Teenage twin sisters who masterminded a brazen Oct. 2002 bank robbery testified yesterday they did it in a misguided bid to save their family home for foreclosure.
Chelsea and Elysia Wortman, 15-year-old fraternal twins, spoke matter-of-factly about stealing $3,550 from a Barnegat, N.J., bank, using a BB gun painted to look real.
“I saw that my family was upset,” Chelsea told the Toms River court. “The money was needed, so I decided to rob a bank.”
Both girls are now serving four years in juvenile prison for the heist.
As part of their plea deal, they agreed to testify against their stepfather, Kevin Jones, an ex-con who could not work because of heart problems.
He did not know about their heist, but allegedly tried to cover it up afterward by destroying evidence and laundering the proceeds.
Chelsea, who was first to take the stand, described in disturbing detail the twisted thought process that led her to convince her sister to go through with a plan to rob the Sun National Bank.
She said her motive was the threat of foreclosure on her family’s $94,000 home.
Even revealing the plot to their mother, Kathleen Wortman Jones, did not stop them from becoming junior bank robbers.
Chelsea testified that her mom initially tried to stop her, telling her: “You’re not going to do that. You’re going to get in trouble.”
But Chelsea said she “was determined” to go ahead with the robbery.
“I let her know if you’re not coming, I’m still doing it,” she testified.
According to officials accounts, the girls’ mother did come along. In fact, she drove them to the bank in the family’s Buick.
“She drove the car to make sure her kids were safe,” Kevin Jones said in an earlier interview.
Both girls who testified yesterday told similar versions of the way the shocking heist went down.
Chelsea said that after donning their masks “we prayed.”
Chelsea, a brunette who wore a tight bun in court, held the trash bag for the money while Elysia, a slightly built blonde, pointed their little brother’s BB gun in the face of teller Carol Clark.
“They started to walk away and [Elysia] took two steps and came back and said, ‘Is that all of it?’ ” Clark testified earlier.
“Yes, we keep very little money here,” Clark told her.
Chelsea then smiled when prosecutor Michel Paulhus showed her a still photo from the bank’s camera and asked her who it showed.
“It’s me,” she said.
Her sister, Elysia, took the stand next, giving curt answers under questioning from Jones’ defense attorney, Philip Pagano – then breaking down as she described what happened after the heist.
She said that her stepfather – who has previously told reporters that he was conflicted about what to do when he learned of the robbery – took the family to gamble in Atlantic City.
While that may seem strange, prosecutors allege the gaming trip had a criminal motive: to launder the robbery money.
When Pagano said, “Want a tissue, Chelsea,” she snapped back, “I’m not Chelsea.”
When he later asked, “Are you mad at me,” she exclaimed, “I’m mad at him and my mom for getting me into this situation,” looking at her stepdad.
Jones was the second husband of the girl’s mother, who had the twins when she was 19. He spent three years in prison for dealing cocaine.
He later worked low paying jobs as a laborer, but suffered congestive heart failure and couldn’t work.
The girls’ mom has pleaded guilty to her roll in the bank robbery and faces 30-years in prison. Yesterday, Elysia said her mom asked her to lie in court to save her parents from prosecution.
With Post Wire Services