By Julie Manganis
SALEM — A Gloucester man is being held on $50,000 cash bail following his arraignment on armed-robbery charges yesterday.
Joseph Lafata, 28, of 161 E. Main St., Gloucester, is charged in the June 2 holdup of an Eastern Bank branch on Traders Way in Salem. He pleaded not guilty.
Salem Police Lt. Conrad Prosniewski said Lafata was identified after police in three separate jurisdictions recognized either his description or his mug shot after he became a suspect in the case.
Lafata allegedly walked into the bank late on the afternoon of June 2 with a white cloth over his head and a note that demanded 20s, 50s and 100s, and "no dye or else."
He threatened to shoot the teller and gestured toward his waistband, Prosniewski told Judge Richard Mori during Lafata's arraignment in Salem District Court.
Witnesses told police they saw the robber get into a Toyota Camry with a spoiler on the back.
Salem Police Patrolman Brian St. Pierre was the first person to recognize Lafata, who had served a sentence at Middleton Jail while St. Pierre was working there as a guard.
Two other officers in Essex and Gloucester later recognized Lafata. Mori described the officers in those communities as "very astute."
Prosniewski acknowledged that the tellers who witnessed the holdup could not identify Lafata in a photo array, but suggested that may be due to the difference in his appearance between the time his mug shot was taken in an earlier case and the holdup last week.
Defense lawyer Joseph Collins acknowledged Lafata's history but said he had been working recently to turn his life around, holding down a job sanding and painting boats at a local marina and preparing to take a test to earn his high school equivalency degree. He urged the judge to set $1,000 bail, noting that Lafata has a child to support.
Mori granted Prosniewski's request for $50,000 cash bail, an amount he is not expected to post.
Because armed robbery is a felony that carries a potential life sentence, it's likely that the case will be presented to a grand jury within the next several months. A status hearing in the case is scheduled for June 19.
