The cyclist who dropped out of the Olympics to rob banks with a bicycle

As a child, Tom Justice was an avid cyclist. He became enchanted with the sport when, at age 13, he saw athletes training at the velodrome in his neighborhood, Libertyville, in the city of Chicago, in the United States.

From that moment on, Tom devoted himself to cycling and became good enough to train with the US Olympic Athletics Team.

But after graduating from college, he began to find the process of training to become an Olympic athlete too much work. Tom gave up and returned home to Chicago.

He says he became obsessed with the 1994 movie “Getting Real.” Tom was captivated by Ethan Hawke’s character, Troy Dyer, who, disillusioned with society, never stops at a job.

“I watched it over and over and I think, unfortunately, it made me internalize an image,” says Tom.

Life hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped. He craved excitement and success, but rejected the slow and steady approach of working towards a goal.

Instead, he looked for what, at the time, seemed like an easy path. Inspired by the crime movie drama “Fire on Fire”, Tom turned a movie fantasy into crime reality.

First bank robbery

He robbed a bank for the first time on October 23, 1998, making off on his racing bike with the skill of an Olympic athlete.

A year later, he stole another, and then another, and another—always unarmed. He simply presented a card that read: “This is a robbery. Put all the money you have in the bag.” Afraid of what might happen if he refused, the cashiers obeyed. Then Tom walked leisurely through the front door, got on his bike, and started pedaling.

Fearing that the money would be traced, Tom would take a twenty-dollar bill or two and toss the rest into dumpsters. When he robbed LaSalle Bank in 2000, for example, the police found all the money ($4,000) in a dumpster in Gillson Park in Chicago. Other times the cyclist would leave the bundles of bills in brown paper bags in poorer neighborhoods.

But the FBI (US federal investigative agency) was starting to connect the dots between a series of unsolved bank robberies.

Because of the way Tom patiently folded his hands in front of his chest as bank tellers filled bags with dollar bills, the FBI gave him the nickname “Choirboy”. equivalent to calling someone ‘cooinha’ in Portuguese).

Robbing banks gave him momentary relief from his disappointment and insecurities, says Tom.

“I had this secret: I was special, I robbed banks in my spare time. And that alone was able to console me for the fact that I wasn’t really developing professionally”, he says.

Tom says he didn’t think about the fear felt by bank employees or what could happen if he was arrested.

cocaine and crack

The adrenaline of her double life soon stopped being enough. Around this time, he went to a party and was introduced to cocaine. But even that drug turned out to be insufficient and Tom became addicted to crack. He then began to use the money from the robberies to spend on drugs.

“The reason I started doing this was for the gutter. There I was just an ordinary, horrible person who was robbing banks to get drugs. Totally selfish.”

getting real

In March 2002 and in the 26th bank robbery, Tom started to run out of luck.

He was stopped by a traffic policeman, who asked to look at the contents of his bag.

Tom swung his bike hard to get away. The policeman radioed for backup and gave chase.

Tom managed to get through the roadblocks and noticed a river at the bottom of a steep slope. He tossed the bike to one side and then the other, falling into the water and then hiding in dense undergrowth.

Hidden in bushes, Tom waited. Helicopters flew by, police sirens blared, he could even hear the tinkling of the collars of police dogs sniffing him out.

Tom stayed there for hours. Amid the panic and noise, he had time to reflect.

“I think I was starting to understand that this was all a snatch, that the police would come after me,” he says.

“It shouldn’t have gone that way, but that’s what happens when you start using drugs. And it’s a wake-up call when the police are trying to shoot you,” he says.

“So that was the first time I realized I wasn’t doing well. And I didn’t know how to get better.”

After about six hours, the sounds became distant.

Tom cautiously emerged from his hiding place, dove back into the river, and came out, drenched and disheveled, but free—so far.

custom bike

A bright orange, custom race bike isn’t exactly a low-key getaway vehicle.

Now that the police had his bike, Tom knew it was only a matter of time before they knocked on his door.

A few months later, Tom was walking home from his parents’ house when he saw an unmarked police car in the rearview mirror.

He shrugged and continued driving. Then he noticed a second, and then a third, and realized he was being followed.

Tom stopped, got out of the car and came face to face with several police officers with their guns pointed at him.

It wasn’t until he was lying face down on the floor and handcuffed that the penny began to sink in.

Tom was taken to a police station and interrogated.

He confessed everything, but the hardest part, he says, was picking up the phone to tell his parents that the rumors were true: he was arrested for bank robbery.

“It was horrible knowing that they would be the ones who had to face our neighbors and friends. I was incredibly embarrassed. And I still feel that way to this day.”

prison sentence

Tom was sentenced to 11 years in prison for robbing 26 banks in three US states. The total amount of money stolen over four years of crimes was US$129,338 (or more than R$600,000)

Tom still had the mindset that life would be like a movie and thought the federal prison where he would serve his time wouldn’t be so bad.

“This is going to be great”, I thought. “I’m finally going to be with my gang. Like-minded people. But when I got there, the reality was quite different.”

Tom soon discovered that he wasn’t as unique as he thought—many bank robbers give away what they steal. “I realized it wasn’t that special.”

It was after his arrest that Tom finally understood the harmful effect of his behavior on others. Reading the victims’ statements, he found that people were very traumatized by the robberies he committed. Bank tellers feared for their lives.

“I felt very ashamed about it, I felt guilty because I had never stopped to think from their point of view.”

“I think I started robbing banks for a thrill. It was supposed to be fun and it turned out to be terrible.”

After his release from prison in 2011, Tom returned with his girlfriend, Bari, and began working as a caregiver for the elderly and the sick.

Tom believes that prison has changed his life.

“I grew up as a person in prison. So despite everything, it worked. And I’m grateful for that.”

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