Mission Impossible Bank Robbery - Masterminds - The Memorial Day Heist - Jerry Clement Documentary

was one of the biggest crimes of committed in the century a crooked cop pulls off a bank job worth over ten million dollars he was talented well organized and incredibly intelligent he committed the perfect crime then mocked authorities it's how to describe the arrogance he just figured he was untouchable find out how he did it next on masterminds [Music] [Music] [Music] Medford Massachusetts in the early eighties this quiet suburb of Boston was booming people had jobs people had money people were spending money people were making money there was a lot of money around and there was a lot of money in the bank and the richest bank in Medford was depositors trust its security system was state-of-the-art the alarm is wired into both the alarm company and the police station the vault has 18 inches of reinforced concrete there were massive dime lock steel doors inside was a safe and a thousand double key deposit boxes the vault seemed impregnable but on Memorial Day weekend 1980 the unthinkable happened depositors trust became the scene of the largest bank burglary in New England's history come that Tuesday morning the bank opened and they opened up and said oh my god what happened here ten million in cash and jewels was gone a thousand armor-plated deposit boxes had been smashed open the highly sophisticated silent alarm hadn't gone off and the reinforced concrete ceiling had a hole blown through it it was incredibly bizarre this the type of a job you see in Hollywood that's the type of crime this was the FBI was immediately notified and had jurisdiction over the crime scene they did an extensive investigation there were no witnesses no fingerprints and no burglary tools well there was no evidence because they had been so careful about covering their tracks they had made sure that anything that went into the bank came out with them in that sense it was the perfect crime it's an immediate big story and it's not just a big story at the Medford level it's a big story at the state level and at the federal level the question then arose as to who were the suspects and who could have possibly perpetrated the job of this magnitude but there was really no prime suspects at that point other than the fact that it had to be a bunch of confessions the gang was led by a professional a professional police officer captain Jerry Clemente a career cop obsessed with money and power had pulled off a multi-million dollar heist the question is how did he do it police captain Jerry Clemente is the mastermind behind a 10 million dollar heist at the Medford Massachusetts depositors trust the burglary is the climax of years of corruption that started with his first night on the force when he was partnered with a veteran cop named crusher they were going through Medford and they saw this guy running down the street holding a stolen lawn chair to Jerry's surprise Crusher knows the thief he turned out to be another cop the guy picks up the lawn chair goes away crusher accessor Jerry two things Jerry number one you see a cop with the television piece of furniture anything at all mind your own business whatever he's doing is his business number two don't play high-and-mighty the lesson he learned was corruption was accepted it was easy to move beyond that almost imperceptibly to a point where you are of doing wholesale corrupt activities Jerry quickly discovers he has a talent for planning and executing burglaries he furnishes his entire house with stolen goods but he's also a brave cop early in his career Clemente is awarded the Medal of for his role in the takedown of an armed gangster he had a good reputation in law enforcement circles you know he was a good guy solid guy you know a go-to guy but his double life as criminal and crime fighter soon spills over into his personal affairs here's a married man with a family living you know a happily married life in a community on the surface who at the same time is having a clandestine sexual affair so it certainly must have been part of Jerry's make up to want to lead a double life as Clemente moves up through the ranks of law enforcement he's drawn to more ambitious crimes he partners with sergeant Tom Doherty Tom Doherty was always a rogue he was arrogant out of control and basically abused his badge from probably the first day award in 1978 Clemente and Doherty pulled their first big jaw the target the police department it would steal the police promotional exam before it was given make copies of it sell it for $5,000 to somebody wanted to be a police chief someplace they manipulated and controlled who they wanted in command positions in the city and town police departments they're very powerful back at that time very powerful and Jerry kumite was that to talk to them then in 1980 Clemente and Doherty see an opportunity to become multimillionaires they decide to hit depositors trust they both knew in the back of their minds that this was the big score this was of all the planned criminal activities that they were involved in this was the one that was gonna set them up for life because Tommy had his own safety deposit box in the bank he was able to go in and case the place while he was in there he mentally paced off the dimensions of the vault noted you know where the safes were where the deposit boxes worked based on this information Clemente knows he needs a specialized team to pull off the job he recruits fellow crooked cop Joe banks and a gangster known as brother O'Leary they're gonna have to bypass the amount so they need an alarm guy that was Bucky Barrett Bucky Barrett was by all accounts an expert at alarms and was by all accounts a professional burglar the alarm was a major obstacle that the gang had to get over because it was wired into both the Medford police station and to the alarm company and it was a silent alarm so if you triggered it at the bank you wouldn't know that had gone off Bucky realizes he'll have to bypass the alarm using sophisticated electronics he assembles a device to block the outgoing signal for two months Clemente and Bucky Barrett returned to the bank each night to test every wire he had to test each wire individually to figure out which was the alarm wire so he could set up the bypassed box and disable the alarm Jerry also makes reconnaissance patrols they made dry runs staked out the bank much the way police officers would stakeouts an alleged scene of a crime I mean they they staked out the scene of the crime confident it's a go Clemente now sets a date for the heist the Memorial Day weekend during Memorial Day weekend in 1980 there