Effects of war, gambling addiction.....

Effects of war, gambling addiction plagued ‘Mario Brothers bandit’
By Jameson Cook
Macomb Daily Staff Writer

Brodak spared tougher sentence, gets 10 years for second series of bank robberies

Untreated post-traumatic stress disorder due to Vietnam combat combined with financial and gambling problems led to the “Mario Brothers bandit” committing a series of bank robberies in the mid-1990s.

Those problems were never resolved and Joseph Brodak resumed those criminal deeds more than a decade later.

A judge sympathized with the plight of Brodak, 65, formerly of Clarkston and Rochester Hills, and approved a downward departure from federal sentencing guidelines, ordering him to spend 10 years in federal prison for the robbery of a Warren bank in January 2009.

After learning he likely will get help for his issues, Judge Marianne Battani of U.S. District Court in Detroit sentenced him below the minimum guideline range of between 15½ and 19½ years up to 25 years. Brodak will spend five years on supervised released following the 10-year term, and he must receive treatment for gambling addiction, if deemed necessary by probation officials.

Brodak, when he was known as the Mario Brothers bandit, also spent about six years in prison and three years on parole related to robbing 11 financial institutions in Macomb and Oakland counties in the summer of 1994.

For his recent sentencing for robbing three Macomb County banks, Brodak’s attorney, David Steingold, said he requested leniency based on Brodak’s age, mental condition, service to the country and the fact that in the guidelines scoring he was penalized double for the same series of crimes, with convictions in federal court and Oakland County Circuit Court.

Steingold noted that Brodak, a 17-year General Motors employee, is not assaultive and was described as a good, hardworking family man who financially supported loved ones.

“It’s easy to look at these charges and understand how terrorized these bank tellers must have been and say, ‘Oh my, throw him in jail and throw away the key,’” Steingold said. “But that’s why we have individualized sentencing. To go that way would be to ignore the symptoms of PTSD suffered by many veterans of wars before and after Vietnam.”

The sentence didn’t sit well with Warren Police Chief William Dwyer, whose department helped capture Brodak in January 2009 with the help of Hazel Park resident Stephen Pasden Jr., who received a commendation from Warren police.



“This is a career criminal,” Dwyer said. “The fact that the judge went below the guidelines is disconcerting.”

Dwyer said Brodak’s senior citizen status doesn’t guarantee he will be law abiding.

“I will predict right now that when he gets out he will rob again,” he said.

With credit for time served and 15 percent off for good behavior, Brodak could be released into a halfway house in about seven years, Steingold said.

Dr. Steven Miller, a Grosse Ile forensic psychologist who interviewed and studied Brodak, recommended the lighter sentence. He said Brodak can be free without reoffending.

“His mood swings and erratic behaviors can be adequately stabilized and controlled with appropriate medications and regular ongoing psychological counseling,” Miller says in a report. “He has a good prognosis for reintegrating back into the community and, ultimately, for becoming a productive, law-abiding member of the community.”

Brodak spent 13 months in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 before he was honorably discharged. He told Miller he killed many Viet Cong in battle.

Brodak showed “common symptoms” of clinical depression and signs of PTSD and high-risk behavior, and acted out in many ways, including gambling, cocaine use and dangerous motorcycle riding, in the years before his first series of robberies, Miller said. His main vice in recent years before the 2009 robberies was gambling.

“It’s all about risk-taking, playing Russian roulette with your life like he and others were forced to do in Vietnam,” Steingold said.

He was married twice, had three daughters and had been living with a woman the past several years before his 2009 arrest.



Brodak said in a letter to the judge that PTSD affected him.

“At first I was not aware of my illness and later, after it was diagnosed, there was no treatment available,” he said. “The PTSD contributed to ruining both of my marriages and it prompted me to gamble uncontrollably.”

He said his criminal solution to financial woes conflicted with his religious beliefs.

“I must say that all my life I have believed in God. … My deeply rooted moral/religious values were particularly compromised whenever I was faced with financial chaos that threatened the status quo of my family life which I value more than anything in the world,” he said.

Brodak’s downfall began after he got fired from his good-paying job as a tool and die maker at the General Motors Tech Center in Warren in 1993 for stealing a fellow employee’s Chevy Corvette from the parking lot.

“At the time I suffered the trauma of a job loss and feared for the status of providing support for my children,” Brodak said.

His children all attended college and have had successful careers, according to Steingold. One has a master’s degree and one is a college professor and book author, he said.

Brodak’s series of bank robberies over several weeks in 1994 baffled police. Law enforcers dubbed him the Mario Brothers bandit due to his resemblance to the video game’s character, “Luigi.” Brodak donned a fake mustache, large-rimmed glasses and a baseball cap. His spree drew media attention.

Brodak evaded police with the help of his disguise and method in which he ate at a restaurant after a robbery until “things cooled off,” Warren police said. He also transferred a stolen license plate onto various rental cars.

He was caught in August 1994 after two Shelby Township police detectives saw a car matching the description of the getaway vehicle for a robbery at a Citizen’s State Bank on Hayes Road in Shelby Township parked at the now-closed Tee-J’s Golf Course on 23 Mile Road in Macomb Township. Brodak was arrested after having a sandwich and a couple of beers at Tee-J’s. He was found with betting chips from the Windsor casino and betting slips from Hazel Park Raceway.



Accused of robbing eight banks in Macomb and three in Oakland, he spent more than six years in prison. After his release in about 2000, he got his skilled trades job at GM back and took early retirement in 2008. He told Miller he gambled away $60,000 of his $65,000 buyout proceeds.

His third bankruptcy attempt was denied, he said. He was “faced with home foreclosure as well as a great deal of credit card debt,” he said.

“It was at this time that I made a horrible mistake and robbed a bank in order to save my home,” he said.

Brodak’s request for leniency at his Nov. 2 sentencing was backed by comments in letters from his family, including one of his three daughters, his live-in girlfriend, siblings and nieces and nephews. All described him as a nonviolent, responsible individual who cared for and took care of his loved ones.

They said he never talked about his Vietnam service, and upon returning from his military service was quieter and more withdrawn. He never received treatment for PTSD. At age 20, he married his high school sweetheart.

“He is a troubled, tortured soul, perhaps overwhelmed with life and its responsibilities, but he is no criminal,” said his brother, Casimir Brodak, 73, of Sterling Heights.

His live-in girlfriend, Carol Kepler of Clarkston, said he frequently experienced nightmares about his combat experience and migraine headaches.

“He would never talk about it so I ceased to ask,” she said in a July 1 letter.

Kepler, who met Brodak in 2001, said no one including Brodak told her about his prior bank robbery convictions. She said Brodak had “some weird mood swings,” but called him “very caring, giving and hardworking.”

“He is very meticulous, extremely organized and a wonderful person who needs some professional help,” she said in asking for leniency.

Brodak was most recently caught in January 2009 after Pasden, who was with his wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend, saw Brodak scurry past him amid red smoke from an exploding dye pack at the TCF Bank on 10 Mile Road in Warren. Pasden followed Brodak’s getaway Chevy Blazer, and called police. Brodak was captured by police when he stopped at a Dequindre Road parking lot.

Also that month, he robbed the now-defunct Warren Bank branch on 19 Mile Road in Sterling Heights, and the Comerica Bank branch in a Kroger store, near 12 Mile and Dequindre roads in Warren.