Reportedly Spotted Outside S&L; With Mask and Gun : Doctor Held as Suspect in Robbery Try

A 56-year-old doctor was arrested outside a Corona del Mar savings and loan Tuesday, allegedly while carrying a skeleton mask and a pistol, police said.

Dr. Jerome Jablon of South Laguna was held on suspicion of attempted bank robbery at the Newport Beach City Jail, police spokesman Tom Little said. His bail was set at $50,000.

Jablon, whose jail booking slip lists him as a general practitioner, maintains a private practice in Corona del Mar and is a licensed doctor, according to the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance, the state agency that licenses doctors.

Little said an unidentified woman jogging by the Beverly Hills Savings and Loan at 3748 E. Coast Highway noticed a man standing near a 1984 Subaru in the rear parking lot at 9:58 a.m.

The man, dressed in what the woman described as bulky clothing, was tugging on a skeleton mask and clutching a white vinyl zippered bank bag, Little said.

The woman entered the savings and loan, which opens at 10 a.m., and told an employee that “there’s a guy in the back of your bank who looks pretty strange,” Little related. The employee, Sheree Towel, rushed to the back door, locked it and peered through a window to see a man on the other side wearing a skeleton mask, Little said. Police were called.

Meanwhile, two employees of a nearby perfume shop noticed the man in odd attire and telephoned police.

Officer Mark Hassell arrived minutes later and discovered the man walking briskly to the front of the building, the white bag in one hand and the mask in the other. Little said Jablon, who never entered the savings and loan, was arrested without resistance about five minutes after opening time.

Jablon was wearing a jogging outfit beneath a three-piece suit, Little said. A .38-caliber revolver was found inside the white bank bag, police said.

Jablon first received his medical doctor’s license in California in 1955, a spokeswoman for the Board of Medical Quality Assurance said. She added that Jablon graduated from the state University of New York in 1955 and has a clear record with the agency.

His practice, located at 2345 E. Coast Highway, is about 14 blocks from the Beverly Hills Savings and Loan, police said.

The FBI was notified of the arrest, but the agency investigates only robberies, not attempts, Frank Calley, special agent in charge of the Santa Ana office, said Tuesday.

“I can assure you that we don’t have any skeleton face (mask) bandits (currently under investigation),” Calley said. “I think I would remember that.”