FOR THE BANK TELLER AT THE NorthPark Center branch of Comerica, there was some-thing familiar about the nice-looking young man who appeared at her window on May 15 of last year and slipped her a note: “Give me $1,000. I’m armed and I’m serious.” She did as he demanded and watched him flee in a new black Jeep Cherokee. A security guard got the license number, and about 45 minutes later, a University Park officer spotted the Cherokee pulling into a driveway on Bryn Mawr, of all places. Police arrested 23-year-old Michael Hardy Raiborn, a 1990 graduate of Highland Park High School, at the] home of his mother and step-father. He was home on break from his studies in sociology at Bradley University in Peoria, I11., where his biological father teaches.
Sure enough, the teller had seen the robber before. About four months earlier, on Dec. 27, 1994, the well-bred bandit had robbed her at the same bank, passing her a similar note. He also admitted to another bank robbery in Perria and was charged with all three crimes.
Raiborn neighbors were mystified. Why would a bright college student from a well-to-do family, a man with no criminal history, turn to robbing banks, risking so much for so little gain? His two Dallas robberies netted him only $3,902. Though Raiborn’s note claimed he had a gun, he was unarmed and easily could have been shot by police or guards. To top it off, on the day of Raiborn’s last heist, his mother had given him the new Jeep Cherokee he used as a getaway car.
The answer, say authorities, seems to be gambling, primarily on football and basketball games. After getting a few thousand dol-tars in debt, Raiborn would rob a bank, pay off his bookies, and start betting again.
“He had a sports gambling addiction,” says assistant U.S. at-torney David Finn. “We knew we weren’t dealing with a Dillinger after he went back to the same bank, the same teller. It looked like an act of desperation.”
Kaiborn pleaded guilty to two charges of bank robbery in October. (The Peoria charges were dismissed.) Sentenced to 40 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution, Kaiborn will soon be eligible for a six-month boot camp program. “He’s bright and has a lot of promise,” says William T. Hill Jr., Raiborn’s attorney. “He just has a compulsion to gamble.”
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