were a number of public events going on including a carnival a lot of noise a lot of commotion into the late night hours that really worked very well for the conspirators the team now makes final preparations they had acetylene torches they had dynamite they had special magnesium burning rods carbide core bits for the drills everything that they needed for any eventualities they had prepared carefully ahead of time the night of the burglary the gang moves into position Clemente is confident he won't be discovered because his lookout man is the senior cop on duty for the entire city of Medford Tommy Dougherty if anybody did come along he'd be able to make sure they moved on or if they came too close he could tell him to go away because he was after all a police officer with everything in place Clemente sets his plan in motion the steps of the burglary began with them bypassing the alarm system at the rear of the building after that was accomplished Jerry Clemente picked the walk to the shop next door which gave them access to the upper loft area inside the shops attic they break through the wall leading to the bank that wall was made of cinder blocks so in a matter of minutes they had smashed through there they were able to crawl into the crawl space above the vault so they then could start the tunnels from the actual ceiling of the ball using power from a nearby fuse box they start to drill through the vault ceiling and they knew exactly where where to drill in order to create the hole from Tommy having mentally cased the place you know the old story plan your work work your plan everything was done exact to a tee they knew what they had to do they were all disciplined guys at each step of the way they would pause and wait report back to Tommy Tommy would make sure that nobody heard anything that nothing was being reported he'd have a good look around then he'd give them the okay to go onto the next stage of the operation but an hour into the job there's a big problem Doherty radios Clemente to shut everything down and keep quiet the owners of Brigham's restaurant next to the bank have come to take inventory Clemente has Dority spring into action Tommy went in told these people I'm sorry we've had some you know criminal activity around here lately we really can't have you doing inventory in the middle of the night and got them to leave and go home and they were quite impressed that Jesus great great police response here Doherty gives Clemente the all clear above the vault the men resume working on the 18 inches of steel reinforced concrete Clemente has brought dynamite but he knows he's taking a risk the risk obviously being there in the middle of a downtown area in Medford that that would be heard by the neighbors and that they would be discovered they pile sandbags on the dynamite to direct the blast downward and muffle the sound as it happens nobody reported any sound it's possible two people heard a loud bang but maybe they thought it was revelry from the carnival the explosives were able to dislodge the concrete but it still left the wire mesh they have to be cut with a settlement torch it's hot time-consuming work but by 3:00 a.m. they break through the vault ceiling so when they drop down into the vault they had all of this debris all over the place and all this dust floating in the air their main target is the safe at the rear of the vault was a larger safe which the bank used for their cash for their customers Bucky sets the work with an acetylene torch illyrian bangs start prying open the safety deposit boxes it takes an hour to cut through the safes hinges Bucky opens a safe there's only 60 grand they're all incredibly disappointed months of preparation careful planning high-risk incredible expectations and they're sitting there with $60,000 unfortunately they found a very small amount of cash principally because it was Memorial Day weekend and most of the cash that are been removed by the bank employees and sent to the Federal Reserve for the weekend there's nothing more Jerry can do they've run out of time it's in May so there's an early dawn and they got to be out of there before it gets light it's not turning out exactly the way that they thought it would so they'll go back to Joe's house so Jerry says well we've got two more nights to come back in to go through and break open as many of these safety deposit boxes as we can had this been your typical burglars they would never risk going back the second answer at night but Jerry Clemente knew that with three active police officers involved Mis conspiracy they had an absolute control over preventing anyone from law enforcement ever detecting that they were inside that fall back in the vault they set to work on the safety deposit boxes but the problem is it's taking 15 minutes to open each one initially they were breaking through the cylinder locks by manually using a screwdriver and breaking out these cylinder locks they found that took on a northern amount of time so then he discovered this new method which was basically to use the chisel and hammer to break off the hinges it was much faster being able to open more doors in a quicker way over the next two nights the gang uses this new method to break into a thousand deposit boxes and empty the vault so there was close to two million dollars in cash but there was also pink diamonds rare jewels ordinary diamonds expensive watches they were lugging so much stuff out of there they were exhausted and they were doing it under the protection of the police it's frightening they were the police 72 hours after breaking into the fall clementa and his crew escaped with ten million dollars in cash and jewels well the first thing they did is they split the cash six ways so they all got their take of the cash which was about 200 grand apiece but dividing the jewelry is much more difficult problem was is then jewelry is identifiable and if they had a problem how could they get rid of it and convert that into cash Clemente decides to leave it with Joe banks now all he has to do is wait and he and his crew will be very rich but this treasure will set one gang member against another and threatens to destroy them all [Music] Jerry Clemente and his crew of crooked cops have pulled off a brilliantly planned bank burglary netting more than 10 million in cash and jewels when the bank manager came in on Tuesday morning he found on the floor of the vault papers in empty boxes between knee-deep and four feet high one of the people who came to protect the scene and to the FBI arrived was Sergeant Thomas Doherty the robberies lookout man is now a spy inside the investigation Doherty keeps Clemente