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William Sequeira of Providence was arrested just after 3:30 on Wednesday, Oct. 5, after he tried to rob the Citizens Bank at 426 Boylston Street, Boston police said. Officers tackled him to the ground after he demanded cash from the teller, authorities continued. He is being held on a $50,000 bond, officials said.
Police just happened to be in that bank when Sequeira walked in because they were there to alert the manager he was seen in the area and had been on a robbery spree, the Suffolk County District Attorney said.
This was the third bank he'd robbed in a week. On Sept. 27, he told a teller at a Santander Bank on Berkeley Street to "give me a hundred dollar bill, or I'll shoot you," the prosecutor said. He did it again a day later at the M&T Bank on Boylston Street when he told the teller, "I'm going to put a gun to your head if you don't give me $100 bills," they continued.
These were not the bank robbery attempt you'd suspect from the man who says he was the inspiration for Affleck's Charlestown robber who grows a conscience from 2010's "The Town."The film featured the Massachusetts native running into banks with a crew of men in costumes and assault rifles.
Sequeira was wearing a windbreaker and was unarmed when he was busted. He never showed a weapon and made off with less than $900 in the spree, the prosecutor said. And unlike the movie, he didn't try to run when police busted him.
Sequeira does have a long history of bank robbery, however. He says he has spent nearly 40 years in prison for his crimes. Though, it's unclear if Affleck knew about him and used him as inspiration when he wrote the movie.
Sequeira explained on a 2021 episode of "Caught in Providence" with Judge Frank Caprio how he became a bank robber and what parts of his story match up with the movie.
He will return to Boston on Nov. 3 for his next court hearing.
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