This story is just totally fucked up. And it all took place in my neighborhood.


School teacher, boyfriend charged in bank robbery
Saturday, April 16, 2011
By Michael A. Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Shadyside woman charged with her live-in boyfriend in the robbery an East Liberty bank Friday is a suspended Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher who already was being investigated for the theft of $21,000 in school computer equipment.

The teacher, Philicia Barbieri, 24, and her boyfriend, Alvin Carter III, 28, both of Marchand Street, were quickly apprehended by Pittsburgh police following the 10:15 a.m. robbery at Fifth-Third Bank in the 6000 block of Penn Circle South.

In affidavits supporting charges of robbery and conspiracy against the couple, police said both suspects told them they were desperate for money after their landlord came seeking rent Friday morning. Police said Mr. Carter further told them that he and Ms. Barbieri have a bundle-a-day heroin addiction and were months behind in their rent.

Ms. Barbieri told police that she and Mr. Carter had been a couple for four or five years and they only started using heroin about six months ago.

Ms. Barbieri, whose Facebook page said she is a 2008 graduate of Chatham University, was suspended from her job as a full-time substitute science teacher at the Pittsburgh School for the Creative and Performing Arts on March 29.

Pittsburgh police said she is under investigation for the theft of laptop computers from CAPA. No charges have been filed as the probe continues but Pittsburgh police Lt. Kevin Kraus said there is a possibility Ms. Barbieri will be arrested in that case, too.

As for the bank robbery, police said both Mr. Carter and Ms. Barbieri were seen outside the bank by a teller who recognized both of them because they had a joint account there until closing it in May. The teller even waved to Mr. Carter as he walked by but she said he did not see her.

Within five minutes, Mr. Carter, wearing a gray coat, gray skull cap and dark sunglasses, entered the bank and handed a different teller a handwritten note that read "GIVE ME $2,000 OR I'LL SHOOT YOU NO DYE PACKS." The phrase "I'll shoot you" was underlined twice, police said. The teller who knows Mr. Carter thought he was suspiciously dressed and saw him pass the note, police said.

The teller handed over $3,640 and Mr. Carter left the bank through a rear door, police said.

The bank retrieved for police account information for Mr. Carter and Ms. Barbieri which included photo identification.

Shortly after the robbery, Pittsburgh police Sgt. Ray Rippole and Officer Clarence Ford stopped the couple in the parking lot of the Pittsburgh Obama School at 129 Denniston Ave.

In Ms. Barbieri's purse, police found $1,440, they said. Mr. Carter told them he had handed her that money as they were fleeing and stuffed the other $2,200 in his coat, which he was not wearing when he was taken into custody.

Mr. Carter said he inadvertently left the missing money in the coat when he discarded it as he fled along with the other attire he wore during the robbery, the cap and the sunglasses.

The coat was discarded in a high traffic area and was not recovered, police said.