Getting caught with a fistful of stolen cash after running out of a bank isn’t top on the list of things to do for most bank robbers. But that’s just what allegedly happened to a Fall City man Nov. 7 after a Lynnwood bank robbery.

James Arthur Valentine, 40, had been the subject of a two-month FBI investigation of three King County bank robberies. Agents and officers of the FBI’s Puget Sound Violent Crimes Task Force, Lynnwood Police Department and Seattle Police Department learned he was a registered guest at a Lynnwood motel. Minutes after they began surveillance around 11 a.m., they saw him get into a vehicle driven by another man who then drove away from the motel. Investigators tailed the men to Seattle and back toward Lynnwood.

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