A former Squamish resident has been sentenced to five years in jail for having committed a series of robberies in the Lower Mainland in 2012, according to media reports.
Thomas John Schwartz, also known as Tom Stone, was charged with weapons-related offences and eight robberies of retail outlets in Vancouver, Burnaby, West Vancouver and North Vancouver in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported on Tuesday (June 10).
Schwartz, who was living in Squamish at the time of the offences, was arrested in December 2012 as he tried to cross into the United States. U.S. authorities detained him on an outstanding warrant, allegedly for having deserted the U.S. Air Force in 1972.
Schwartz, who was 68 at the time of his arrest, was extradited from the U.S. back to Canada when officials determined that he had been living in Canada under an assumed name and was being investigated for the armed robberies.
It’s not known how long Schwartz had lived in Squamish before his arrest, but for at least part of that time, he worked in the Squamish outlet of a Coquitlam-based electronics and cellular phone company. At the time of his arrest, an official with the company told the Squamish Chief that his employers knew him as Tom Stone and that Schwartz did not work for the firm between March 31 and Dec. 1, 2012, when the series of robberies occurred.
In at least some of the incidents, the suspect pulled out what appeared to be a gun during the commission of the offence.
