Aug 2, 2007 10:18 am US/Eastern
Suspected 'Hat Bandit' Awaits Arraignment
Online Photos Of Similar James Madison Show Him Wearing Hats
NEWARK (CBS/AP) ―
The man suspected of being the notorious "Mad Hatter" bank robber is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Thursday morning.
James Madison is charged with robbing just one bank, the Bank of America branch in Union Township, but is suspected of knocking over 17 others in a crime spree that stretches back to last September.
The suspect in those robberies earned his nickname by wearing different hats for each of the capers, many of which were captured on bank surveillance videos. The suspect 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, 50, a machinist who lived in Maplewood, 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 the 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.
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 found in a suitcase fished out of the Passaic River two months later.
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 the robberies began in the fall, a few months after he moved out of the house.
The FBI is investigating whether Madison posted pictures of himself wearing baseball hats on two social networking sites, MySpace and Classmates.com.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
