(upbeat music) - Welcome to Forum 360 for a global outlook, with a local view.

I'm Leslie Ungar, your host today on this Zoom edition.

A couple of months ago, a Cleveland story really did go viral across the country.

The coverage of a 52 year old bank heist.

The story came with bigger than life characters, the unassuming bank teller and the Steve McQueen reference.

One of the key figures in this story was U.S. Marshall Pete Elliott.

We are thrilled to welcome back to Forum 360, U.S. Marshall Pete Elliott.

A decade and a half ago, he joined us to talk about fugitive safe surrender.

For 17 years he has been U.S. Marshall to the Northern district of Ohio, an area including 40 counties from the Pennsylvania border to Michigan.

When you think about it, what does a U.S. Marshall do?

We're going to find out today.

For those of you on the radio, I can tell you that if Hollywood called central casting and asked for an actor to play a U.S. Marshall, they would send U.S. Marshall Pete Elliott.

Recently honored as Aurora Person of the Year, we welcome him to Forum 360.

Welcome.

- [Pete] Thank you.

Thank you for having me today.

- Sure.

Before we get into the bank heist, I have to ask you.

You are among a very rarefied group of people who answer your email or your phone messages very quickly.

I left you a message.

We had not had contact for something like 17 years.

I leave you a message.

You call me back in 24 hours apologizing because it took you 24 hours.

I think that's almost more amazing than catching this bank heist guy.

I really, really do.

Would you take a minute to tell us your philosophy about returning phone calls or email?

You must have an overall philosophy.

- I get back to people, everybody, all the time and the people who know me best know I am continuously getting calls.

I have 40 counties I oversee.

I do a lot nation-wide.

So I'm getting calls and emails every day, countless times a day.

I'm sure while we're on this Zoom, I'm probably gonna get a couple calls is my guess.

But I return everybody's calls.

That's one thing I do.

I know how important it is for me to call somebody and get their call back, and I never wanna be the person that doesn't call somebody back.

- Do people ever say to you, "Well, yeah, but you know, you return phone calls from people you don't even know?"

Like don't you prioritize, like you just return everyone's.

- Well, you never know who's gonna call.

Last week I got a call from a young lady in Cleveland whose sister was murdered, who wants us to follow up and make sure we capture the person that killed her sister.

You know, I get calls from victims out there that call and you know, and we may have captured their father or their father's killer and you know, they call up to just thank my people for the job that they're doing.

So I get countless emails and calls, but one thing in my life, it's very important for me to always call everybody back.

You know, sometimes that may take 24 hours, but I try to do my best to get back to everybody as soon as possible.

- [Leslie] Well you are- - And I leave message for everybody out there.

Any speeches I give, I give my number.

They're all welcome to call.

- I think that's amazing, and you are in a very, very elite group of people that do that.

I wanna thank you for that, and I wanted people to know that even a U.S. Marshall can return phone calls quickly.

When we think of U.S. Marshalls, you know, we think of Tommy Lee Jones and you know, Wesley Snipes.

What do the movies get wrong about the job?

- Well, it's not like the... it's not like the movies.

Look, we have a lot of responsibilities.

I think my men and women have the most dangerous job in the country, chasing down fugitives.

Desperate people commit desperate acts with tragic consequences, and one of our primary duties is apprehending fugitives, whether it's rape, robbery, murder, sexual predators.

We're out there arresting them every single day, my men and women are.

So that's one thing we do.

You know, the movies tend to, you know, make it something that it's really not.

It's a very tough job, and when you're raiding houses and you're chasing after people, it's very dangerous.

I had one of my guys shot last year.

Fortunately, he's all right.

I had another one of my guys that was shot at.

You know, these are real things that happen in real cases.

So, you know, the other thing we handle is missing kids.

We've recovered over a hundred missing kids last year throughout Northern Ohio.

It's very important to me.

You know, it doesn't always end up at the end, like, you know, it's the Brady Bunch.

It's not always the perfect family 'cause sometimes what they're running from is... what they're running to is often better from where they're running from, and they're 13 years old and 14.

So, you know, one of the big things we go after is sexual predators.

Those cases aren't easy, but we need to take those people off the streets permanently, and that's one of the things we are doing in Northern Ohio.

- So let me ask you, when you say that's one of the things you're doing, from, you know, our civilian viewpoint, where does the U.S. Marshall and your people fit in between, we've got the FBI, and the CIA, and we've got police and highway patrol and we have the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Homeland Security, and then we've got the Secret Service.

Where do you fit in?

- Well, we're the Department of Justice.

A part of the Department of Justice as ATF is and the FBI and the DEA.

So they're all good core partners of ours.

