On Monday,
the suspect was described by police as a young white male, who entered
the bank shortly after 9:00am Monday morning and passed a note to a
teller in which he demanded cash and claimed to have a bomb. The
suspect produced neither bomb nor weapon, and fled the bank on foot
after being handed an undisclosed amount of cash. Although clothing
worn by the suspect was later recovered near Wheatland Street, police
said, a search of the area using a police dog did not produce any clues.

The
Century Bank and Trust is no stranger to armed robbery. The bank has
been robbed around three or four times in the past decade, Deputy Chief
Paul Upton told the Somerville News. Monday's robbery was unusual,
however, in that the suspect claimed to have a bomb. "This is very
unusual," Upton said, explaining that normally bank robbers claim to
have some kind of weapon.

Although the suspect in Monday's
robbery never produced a bomb, or any kind of weapon, Upton explained
that the suspect's threat is taken seriously. "This was an armed
robbery based on the threat made. We assume that he is armed until we
know that he is not."

"It's an awful thing," Barry Sloane,
Co-President and Co-CEO of Century Bank and Trust, said of the robbery.
"The rate of robberies nationally has gone up quite a bit in these
difficult economic times, and it's a sad and dangerous thing."

In
reviewing a surveillance camera photo taken during the robbery,
Somerville Detective Mario Oliveira identified the suspect as Michael
Noe. Working with the FBI Violent Crime Task Force, Somerville
Detectives began an aggressive search for Noe in the pre-dawn hours of
Tuesday morning. Their investigation led to Washington D.C. where Noe
was arrested. Noe subsequently made incriminating statements regarding
the robbery. Most of the money believed to have been stolen has already
been recovered.

Somerville Detective John Oliveira, who is
assigned to the Violent Crime Task Force, obtained an arrest warrant
charging Noe with Armed Robbery and Making a False Threat of the
Location of an Explosive Device. He will be arraigned in Somerville
District Court following rendition proceedings.