Some stories are easy to understand because the people in them keep changing, reinventing themselves with each new chapter. But this is not one of those stories. David Sartin Jr., a 40-year-old man from St. Petersburg, Florida, appears to have built his entire criminal identity around a single, strange costume: the face of an old man. Federal authorities now say that after spending more than a decade in federal prison for a string of five Texas bank robberies, Sartin returned to his old habits and his old disguise almost as soon as he was placed on supervised release. In August and September of 2026, they allege, he walked into two Florida banks wearing a prosthetic mask with gray facial hair, demanded cash, and then escaped in the same Toyota FJ Cruiser that had already linked him to his earlier crimes. The image is almost absurd: a man in a straw hat and sports jacket, pretending to be elderly, asking tellers to empty their drawers while knowing exactly what to say about dye packs and silent alarms. But for the tellers who had to stare into that weathered mask, the experience was likely terrifying. The story begins, in many ways, with the mask. According to a criminal complaint reviewed by federal authorities, an FBI special agent wrote simply, “In all of SARTIN JR.’s bank robberies, he used a mask.” That line may be the clearest window into who Sartin is and how he operates. The mask wasn’t just a way to hide; it was a signature, a ritual, a part he played so often that he perhaps began to believe it was his real identity.
On August 24, the first Florida robbery took place at Valley Bank in Largo. A man entered the branch wearing a straw hat, a sports jacket, gloves, and a prosthetic face covering that made him look far older than he was. He approached a teller and calmly demanded money, but before the cash came out, he made a specific and telling request: no dye packs. Dye packs are the small devices hidden in stacks of bank cash that burst with color and tracking ink once they leave the premises. His familiarity with them hinted at experience, and for good reason. The teller began gathering the cash and, under the counter, quietly triggered the silent alarm. The robber did not seem to notice. He only grew more impatient, urging the teller to hurry. A bank manager later told investigators that when the man finally had the money in his hands, he offered a strange and unsettling farewell: “Until we meet again.” He escaped with $2,900. Before leaving, he wedged a yellow wet-floor sign between the exit doors, a small but oddly clever trick meant to slow anyone chasing after him. Then he headed toward a nearby church. But he wasn’t seeking sanctuary. Surveillance video picked him up as he retrieved a bicycle, rode into a nature preserve, and then transferred to a Toyota FJ Cruiser that had been waiting for him. Investigators traced the car using a patchwork of footage from surrounding businesses, city trucks, a police cruiser, and even a school bus. The trail led them to a familiar name. The Toyota had been used in several of Sartin’s earlier Texas robberies. He could change his disguise, it seems, but not his means of escape.
Three weeks later, on September 15, authorities say he did it again. The location this time was a Truist Bank in St. Petersburg, and the costume was nearly identical: a flat cap, glasses, a sports jacket, and one of those “old man” masks with a gray mustache and whiskers. He handed the teller a note demanding cash without dye, a phrase that had become something like his calling card. There was no verbal threat, no weapon displayed, just the note and the mask. The teller complied, and Sartin fled with about $2,554. But this time, the teller noticed something important. The man in the mask moved too quickly, his gestures too smooth, his energy too young for the wrinkled face he was wearing. “He did not move like an old man would,” the FBI agent later wrote. It was a simple observation, but it captured the central flaw in Sartin’s plan. A mask can change your face, but it cannot change your body, your mannerisms, or the tension that sits in your shoulders when you are committing a crime. By then, the FBI was already watching. Agents had set up a surveillance camera near Sartin’s home. The footage showed the Toyota leaving before the second robbery and returning after it was over. When the car pulled back into the driveway, a man who looked like Sartin stepped out and unloaded a bicycle from the back. The next evening, the surveillance camera recorded something even more revealing. Investigators watched as Sartin stood next to the vehicle and spray-painted its white roof black, apparently hoping to alter its appearance before anyone could connect it to the robberies. It was a small, desperate act of improvisation, and it only strengthened the case against him.
On September 19, federal agents arrested Sartin on a warrant for violating the terms of his supervised release. It was not the bank robbery charges themselves that first put him back in custody, but the violation was enough to stop him before he could plan another heist. Once in custody, the evidence began to pile up. Agents searching his property found a bicycle and articles of clothing that matched what the surveillance cameras had captured during the robberies. At a storage unit, they discovered an “old man” mask that they say matched the disguise worn in both Florida robberies, along with glasses, clothing, and a fake handgun. The gun, if it was used at all, was apparently another prop, another part of the costume. In a guest room where Sartin sometimes stayed, investigators found another mask and a journal. The journal identified its author through its pages and handwriting, and its title page contained a single, bizarre sentence: “God’s Best friend is a Bank Robber!” Those words may be the most human thing in this entire case. They reveal a man who, in his own mind, was not just breaking the law but playing a dramatic and even heroic role. The old man mask hid his face, but the journal exposed something deeper: a desire to be seen as someone special, someone who defied the rules and walked out the door with the money. It is a fantasy that ignores the fear of the tellers, the quiet alarm buttons, and the long trail of video footage leading back to his door. But fantasies can be powerful, especially for someone who has spent most of his adult life in a system that tells him exactly who he is supposed to be.
Sartin’s history with crime stretches back nearly two decades and shows a remarkable consistency of method. In 2008, he was convicted of attempted bank robbery in Mississippi after a failed holdup that involved Halloween masks and disguises. Even then, he seemed drawn to the idea of wearing a costume in order to commit the crime. The disguise may have changed over the years, but the underlying compulsion remained the same. In 2018, he was sentenced to 10 years and one month in federal prison for five bank robberies in Texas. During those robberies, according to the criminal complaint, he wore a disguise similar to the one used in Florida. He was released onto supervised release in May 2025, a moment that was supposed to mark a fresh start. Instead, if the allegations are true, he was back inside a bank within months, wearing another old man mask and demanding cash without dye. The FBI agent’s observation — that Sartin has used a mask in every one of his bank robberies — is more than just a detail. It is the key to understanding his psychology. The mask allowed him to become someone else, someone older and perhaps more harmless-looking, someone who could walk into a bank and leave without being recognized. But it also made him predictable. The same mask, the same vehicle, the same phrases. For all his effort to disguise himself, he never seemed able to disguise the pattern.
Now Sartin faces the consequences of that pattern. Each count of bank robbery carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, so if convicted on both Florida charges, he could receive up to 40 years behind bars. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida announced the charges, but, as always, Sartin is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Yet even a potential conviction does not feel like a victory in a story like this. There is little joy in watching a man in his early forties spend his life cycling through prisons and banks, each time returning to the same mask and the same routine. Perhaps the most ironic punishment is that he was not caught by a clever trap or a high-speed chase. He was caught by his own inability to let go of the props that made him feel in control. He was caught because he used the same getaway car, the same type of mask, and the same costume, and because he moved too fast for an old man. He was caught because the world he tried so hard to disguise was already known to the people watching him. Sartin may have worn an old man’s face, but in the end, he could not hide the restless, impatient self that had been writing those journals all along. God may be a bank robber’s best friend, according to the title page, but neither God nor a prosthetic mask can erase the trail a person leaves when he keeps walking the same path.