One of the powers I have as U.S.

Marshal is I'm able to swear in a local police of officer from Copley, Ohio, or Akron, Toledo, or Youngstown, and when I do that, I give them the federal powers of arrest.

So I swear in all the local officers that are assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

There are other violent crimes task forces and other task forces, and we have the broadest authority of any federal agency out there, as a U.S. Marshall.

So the Deputy U.S. Marshall has the same powers as a sheriff in each state in the United States of America.

So that's one of the reasons we're successful as a task force.

We've arrested over 50,000 since it was created in 2003 because the local officers have federal powers of arrest that are part of my task force, and we're one partnership together with all the agencies.

ATF provides us a body, FBI, Secret Service, they're all part of our taskforce, and then we provide them when we can, you know, bodies quote unquote, or "deputies" to assist them in their duties.

So we have it good right now in federal law enforcement, sometimes it does overlap, but you know, ultimately it's very good and we've got a very good working relationship with all federal agencies.

- Now I have to ask you, you're as close as to the television show, "Blue Bloods" as I'm going to get.

It's one of the few shows that I watch religiously and the Reagan family calls, you know, the police, and they're the family business.

Well, it's kind of your been your family business.

Your father was a U.S. Marshall.

You're a U.S. Marshall.

I have to ask you, is the family business continuing in the next generation of Elliotts?

- I hope not, I hope not.

(both laugh) I hope for my own kids, they get in the business world or maybe they can do what you're doing, Leslie, you know, they can be successful that way, but I don't know that.

You never know what's gonna happen in life, but at this point, you know, it's something my father really did start and you know, I followed in his footsteps in the U.S. Marshall service and you know, I have a brother that's in law enforcement and a sister also.

So, you know, it's something that... it's a family thing and it was really a family thing that started before my father, it started with my great-grandfather who was a police chief of Alliance, Ohio back in the 1900s.

So that's where it kinda all started for the Elliott family.

- Wow.

Now a couple of months ago, I'm innocently getting dressed one morning, listening to "Morning Joe" on my Sirius app on my phone and they start telling the story about this Cleveland bank heist 52 years ago, and I about jump outta my skin when they start talking about U.S. Marshall Pete Elliott and I'm like, "Oh my gosh.

Gosh, I know him."

This story really did go viral.

You know, sometimes people will say, oh, something went viral.

This story really went viral and it's kind of stayed viral for the last four to six weeks.

A bank teller, 20 year old bank teller in Cleveland walks out of the bank at the end of a day, I guess with $215,000, which doesn't sound like all that much today, but you know, worth almost 2 million dollars then.

First, how did he get away with this crime?

Because anyone that's heard this story knows that it was after he died when it was actually solved completely.

How did he get away with it for his whole life?

- Well, it was kinda big news back then, it was July 11th of 1969.

Theodore J. Conrad turned 20 on July 10th, and the next day, which I think is part of a dare, he worked at a bank and at lunchtime, I believe it was, or around there he put $215,000 in a paper bag, put a bottle of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes on top and walked out the door and was never seen again.

He was fascinated by the movie The Thomas Crown Affair.

He had watched that 12 times, you know, he lived in Lakewood, Ohio where I was from, and he was able to, you know, walk away that day and quote, unquote never be seen again.

- Now do you know, he goes to Boston and he sells cars and he becomes a golf pro.

Do you know if he spent the money, saved it, what did he do with the money?

- Well, it's hard to know.

Now that we have phone numbers and emails and so on, we're going back and taking a look at that.

So we know this, we know now that Theodore J Conrad on January 6th of 1970 walked into the Social Security Administration in Boston and was able to obtain a social security number under the name of Thomas Randele.

How we got there was taking a look at a... and it's been my experiences through a number of cases we've had that when people lie, they lie close to home.

So how did we get there?

We took a look at an obituary of Thomas Randele and on that obituary, you know, it said Thomas Randele was born on July 10th in 1947, while Conrad was born on July 10th in 1949.

It said that Randele was born in Denver, Conrad was born in Denver.

It said he went to New England College.

That's where Conrad went to college, at New England College in 1967.

Said his mom and dad were Adam and Ruthabeth Krueger-Randele.

His real mom and dad were Ed and Ruthabeth Krueger-Conrad.

So all these things are adding up, said he was car enthusiast.

You know, it all looks good, but knowing that name, one of the things we were able to do, and this is where my dad came into it, is my dad pursued this guy since 1969.

As soon as this happened, he pursued him.

In 1967, my father was able to go New England college and get those original applications from the college where Conrad filled out.

We found out that Randele was in a Boston federal court for bankruptcy in 2014.

