Jesus Sanchez Sanchez stole a excavator and used it to rip an ATM out of a Winter Haven bank and place it in the bed of his truck, causing over $120,000 in damage.

He and an accomplice then covered the mangled ATM with a tarp and drove on back roads in Winter Haven before being pulled over by law enforcement.

A jury found 52-year-old Sanchez Sanchez guilty May 5 of grand theft of $100,000 or more, burglary of a dwelling with over $1,000 in damage, grand theft with over $1,000 in damage and burglary of a conveyance. As a habitual felony offender, he is facing life in prison and will be sentenced June 29.

Assistant State Attorneys Bonde Johnson and Jennifer Van Der Burgh tried the case. Johnson told jurors in opening statements to pay close attention to the timeline, as it would help prove Sanchez Sanchez was guilty.

The bank alarms went off at about 11:13 p.m., and surveillance video shows the truck – holding the ATM – pull away at 11:15 p.m. But about a 20 minute gap remained in the timeline from the moment the bank alarms went off to the moment law enforcement stopped him at 11:39.

Johnson told jurors that a GPS was seized from the truck that would help clear that gap in the timeline.

“The device he used as a way to escape actually became what did the defendant in,” Johnson said.

The defense claimed that in the 20 minute gap, Sanchez Sanchez’s accomplice dropped him off to buy cigarettes and used his truck to steal the ATM alone. His attorney argued that the accomplice returned to pick up Sanchez with the ATM already in the truck bed.

But Johnson told jurors that, through impression evidence, a bootprint found at the construction site where the excavator was stolen matched the boots Sanchez Sanchez was wearing at the time of the crime.

He also said a piece of the ATM that matched the stolen one was found in a neighborhood near the Winter Haven bank, opposite of the direction Sanchez Sanchez began driving when the GPS started transmitting data at 11:22 p.m – leaving an eight-minute gap.

Law enforcement timed the drive from the bank to the neighborhood where the ATM piece was found and then to where the GPS first pings – it was almost four and a half minutes.

The defense still argued that there was enough of a gap for the accomplice to commit the crime alone. But Johnson reminded the jurors in closing statements that they still needed time to cover the ATM with a tarp.

“Is that three or so minutes enough to get a tarp on or enough to do the thousand things the defense suggested?” Johnson asked the jury. “Unless they pulled a James Bond and one of them crawled out of a moving vehicle to put a tarp on while driving, it’s not possible.”

Not only would putting on a tarp most likely take two people, Johnson said, someone would need to drive the excavator while the other pulls the truck up to load the ATM into it and drive away.

“This had to be a two person job,” Johnson said. “You need two drivers for that.”