Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Law enforcement:

Was a foiled bank heist a cry for help?

Bizarre acts are nothing new for main suspect in robbery attempt

Eric Griffin

Eric Griffin

It wasn’t a secret that Eric Griffin planned to enter a Wells Fargo Bank and demand access to the vault.

One day before Griffin and four accomplices did just that — walked into a Henderson branch claiming a fake federal search warrant gave them authority to seize the vault’s contents — Griffin filed a document in federal court announcing his plan. He also filed a second document declaring his “special task force” had the right to bear arms, make arrests and, if need be, execute detractors “on the spot.”

Griffin then signed the document and had it notarized.

The following morning, Nov. 13, five men walked into the Wells Fargo on West Sunset Road and, after some chaos, walked out empty-handed into a wall of waiting police. Though Griffin, 39, is being detained, his four accomplices have been released — indicating authorities believe Griffin was the ringleader.

Griffin isn’t like most would-be robbers. For starters, it appears he wanted not just money from the vault, but specific documents from a deposit box too.

Second, Griffin believes a tracking device has been planted on his person by unknown parties — possibly the government — who are using this “directed energy weapon” to control and communicate with him.

Only “out of respect for the law,” Griffin wrote in one of the documents, was he informing the court of his upcoming actions. Further, Griffin noted, he had evidence of the secret implant being used against him, “which is why licensed guards will be executing suspect and bring there (sic) death certificate to this court ... we will show this court that all suspect has been getting information illegally on plaintiff’s every move through devise (sic).”

Nobody was executed during this month’s bank robbery. If anything, it was a doomed fiasco from the outset. The bank manager did not believe the federal search warrant Griffin allegedly presented was real, and refused to give the men access to the vault, according to the FBI’s Las Vegas field office. The bank manager was then reportedly handcuffed until he convinced Griffin and the others — four men from California — that he would call for permission. He called security instead.

As it turns out, Griffin’s strange and unsuccessful bank robbery attempt was just the most recent in a string of strange and unsuccessful campaigns — the private war between Griffin and the people he believes are after him.

The foiled robbery came in the midst of a lawsuit Griffin filed against MountainView Hospital, where he was held for a number of days in July by doctors who thought he was mentally ill and a threat to himself or others. That lawsuit, like the numerous others Griffin has personally filed over the years, is full of rambling documents, demands and talk of government testing, untraceable chemicals, torture, cover-ups, tracking equipment, covert surveillance and something he calls “voice-to-skull” technology.

In his case against the hospital, Griffin filed subpoenas to the Justice Department for evidence of the tracking devices; to the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners for records, though it’s unclear which or why; and to U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, for a “kidnap letter” Griffin claimed was placed into his account with a “fraudulent” check for $30,000 and an “investigating report” of unknown origin.

It appears these documents are what Griffin was after, at least in part, when he and four others stormed the bank this month.

How Griffin got anybody to join him during the attempted robbery remains unclear, though at least two of the five men — Jonathan Gray and Jonathan Miranda — signed Griffin’s notarized court filings.

The notary who stamped Griffin’s paperwork didn’t return calls for comment. Griffin’s lawyer, a federal public defender, also isn’t commenting on the case.

Court records do indicate, however, that Griffin’s competency is being questioned.

Internet records, meanwhile, indicate Griffin’s mental state has been questionable for some time.

On Nov. 9 Griffin posted a message to members of an online group dedicated to exposing secret mind control programs orchestrated by the government. In his message, Griffin announced he had rounded up a team of investigators who would provide a variety of services to fellow “T.I.’s” — short for “targeted individuals.” These services were to include implant detection, executions and victim intake.

In the past three years Griffin has filed lawsuits against the FBI, George W. Bush, Metro and Henderson police, District Attorney David Roger and the White House Executive Office, among many others. The subject of the suits never changes: mind control, secret experiments, mental slavery.

In June, Griffin sued U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro for throwing out a case Griffin had filed against the Justice Department for allegedly interrogating him with mind control weapons. The case against Judge Pro was thrown out by another judge, who wrote that Griffin’s body of litigation is “fantastic, delusional and irrational.”

Privately, sources familiar with Griffin’s past say he’s been on a Secret Service watch list for some time, most likely because of his regular threats against government officials and his talk of snap executions.

The specter of being on anybody’s watch list — let alone that of the Secret Service — will likely send Griffin and fellow conspiracy theorists into a tailspin.

The fact that police were waiting outside the bank when he emerged from the foiled robbery attempt has not gone unnoticed by the online community. It’s not a coincidence police were at the ready, they say — it’s evidence Griffin’s mind is being read.

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