphone, where they extracted photos and videos that had been downloaded with the instant messaging app Kik. Among them, investigators found 522 images and 310 videos deemed to be child porn under the Criminal Code.
Most images depicted girls between the ages of eight and 12, although some were as young as three, in sex acts with adult men. Five photos of child pornography had been uploaded by Macek using the same application.
Defence lawyer Justin Dosanjh told the judge the bank robberies were a result of a “drug-induced spree.” He noted Macek is remorseful and has been working on rehabilitation, including completing high school and practising religion in prison.
Macek’s pre-sentence report described him as having a difficult childhood with physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
He started drinking at the age of seven and during his early 20s, he was consuming 3.5 grams of cocaine per day, two grams of crack every other day and – according to his lawyer – approximately 300 to 400 beers a week, the judge noted.
Just before his crime spree, Macek was spending approximately $1,000 per week on hard drugs including crack and methamphetamine, and was going long periods without any sleep.
Dyer noted how the threats from Macek escalated over the crime spree, culminating with the Lynn Valley robbery, where he used a replica pistol.
“There can be no doubt his actions would have terrified the tellers with whom he interacted and received his notes,” Dyer said.
Dyer also noted Macek did not appear to have any insight into the harm done by possessing and uploading child pornography, describing the material on Macek’s phone as “shocking, disturbing and repugnant.”
The judge handed Macek a four-year jail sentence for the robberies, plus one year consecutive for using an imitation firearm and 13 months consecutive for distributing child pornography.
That sentence was reduced, however, for time Macek has already spent in jail.
