Masks so realistic they're arresting the wrong guy

[Blue_Tires]

Masks so realistic they're arresting the wrong guy

A white man who robbed Ohio banks looked so convincing in a black-male disguise that an innocent man was held. That's not exactly how SPFXMasks of Van Nuys had intended its masks to be used.

Expensive, realistic masks — the kind that are the hit of the costume party — are increasingly being used out of season, and not always for laughs.

A white bank robber in Ohio recently used a "hyper-realistic" mask manufactured by a small Van Nuys company to disguise himself as a black man, prompting police there to mistakenly arrest an African American man for the crimes.

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Conrad Zdzierak, a 30-year-old Polish immigrant, used one of Slusser's masks to disguise himself as a black man during a series of Ohio robberies last spring. The costume was so good that six of seven bank tellers wrongly identified an African American man as the culprit in a photo lineup, said Det. Keenan Riordan, who investigated the case for the Springdale, Ohio, Police Department.

"We showed the picture to his own mother, and she thought it was him," Riordan said.

The man remained in jail until Zdzierak's girlfriend tipped police off after finding money and a mask in his hotel room. Zdzierak pleaded guilty last week to six robbery counts.

Police found two of Slusser's masks in Zdzierak's safe — one of a young black man called "The Player," and another of an old white man called "The Elder." A search of his computer revealed videos of the robber modeling the old-man mask and trying to speak like an elderly person.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mask-20101209,0,3122458.story