We were able to pull that handwriting signatures and then match that up with the material my father had from 1967 and it appeared identical.

So we knew we were on the right path then.

My father who was interested in this case as a Deputy U.S. Marshall because Conrad lived in the same hometown that we did in Lakewood, Ohio.

He also had a doctor and the doctor was also my father's doctor which ironically, doctor's last name was Ungar.

I don't know if you know that or not.

- [Lesie] Wow, no.

- No?

So Conrad also used to work at a local malt place at the corner of Madison and Larchmont where we grew up and that's where my dad used to take us in as kids, so, you know.

So my dad was, he was enthused with his case.

It was his priority, you know, all his life.

I can remember as a kid and it'd be like, you know, pass the mash potatoes and when am I gonna get Ted Conrad?

So even after my dad retired in 1990, he became a private investigator in Lakewood area.

He still continued to pursue Conrad, we'd had him on "America's Most Wanted."

In fact, my father did that and, you know, "Unsolved Mysteries" and just no leads whatsoever.

So what Conrad/Randele was able to do is live a really simple isolated life under the name of Thomas Randele, never getting in trouble again, staying in Boston the whole time, having a wife and having a daughter that still lived with his fictitious last name and everything that I have been told, at least at this point is Conrad/Randele was a good husband, a good father, a good friend of many, and he hid in plain sight.

- Now, not to give any tips to anyone that might be thinking of, you know, following in his footsteps, but would you say he was just lucky or did he do something or something things right?

- Well, things were different back in the 1970s, we have a couple cases like that, where it was easier to walk into Social Security Administration and get a new identity, just like that, You know, it's different now.

It's tougher now for people to be able to do that.

But back then, it was very easy to walk in there and you know, walk back out with a new life, new identity.

So after we knew that we were on the right page, I took a deputy from here in Cleveland and obviously my father, he passed away in March of 2020.

You know, this was always his most important case.

I was able to take a deputy with me from Cleveland and drive to Boston and knock on the door of Thomas Randele without his wife and his daughter knowing we were gonna be showing up.

So as soon as we knocked on the door, I identified myself and said I was a U.S.

Marshal, I was out of Ohio to talk, but I said to her, I go, "Look it, I think your husband was not who he said he was, he was somebody different."

and then she gave it up that her husband, you know, admitted that he was really Theodore J Conrad, the bank robber.

- Now, do you know how long she had known that?

- That day she told me, it was basically a deathbed conversation, is what I was told that day.

- You know, we remember bank robbers from the wild west to Jesse James and Bonnie and Clyde, but why did they continue to succeed?

- Easy money, right?

In a lot of ways, you know, it is more for, again, Conrad worked inside the bank and took the money and left.

What we see nowadays, as you know, is lot people on the outside going inside and robbing banks and sticking it up and I don't know too many that...

I don't know too many criminals that escape from a life of being a criminal and eventually they all get caught.

- Now, can you just tell us in a minute or so, the connection to Steve McQueen and The Thomas Crown Affair?

- That's still mind boggling.

So he loved it, went there 12 times.

Ironically, I just interviewed over summertime Conrad's former roommate who still lives in the Cleveland area, and then he went to the movies 12 movies and he saw this movie.

He was, I believe he took the name Thomas because of Tom... Thomas Crown.

He loved it, idolizes this guy, idolized he life and so on.

Ironically, he moved to where the movie was filmed in Boston.

The original movie was filmed in the Boston area.

Not only that, he lived, pulled up his address in 1971, he lived about a mile from where the auditions were for The Thomas Crown Affair.

- [Leslie] Wow.

- After he fled.

So, and he moved, married into the family of the individuals that owned the restaurant where the movie was filmed.

- [Leslie] Wow.

- So crazy stuff.

I mean, it's just, it was, it was all about that, I believe, to him, and again, that's why I think he took the name of Thomas.

- Listening to my two favorite historians, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham, I learned these two statistics.

In 1965, 75% of Americans trusted their government, and today, 75% of Americans don't trust their government.

Now you're a part of the Justice Department.

So you're a part of the government.

Do you feel that, do you feel that shift?

Do you feel that people don't trust and... can one person change that?

- Well, look it, I can't speak for everyone, you know.

I know this, I believe a lot of people trust us.

You know I don't know where the percentages exactly come from but when you need something, you know, we're there and that goes for all the different federal agencies.

So you can ask them that question, you know, do they trust the government based on their dealings with us?

And I do, I believe they do, the ones that need us, deal with us.

Whether they've had a relative that's been killed or it's, you know, we need to bring justice to something.

- Do you feel on a daily basis, do you feel the same respect for, you know, whether it's CIA, FBI, the U.S Marshall, do you feel that, that you're still respected?

