By Rick Pfeiffer
Niagara Gazette
NIAGARA FALLS —
Prosecutors have offered a plea deal to the man accused of robbing a Falls American Legion Post on the Fourth of July.
But it’s not clear if Angelo Bauer will be able to take the deal.
Bauer faces a charge of petit larceny for ripping off the Cadille Post 1664 in the City Market. During a hearing Monday morning in City Court, Public Defender Edward Zebulske III said prosecutors had offered to let Bauer plead guilty to a reduced charge of attempted petit larceny if he made restitution to the post for the cash he stole.
“In order for him to take the plea, he has to come up with some money first,” Zebulske said, “and he’s in jail so I’m not sure if he’ll be able to do that.”
Judge Diane Vitello set a hearing for Oct. 20 to allow Bauer to weigh his options on the plea deal.
Investigators say Bauer had walked into the Cadille Post late in the evening of July 4, while Commander Joe Rizzotto was behind the bar, and spun a tale of being a wounded combat veteran of the Iraq war.
“He kind of looked like the brother of one of our members,” Rizzotto said. “He even pointed to scars over is eyes that he said were shrapnel wounds.”
Later, Rizzotto found out how Bauer, 39, with a a lengthy rap sheet for similar crimes, got those scars.
“It turns out (Bauer) was stealing from Tops in April and as he tried to run away, he got tackled by a security guard. That’s how he got the scars,” Rizzotto said. “Everything out of his mouth that night was a lie.”
Bauer was one of just three patrons in the post that night and he told Rizzotto a woeful tale about how he had no money. Because it was the holiday and Rizzotto thought Bauer was a vet, he bought him a few beers.
At closing time, Rizzotto said he placed the cash drawer from the post register on the bar and then turned his back. Bauer reached over, grabbed about $100 and walked out the door of the post. Rizzotto chased after him but Bauer took off running toward 19th Street.
“We had called him a cab and a LaSalle cab was just pulling up,” Rizzotto said. “I told the cabbie, go pick him up and bring him back here. But instead, the (cabbie) picked him up and drove him to Ferry and 19th.”
The crime was caught on tape by post surveillance cameras. The cameras also caught Bauer taking $3 from two other patrons in the post that night and rummaging through a coin canister for the post’s cadet corps.
