2 Emmaus Bank Robberies, Same Robber, DA Says

A former Allentown man already serving a state prison sentence for a 2010 bank robbery in Emmaus has been charged with the gunpoint robbery of another bank in Emmaus in December 2010.

Edward Anthony Maye, 34, currently incarcerated in the State Correctional Institution at Smithfield in Huntingdon County, is charged with:

• Three counts of robbery, all first-degree felonies
• One count each of theft by unlawful taking or disposition and receiving stolen property, both third-degree felonies
• One count of conspiracy, a first-degree felony
• Five counts of aggravated assault, first-degree felonies

Police allege that Maye robbed three tellers and two patrons of the Lafayette Ambassador Bank at 402 State Ave. in Emmaus on Dec. 3, 2010.

Maye will be arrested when he is brought to Lehigh County from the state correctional institution, and it is anticipated that that will occur on or about June 19.

The case was investigated by the Emmaus Police Department and Lehigh County’s Sixth Investigating Grand Jury.  

The grand jury heard testimony from Emmaus Police investigators presented by Chief Deputy District Attorney Charles F. Gallagher III, reviewed police reports from the Lafayette Ambassador Bank robbery and a later robbery on Dec. 30, 2010, at the KNBT bank at 235 Main St. in Emmaus, viewed surveillance videos and photographs from both gunpoint robberies and viewed the clothes seized from Maye at the time of his arrest as he was fleeing from the KNBT bank robbery.

The grand jury also viewed the black handgun with a distinctive silver stripe down the side that was recovered by Emmaus police at the time of Maye’s arrest in the KNBT robbery, the handwritten and recorded statement Maye gave to police, and Maye’s cell phone, which contained several photographs taken hours before the Lafayette Ambassador Bank robbery and after the robbery.

The photographs taken before the robbery show the clothes he was wearing. The photographs taken after the robbery show Maye holding a large stack of currency.

In October 2011, Maye pleaded guilty to three counts of robbery, two counts of aggravated assault and conspiracy in the robbery of the KNBT bank. He was sentenced in 2012 to 22 ½ to 45 years in prison.

Police alleged that Maye and two co-conspirators took nearly $12,000 in cash and pistol-whipped the assistant manager of the bank. As the men fled, one of them fired shots at a police officer. That man, Isaah Sampson, was sentenced in 2012 to 33 to 70 years in state prison.

The third co-defendant, Hishamu T. Curry, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in state prison.

In the case of the Lafayette Ambassador Bank robbery, the Grand Jury handed up a presentment on May 29. The presentment was reviewed by Lehigh County Judge Maria L. Dantos, the supervising judge of the grand jury. District Attorney James B. Martin approved charges based on the presentment.

As in every criminal case, the fact that an arrest has occurred or a complaint has been filed is merely an accusation; and the defendant, Edward Anthony Maye, is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.