Man, 19, charged with 'bank jugging' robberies in Berkeley

A man police say followed customers from local banks into Berkeley, and then robbed them, is now facing felony charges in three separate cases.

In one of the incidents, authorities say 19-year-old Elijah Simpson and another man chased down a UC Berkeley swim coach and wrested two backpacks containing thousands of dollars in property from her.

That morning, on June 30, the swim coach had arrived in the garage for Cal's Recreational Sports Facility (at Bancroft Way and Ellsworth Street) and seen two masked men "following her closely," the University of California Police Department (UCPD) wrote in court papers.

The woman tried to run away "but they caught up to her and grabbed her bags, while dragging her and ultimately taking two backpacks from her (stealing $2,703 worth of property)."

The coach said she had gone to the bank in Oakland that morning "and believed the suspects had followed her from the bank, in a crime … regularly referred to as 'jugging,'" UCPD wrote.

UC Berkeley police used local surveillance and traffic cameras to investigate the crime, identifying the suspect vehicle as a black BMW with tinted windows and a sunroof but no license plates.

Investigators said they found footage of the same car parked at the Oakland bank the woman had visited. Its occupants "appeared to be watching people come in and out of the bank" that morning.

The driver then followed the swim coach to campus when she left the bank, according to UCPD.

Security cameras in the RSF Garage also captured the robbery itself, police wrote.

Read more about crime near UC Berkeley.

Two weeks later, on July 14, police say a man had gone to a bank in Oakland at 10:30 a.m. and gotten a $375,000 cashier check along with $3,000 in cash.

The man then drove to Berkeley and parked in the 1900 block of University Avenue — unaware that two people had followed him from the bank, Berkeley police wrote in charging papers.

After he parked, just blocks from the Berkeley police station, a stranger smashed his passenger window and grabbed his backpack, then broke his driver's side window and tried to yank his property from his hands, police wrote.

When the driver managed to hold on, the robber jumped in a getaway car authorities later determined was driven by Simpson, BPD wrote.

With the help of police from UCPD, Oakland and Vacaville along with Flock license plate data, BPD robbery detectives were able to identify the suspect vehicle and, ultimately, Simpson, according to charging papers.

Berkeley police — from BPD and UCPD — arrested Simpson in San Francisco last week, according to court papers.

BPD also noted that Simpson had been tied to an armed robbery in Oakland earlier in the year.

In that robbery, on May 31, the victim said he had been robbed at gunpoint of his wallet as well as an envelope of cash, according to charging papers.

OPD said Simpson later admitted he had been the getaway driver that day and provided the gun for the robbery.

Elijah Simpson. BPD

On Thursday, the Alameda County district attorney's office charged Simpson and another man in connection with the Oakland armed robbery.

Simpson, a Fremont resident, was also charged with carrying a loaded firearm and possession of a large-capacity magazine, both misdemeanors.

The DA's office had previously charged Simpson, last week, with the two Berkeley robberies.

He was arraigned Friday morning and has a pretrial hearing Sept. 30.

Simpson is being held on at least $100,000 bail, according to booking records.

He has no other charged cases listed in Alameda County.