`Camouflage Bandit' Is Cop, Say Prosecutors

TRENTON, N.J. - He spent his days chasing drug dealers and lecturing youngsters about the dangers of narcotics. Now a decorated vice-squad detective is charged with robbing five banks and trafficking in heroin.

Christopher Kerins, an 11-year police veteran, is the long-sought "Camouflage Bandit," authorities said yesterday.

"It's bold, it's brazen, it's reprehensible and it's tragic," U.S. Attorney Faith Hochberg.

Kerins, 39, was charged in four armed bank robberies in the Trenton area since November, and one in Ohio.

He confessed to the New Jersey robberies, which netted about $28,000, according to a criminal complaint. If convicted, he could face 25 years in prison for each robbery.

He was arrested Tuesday in Cincinnati, where police said he robbed a suburban bank and led officers on a six-mile chase before being captured. He was in Ohio to attend a conference on fighting drugs and gangs.

Police said they found $7,500 worth of heroin in Kerins' hotel room.

`I won't believe it'

"I won't believe it until he tells me he did it, and then I still won't believe it," Kerins' 13-year-old son, Brian, said outside the family home.

The married father of two teenage boys, Kerins has been a vice detective since 1989 and helped train his department's drug-sniffing dogs.

"He was a great neighbor, and he seemed to be a hell of a family man," said Ron Krueger, who lives next door to the Kerins family. "He was always out with the kids."

Krueger and other neighbors said Kerins was a Little League coach who recently gave an anti-drug talk at a local school.

Jack Pierson, another neighbor, said Kerins occasionally would grouse a bit about the long hours on the job and about getting called at "all hours of the day and night."

Kerins and his wife, a teacher, were known for taking good care of their home, a modest rancher with dark-green shutters and ruffled curtains in the front window, where two black Labrador retrievers - Rex and Ben, a drug-sniffing dog - played around the built-in pool in the back yard yesterday.

Leading a double life?

According to Hochberg, Kerins was leading a double life, "dressing up in camouflage gear and robbing banks in his own hometown."

Police in New Jersey and in Bucks County, Pa., are investigating whether Kerins was involved in other bank robberies, said Trenton Police Chief Ernest Williams.

Williams said there's a good chance that Kerins was on duty when some of the robberies took place and that he apparently used his service weapon, a 9mm Glock handgun, in the Ohio robbery.

Williams said investigators had theorized that the robber might have been in law enforcement or the military because of the police-like stance he assumed when he drew his weapon in the banks.

But Williams was surprised when the suspect turned out to be Kerins, who showed no sign of drug abuse and had an outstanding record.

After the criminal charges were filed against Kerins, he was suspended without pay, pending the outcome.

Officers may face drug tests

Because of these incidents, Williams said, he is calling for a review of the investigation procedures used by vice enforcement officers. Williams also said that in the future, as a condition of assignment in the Vice Unit, officers will be required to submit to regular drug testing.

FBI agents who searched Kerins' suburban Hamilton Township, N.J., home seized two camouflage-type jackets, other military-style camouflage garb and white latex gloves believed to have been used in the bank robberies.

None of the cash from the New Jersey robberies was recovered. The money stolen from the Ohio bank was recovered.

Kerins, who was being held in Hamilton County, Ohio, without bail, did not enter a plea yesterday to charges that included aggravated trafficking and robbery. His next hearing is May 10.

"He is devastated," said lawyer Elizabeth Agar, who represented Kerins. "He's been trying for a long time to hold together his family and his job and try to avoid this kind of crash."

Information from Knight-Ridder Newspapers is included in this report.