informed of FBI progress the speculation was they had to be an insider involved it had to be someone with local knowledge I'm a number of people were interviewed including Tom Doherty Jerry Clemente on both of them were on duty during part of that weekend but while there was a lot of speculation and rumor that Jerry Clemente was the fact the mastermind there was no physical evidence connecting him to the burglary when investigators try to shake Clemente's alibi his mistress Barbara Hickey backs him up he instructed her that if she were asked where he was on those nights that she was to say that he was with her for the entire night knowing authorities have nothing concrete Clemente stone laws the fact that Jerry is a captain in the police department means that he understands police procedure he understands the rules of evidence he knows what it is that they need in order to prove that he did it he also knows that they can't put together so he feels that even though they have strong suspicions and even though they can make life difficult for him that he's in the clear the FBI continues to investigate they put Clemente under 24-hour surveillance but Clemente knows he's being watched without knowing the guy is how to describe the arrogance you just figured he was untouchable they had thrown everything they had at him and he walked away as the case against him grows cold Clemente lies low waiting for the statute of limitations to run out jerry is very conscious that at this stage they have less than a year to go and their home and dry and the depositors just heist the clock was ticking and honestly unless something happened this was going to be an unsolved crime but just as police are about to abandon the investigation Clemente is hit with a crisis Tommy Doherty and Jo bang starts spinning out of control they're both using cocaine heavily they're both incredibly paranoid and soon the friction between them with the freebase and being paranoid and they also started I think one of them might be dropping a dime on the other and that's when the whole ball started rolling down the hill all of a sudden guns are out and Joe banks gets shot it's the worst thing that could have happened one that Tommy shot him true that he didn't kill him because it just brought total chaos to their whole operation the state cops arrived to investigate the shooting they find drugs and jewelry in Joe bangs car that jewelry allowed a clear link to be made between Joe and the depositors trust heist and it allowed the police to put pressure on Joe with police leaning on one gang member and another in jail Jerry Clemente is facing the greatest threat of his criminal career so his life is basically turned upside down but he knew that if he just kept his cool and that if the others kept their cool that they couldn't be broken with the discovery of the stolen jewelry police are determined to bring down Clemente and his gang the adrenaline gets too fired up a little more that's one of the biggest crimes are committed in the century means he's a bad cops bad cops you want to get them while authorities build their case against Clemente Tommy Doherty goes on trial for the shooting of Joe banks dougherty's lawyer presses bangs above the jewelry found in his car this isn't the true mr. bangs that you had a kilo of cocaine in the trunk of your car yes it is and isn't it true that you had a some jewelry in the trunk of your car yes it is and I suppose that Julie was stolen too things responded he finally had had it it goes yes sir it was stolen jewelry I stole with your defendant on Memorial Day week in 1980 in the whole court went into an uproar it was the biggest break that came along on it Daugherty is found guilty and Joe bangs tells prosecutors everything about the depositors trust heist but police need more Joe banks carried a lot of baggage and had very low credibility the problem we faced was is that a jury would say you're only saying this and implicating others because you want to save your own skin investigators then get a break when they learn clementa has left his mistress Barbara Hickey they were working with her and working with from working with her they were getting nowhere with her none at all so they're kind of throwing up the hands and go and turn into weave when she said to him well I don't know if this helps but would it make any difference that he came home one night that weekend loaded with dust and dirt all over them does that make cement powder and that type of thing would that out to be helpful to you for Jerry Clemente Barbara hickeys - turning on the gang is the worst thing that could possibly happen it brings down the whole house of cards Jerry Clemente is arrested and charged with four counts of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony although the evidence against him is strong he's unconcerned continuing to believe he's pulled off the perfect heist jerry was always super confident he always had faith in his ability to get out of any situation that he might find himself in [Music] he knew how to cover his tracks you know how to make sure that the right people were involved and he knew how to make sure that when it came down to it the odds were stacked in his favor he was a intelligent articulate guy he had spent a lot of time planning preparing for this burglary and yet I think to the end never believed that the government would be able to prove and have a jury believe and convicting of the crime but at his trial his former mistress Barbara Hickey is the prosecution's star witness out of a clear blue sky he said that he was gonna have a lot of money and he would never have to work a Dayton's life again her testimony finally puts the corrupt cop behind bars Jarrett got 30 to 40 years so it was the maximum sentence and they they they they nailed it it's particularly satisfying when it's a police officer and you realized that this is someone who had corrupted the system who would who had reached his trust and who should be brought to justice after 10 years in jail Jerry Clemente is paroled he is currently without a job and is fighting for his police pension [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: TOP BOX TV

Views: 265,943

Keywords: Scams, Fraud, Thieves, Criminals, Documentary, Crime, Genius, TV, Reality, reality tv shows full episodes, reality show, scams caught, crime watch daily, reality tv, tv shows full episodes, crime patrol, thieves caught, documentary movies, cop turned thief, criminal cop, Jerry Clement, memorial day heist, masterminds memorial day heist, best bank robberies, bank robbery

Id: DNsnFqmA1VM

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018