Affidavit points to drug-, crime-ridden past for Dover man arrested in bank job

Police say the suspect, Jose Miguel Reveras-Morales, lived in the house to right and robbed the bank just steps down the street, on left, small blue sign to left of oncoming red car.. (Inset photo, Dover Police, main photo/Courtesy)

DOVER - Jose Miguel Reveras-Morales, a career criminal in country for just a few years, had about 14 minutes of freedom after police say he robbed a Dover bank the length of a football field from his apartment last month.

A police affidavit obtained by The Rochester Voice shows that just 14 minutes after he allegedly passed a note and showed a gun to a Central Avenue bank teller demanding money back on March 23, a K-9 unit had tracked him to his back apartment at 720 Central Ave.

But police didn't move in right away, according to the affidavit. After establishing a perimeter around Reveras-Morales' apartment so no one could get in or out, they continued to develop evidence against the suspect, taking interviews and watching surveillance images back at the bank that implicated his involvement as well as interviewing his girlfriend.

One customer at Kennebunk Saving Bank at the time of the robbery said he saw the suspect run across Central Avenue and then northbound.

According to the affidavit, the garbled note the suspect passed to a female teller read, "This is a robbery I have a gun in the jacket Im (sic) holding I want you to Put each stack of money and different bag not tracking divice (sic) and no ink Im been watching you I now (sic) exactly where you leave (sic) don't do anything stupid and no one get hurt." He also told the teller, "Don't be stupid, I have a gun" and showed a black pistol in his bag, court documents indicate.

Police soon obtained a booking photo of Reveras-Morales from Portsmouth Police taken on Feb. 24 when he was arrested for receiving stolen property. The affidavit also states that Morales, who was working full time at a Dover printing company, had been convicted in 2010 for the armed robbery of Cabot Street Market in Portsmouth.

In fact, Reveras-Morales has been convicted of five misdemeanors and two felonies in the 3-5 years he's been in the United States, according to court documents, and has an admitted drug problem and is on a "detox watch" at the Strafford County Jail. He also has the pending felony charge out of Rockingham County for the Portsmouth robbery from February.

Reveras-Morales was charged with Class A felony robbery in the Dover heist and remains held at Strafford County Jail on $100,000 cash bail.