Aug 2, 2007 12:59 pm US/Eastern
Suspected 'Mad Hatter' Pleads Not Guilty
NEWARK (CBS/AP) ―
The man suspected of being the notorious "Mad Hatter" bank robber pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday to charges he robbed a bank in Union Township 11 days ago.
U.S. District Judge Jose Linares set a trial date of Oct. 1 for Maplewood resident James G. Madison, with oral arguments scheduled for a week before.
The balding 50-year-old machinist, who authorities suspect of knocking over 17 other banks in a crime spree that stretches back to last September, appeared in court wearing drab green prison clothes with his hands and feet shackled. He did not address the court during the brief hearing.
Three court officers stood guard behind him as he sat at the defense table speaking with attorney Donald McCauley, a public defender assigned to represent him.
McCauley declined to speak to reporters after the arraignment except to confirm that his client is being held without bail at the Passaic County Jail.
Madison could face more charges, according to FBI Special Agent Sean Quinn.
"It's still an active investigation, and as the evidence unfurls other indictments may follow," he said.
The FBI is investigating whether Madison posted pictures of himself wearing baseball hats on two social networking sites, MySpace and Classmates.com. He said in a jailhouse interview that he doesn't wear hats and doesn't rob people.
Quinn said Thursday the FBI had not yet confirmed whether the man whose pictures appeared on the sites is Madison. He also did not reveal whether the FBI had recovered any hats during a search of Madison's apartment.
Madison was arrested on June 23 at his apartment complex the day after a bank employee wrote down the license number of a black Nissan Altima used in the robbery at a Bank of America branch.
The car was traced to a woman who lives with Madison and who told investigators she had lent him her vehicle, authorities said.
The robbery followed the pattern of other robberies committed by the "Mad Hatter": without drawing attention to himself, the suspect passed a note to a teller demanding money, then left quietly.
"That's why he's a suspect in the other robberies, because the notes were similar," Quinn said.
The suspect in the 17 other robberies earned his nickname by wearing different hats for each of the capers, many of which were captured on bank surveillance videos. He was nearly caught in May after a robbery of a Montclair bank when a pack of red dye exploded in a booby-trapped money bag he was carrying.
Madison spent nearly two decades in prison for murdering his girlfriend in 1986. Authorities said he struck Terry Wells with a lamp during a fight. Her body was later found in a suitcase fished out of the Passaic River.
Madison was paroled in 2005 after serving 18 years of a 40-year sentence. Authorities said he lived in a halfway house for part of 2006 and that he moved out of the house a few months before the string of robberies began last fall.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
