photo by: Lawrence Police Department

The Lawrence Police Department tweeted out these images of a man officers believe to be involved in a bank robbery on Jan. 31, 2020.

A Lawrence man reportedly told police that he owed a “significant drug debt, which resulted in threats toward him and his wife,” so he went to a nearby bank to get money.

James M. Pugh, 58, was arrested hours after a robbery was reported on Jan. 31 at Landmark National Bank, 2710 Iowa St. He is charged in Douglas County District Court with one count of robbery, a midlevel-severity felony, and criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, a low-level felony.

The Journal-World requested and recently received the affidavit supporting Pugh’s arrest. Allegations in affidavits have not been proved in court, and all defendants in criminal cases should be presumed not guilty unless and until they are convicted.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office declined to release Pugh’s booking photo to the Journal-World.

According to the affidavit:

Lawrence police were called to Landmark National Bank around 3:30 p.m. Jan. 31. A teller there reportedly told police that a man had come into the bank, fumbled in his pockets as if he was looking for something, took his wallet out for a moment and then put it back in his coat pocket. Then he said “This is a robbery,” according to the affidavit.

The teller said the man took about $4,500 in bundled cash. The teller offered the man the loose “bait money” in his register, but the man declined it. The man never displayed a weapon or mentioned having one, but the teller was afraid that he might be armed, according to the affidavit.

Shortly thereafter, LPD posted images from the bank’s surveillance footage on social media. The man was wearing a baseball cap, but his face was visible in the images. A customer service employee at another business in town called dispatch to say she recognized the man as a former customer and provided his name.

Police ran the name and found a driver’s license and other documentation for a man who matched the suspect in the surveillance footage. They found that his address was approximately two blocks from the bank, according to the affidavit.

Police got a warrant and arrested Pugh at his home. During an interview at LPD’s Investigations and Training Center, Pugh agreed to speak without an attorney present and explained that he owed drug debt, according to the affidavit. He said that day, he’d received a text message from his wife saying that there was an “unidentified person” in a car in their driveway, so he returned home and spoke with the person he owed. The affidavit does not detail the threats that Pugh said he and his wife received.

From there, Pugh reportedly said he parked a couple of blocks from the bank, walked to it and went inside. He said he twice told the teller “This is a robbery,” took the money and returned home, according to the affidavit. He said he’d paid the person he owed $3,400, and then spent some of the remaining cash on cigarettes, lottery tickets, liquor and dinner for him and his wife.

During a search of Pugh’s home, police allegedly found some remaining cash and a semiautomatic handgun and ammunition. Pugh reportedly told police that someone left it in his vehicle months prior, and he’d brought it into his home and never gotten rid of it.

According to the affidavit, Pugh and his wife both identified the man in the surveillance images as Pugh.

Pugh was booked into the Douglas County Jail and remained there on $150,000 cash or surety bond as of Monday afternoon, jail and court records show. Pugh’s next court appearance is set for March 18.

Bank robberies are not particularly common in Lawrence. Statistics from the Lawrence Police Department show that from 2015 on, there were two reported bank robberies in 2017, one in 2019 and two thus far in 2020, but none in the other years. The other 2020 incident was reported at Check Into Cash, 2108 W. 27th St., less than a week after this incident.