A handcuffed couple in prison jumpsuits came before District Judge Robert Wagner Jr. on Tuesday and waived all charges connected to a Bristol Township armed robbery to trial in Doylestown.
Mario Bianchi, 35, and his fiance Katherine Swaim, 27, both of Makefield Road in Falls Township, waived their right to a preliminary hearing on several counts of robbery with threat of immediate serious injury, conspiracy, simple assault, terroristic threats to trial.
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According to court documents, a woman was doing wash at the Nu Way laundromat in the 1600 block of Haines Road when she was approached by Swaim who asked to use her to use her cell phone to dial a cab. The woman offered to make the call and Swaim pulled a knife and demanded the woman turn over her phone, $15 cash and keys, police said.
Swaim and a man believed by police to be Bianchi drove off in the woman’s 1996 gray Oldsmobile Cutlass, police. The car was found a few days later in Trenton, N.J.
According to police, the couple was behind an attempted armed robbery at the Wells Fargo Bank branch on Trenton Road in Fairless Hills and an armed robbery at the Laundry Depot on West Trenton Avenue in the Morrisville section of the township.
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Bianchi has also been charged in a separate robbery case. In that case, police said he stole several items from a Falls Township apartment complex. He is also accused of stealing from a 7-Eleven and threatening the clerk.
The two are already set for a trial on the previous robbery charges.
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The bail in the Bristol Township robbery was set at 10 percent of of $100,000 for both.
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