By JAMIE SCHRAM, KEVIN FASICK and TODD VENEZIA
June 13, 2008
An Upper West Side bank robber - splattered from head to toe by an exploding dye pack left in his loot bag - nevertheless managed to hail a cab, buy drugs, rent a hotel room and hire a hooker before being caught, police sources said yesterday.
Maurice Hill, 46, who had allegedly stolen $3,000 from the Apple Bank at West 73rd Street and Broadway on Tuesday, was arrested - still covered in red dye - the next morning at a Bronx motel in the company of a prostitute, police sources said.
He had finished a prison sentence two months earlier for robbing the same branch.
After Tuesday's heist, an ink-stained Hill shelled out dye-covered cash for a cab ride to 116th Street, where he bought crack and got high, police sources said.
After several hours, he hopped another cab to the Pelham Garden Motel, where he paid for a $70 room with the stained cash, police sources said. The next morning, Hill got a drink from a nearby diner, where someone called Crime Stoppers.
