2022 bank robbery
Tulsa County District Judge Tracy L. Priddy has ordered football superfan and bank robber Xaviar Michael Babudar to pay $10.8m to a bank teller that he threatened with a gun during a December 2022 hold up.
Judge Priddy ordered the Kansas City Chiefs fan, nicknamed by other fans as ‘ChiefsAholic,’ to pay ex-teller Payton Garcia $3.6m and $7.2m for “inflicting physical harm and emotional distress” and for punitive damages, respectively.
hand over “the 100s or he’d put a bullet in her head.”
The order to pay the ex-teller comes as a result of Babudar’s holdup of the Tulsa Teachers Credit Union, in Bixby, Oklahoma. According to Bixby police, the Chiefs fan pointed a black CO2 pistol at Garcia. He then demanded the former teller hand over “the 100s or he’d put a bullet in her head.”
Babudar pleaded guilty in February to 11 bank robberies or attempted robberies, and faces up to 50 years in prison for charges of bank robbery and money laundering.
Social media poser
Babudar enjoyed a significant social media following on Instagram and X by cultivating the persona of an “ambitious, generous young man who enjoyed gambling.” But an ESPN investigation revealed that what he shared about himself online was mostly fabrication.
The “generous” claim goes out the window when held up against Babudar’s two-year crime spree, which saw him violently rob or attempt to rob financial entities in Oklahoma, California, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, and Tennessee.
While Garcia’s attorney Frank Frasier admitted to ESPN that it will be a challenge to collect the cash from Babudar, he said there was more to Judge Priddy’s ruling than is first apparent. “He’ll never be able to profit from this. Say he writes a book in prison, say he does the Lifetime or Hallmark movie […] anything he obtains from that will be paid to his creditors.”
The attorney added Priddy’s ruling made it clear crime does not pay, claiming she sent a message that: “You cannot profit by greater notoriety, you cannot profit from clicks, getting more views, getting more likes.”
Robbery caused trauma
Garcia’s attorney also stated his client had to leave her bank teller job following the holdup and that she still suffers from the trauma caused by Babudar.
[It affected] all aspects of her life”
“She’ll never be able to go back into work in banking. [It affected] all aspects of her life,” including her marriage and her children, Frasier said.
The disgraced Chiefs’ superfan is being held at Leavenworth federal prison in Kansas. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July for charges that include money laundering, whereby feds claim he washed the cash from his bank robberies via Missouri casinos.