A newly released arrest affidavit provides additional information on Monday morning’s bank robbery at Wells Fargo bank in Leesburg.
A teller was on duty at about 9:30 a.m. Monday at the bank at 2271 Citrus Blvd. when she was approached by 38-year-old Brandon J. Hooks of Lady Lake, according to the Leesburg Police Department. He handed the teller a note. The teller complied with the instructions on the note and Hooks fled.
Multiple officers responded to the bank area and found Hooks. A bank employee identified Hooks as the robber.
When Hooks was searched at the Leesburg Police Department he was found to have a packet of $100 bills bound by a purple-and-white bank band. A total of $3,492 in cash was found on Hooks. He agreed to talk to the officers about the events that led to his arrest. He told them he thought he went to Amscot to get some money but he ended up at the bank “near Walmart.” He admitted giving the teller a note and that she handed him some money. He said that he walked south from the bank, but did not know how he ended up where he was arrested at Talley Box Road. He admitted to discarding the black shirt he was wearing when he went into the bank but could not remember where he put it. When he was arrested he was wearing a white T-shirt, according to the arrest report.
He told the officers that he had been kicked out of his aunt’s house because he got into an argument over her not giving him some of his money which he said she controlled. He said he has not been able to by his medications and has been off his meds for the past two months.
He was charged with strong arm robbery and was taken to the Lake County Jail where bond was set at $50,000.
Hooks had been released in March 2022 after serving five years in the Sumter County Jail for robbing a Wells Fargo branch bank in Lady Lake in 2017. He used the same technique in that case as was used in Monday’s heist.
