Accused Ardsley bank robber charged in Hastings-on-Hudson home invasion

A suspect in three bank robberies in Ardsley and Pennsylvania this month has now been linked to a home invasion in Hastings-on-Hudson.

Brandon Scerri, 29, was arrested with his girlfriend on June 20 shortly after the Chase Bank on Saw Mill River Road in Ardsley was robbed of $16,000 by a gunman who handed the teller a note demanding $100 and $50 bills and threatening "don't make me come over the counter," according to a criminal complaint filed the next day in U.S. District Court in White Plains.

This week he was charged in the May 19 early morning armed home invasion on Broadway in Hastings-on-Hudson.

At the time of the Ardsley heist, arrest warrants had been issued charging Scerri in a pair of bank robberies in Pennsylvania in Washington City and North Strabane, on June 3 and June 5, respectively.

His girlfriend, Kayla Pruett, was also charged in the second robbery. North Strabane police Lt. Mike Miller said Thursday that police identified the couple based on their connection to a vehicle believed to have been used in the two heists. Scerri threatened that he had a gun and made off with nearly $7,500 in that robbery.

The Herald Star newspaper reported that the couple used the stolen money shortly after the robbery at a Walgreens and a KFC and that police learned from Scerri's landlord in Wellsburg, West Virginia that he had a blue car similar to the one seen near the banks at the time of the robberies.

In the earlier robbery Scerri allegedly left the bank with only $155, demanding that the teller show him that her drawer had no additional cash, according to the newspaper.

According to the federal compaint in the Ardsley case by FBI Special Agent Michael Vere, after handing a teller his note Scerri told her he was serious, that he had robbed banks before. He demanded money from a second teller as well and when she gave him $20 bills he cursed at her and demanded larger bills, which she then collected from the bank's cash drawers.

Scerri soon brandished a silver revolver and demanded that the bank employees get into a back room and give him their cell phones. Once they did, according to the complaint, he herded them into the men's bathroom. He then tried to steal additional money but could not because the drawers and vault were locked, and he left the bank.

He was identified by the FBI almost immediately with the help of New York City police who had been alerted to Scerri's alleged involvement in the Pennsylvania robberies and were trying to track him in the city, according to the complaint.

Surveillance video showed Scerri leaving a hotel near the bank shortly before the robbery and afterwards going into a wooded area with a backpack and emerging without the backpack and no longer wearing the same shirt and hooded jacket he wore during the robbery. He and Pruett then took a rideshare from the hotel. Using license plate readers and surveillance video, FBI task force members tracked the car to Irvington, where the driver reported he had just dropped off his passengers at the Ardsley-on-Hudson Metro North train station.

Irvington police then found Scerri and Pruett at the train station and Scerri was taken into custody.

Back in the woods afterwards, the FBI found the backpack that contained Scerri's identification as well as the red shirt he wore during the robbery. They also found the hooded jacket, which had a .38 caliber silver revolver wrapped inside it and $16,000 in a pocket, according to the complaint.

Scerri is facing federal charges of bank robbery and brandishing a firearm and was order held without bond.

Pruett, 27, has not been charged federally and is being held at the Westchester County jail as a fugitive from justice awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Accused Ardsley bank robber charged in Hastings home invasion