I mean, I grew up that, you know, you respected these agencies.

Do you feel that?

- Well, it's just law enforcement in general, right?

- [Leslie] Yes.

I think law enforcement in general isn't respected by some, the way it should be.

Now there's a whole good group of people that I'm gonna focus on that support law enforcement.

We had law enforcement appreciation day, you know, recently and I saw all the posts from people.

I can remember, you know, just driving around within last year and seeing all the police signs out about "support your police" and whether it's in Toledo or Akron, or is in Southern Ohio.

There's a lot of people still that, you know, support the police, you know.

I have a neighbor I don't really even know that was flying the police flag and they had a sign in their front yard, and I went up to them in the local grocery store and I just said, I said to him, I go, "Don't think that goes unnoticed, you know, thank you for doing that."

- Now, when I asked you to do the show, I asked you to come and talk about the bank heist, but I do have a question and I truly leave it up to you whether it's something you can comment on or not.

But, you know, we recently had, you know, the anniversary of the January 6th, whatever you wanna call that.

From your perspective, when you look at the Capitol Hill police and the police that were involved, can you share at all, how do you see that day?

- Well, you know, we're... one of my guys is assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force so we're actively working those cases and making the arrests on he individuals that did it and I'll leave it at that.

So I believe there's still some more to go.

We've got some done, you know, from Northern Ohio here and I think there's gonna be more to go.

- Now in doing some research, you know, one of the jobs that that U.S Marshalls had in the past is like, protecting abortion clinics.

So how much do you all have to set aside?

Any personal feelings you have when you do your job?

- Well, you'd have to do that all the time, whether, I just had this conversation the other day, but you know, that's our job.

That's what, you know, we're paid to do our job.

We're paid to put our feelings aside on different cases.

You know, it's tough for my guys, especially when you find a missing kid that may have been tied up and, you know, and taken by a sexual predator, you know, that's tough.

You gotta put your feelings aside, what you'd really like to do to somebody like that.

So, and with those type of cases, look, we get called into ending national disasters and we handle extraditions by people who had been to Rome and Israel and everywhere else you can imagine.

On some different tough cases but you know, you gotta put everything aside and do your job, you know.

You gotta put your feelings aside.

- It's probably not bad advice for all of us, you know, in this world.

In the few remaining minutes we have, I'm gonna ask you for one or two word answers.

Are you a U.S Marshall 24/7, or is there a time, or can you do something where like, you can just feel like you're just like the rest of us?

- Probably U.S Marshall 24/7 and I like to ride my bike in the summertime.

That's about my only hobby.

- [Leslie] Okay.

With a helmet, right?

- With a helmet?

Yes.

- Okay.

- With a helmet.

- Oh, okay.

What is one thing that, after your years as U.S Marshall, whether it's about your people, it's about the American public, whatever it is about, what is one thing you know for sure?

- That there's a God, so, yeah.

- Do you have a favorite binge show?

You know, we were talking that I've watched Shawshank a hundred million times.

Do you have a favorite movie or show that you like to watch over and over again?

- Well, I don't, but I usually watch one, but Ted Lasso by far.

- Okay.

(Leslie laughs) - I love it.

- And what about, you know, everyone talks in a new year about resolutions but I wanna know if you have a favorite binge food.

- Oh, pizza.

Come on, pizza.

- And how is it made?

- Pepperoni pizza.

- Okay.

- I just, I had this argument with a guy from Chicago, but they only sausage in Chicago.

- Ah!

- Come to Cleveland, it's pepperoni pizza.

Come on, Cleveland's pepperoni.

- Good, we heard it here.

Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, our own Jeffrey Dahmer, who went to my high school, were some of the most famous fugitives in history.

Men like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Wild Bill Hickok were among the first U.S Marshalls, tasked with their apprehension.

Movies have given us the U.S Marshall in Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes.

Today though, we had a real authentic U.S Marshall, U.S Marshall Pete Elliott.

Marshalls have protected American athletes at Olympic games, the refugee Elian Gonzalez before his return to Cuba and abortion clinics as required by federal law.

We heard firsthand today about the most famous bank heist in history, what it's like when your family business has been federal protection and some inside thoughts about the relationship between American citizens and their institutions designed to protect.

We thank our guest today, U.S Marshall Pete Elliott.

I'm Leslie Ungar.

Thank you for joining us today on Forum 360, our Zoom edition for a global outlook with a local view.

- [Narrator] Forum 360 is brought to you by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Akron Community Foundation, Hudson Community Television, The Rubber City Radio Group, Shaw Jewish Community Center of Akron, Blue Green, Electric Impulse Communications and Forum 360 Supporters.