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GREENSBORO — A woman who assisted as a lookout during at least one of the “Bluetooth Bandit” bank robberies testified Wednesday that she and Emmanuelle Dancy staked out target locations together and took part in a January 2008 hold up at a West Friendly Avenue bank.

Daniela Smith, 22, told jurors of meeting Dancy through Sabrina Phillips , a coworker at a local coffee shop. Smith said she and Dancy helped Phillips and “Bluetooth” ringleader Christopher Collins plan and rob the Mid Carolina bank branch on Jan. 16, 2008.

Smith was the first of three co-defendants set to testify against Dancy, 26, who is on trial this week for five counts each of robbery with a dangerous weapon and felony conspiracy.

He is the last of six suspects to go to trial in the series of heists, which targeted at least nine area banks in 10 robberies from summer 2006 through January 2008.

The FBI dubbed the robbers the “Bluetooth Bandits” because of the cellular telephone devices they wore during the heists.

Smith told jurors that five members of the group met outside her Tomahawk Drive apartment on Jan. 16, 2008, and drove to the bank in three separate cars.

Smith said she and Phillips parked at different locations near the bank to watch for police, while Collins and Dancy conducted the robbery. All of those involved, she said, were in contact with one another by cell phones.

“I gave them the go-ahead, that things were clear,” Smith said. “I heard both their voices while they were inside the bank. (Collins) was in charge, Emmanuelle was more of an enforcer.”

Smith said Collins and Dancy — wearing dark hooded sweatshirts and sunglasses — robbed the bank armed with handguns before fleeing in a black Infiniti sedan driven by another defendant, Anthony Payne.

She testified that all five involved in the heist went back to her apartment nearby, where they divvied up the money.

She also identified Dancy from a surveillance photo taken inside the bank. It was the second time the group robbed the same Mid Carolina branch, with the first coming in September 2006.

Smith, arrested in late January 2008, pleaded guilty to her involvement in the 2008 robbery and to creating a diversion in a January 2007 bank robbery by lighting a Dumpster on fire to draw police attention.

She faces up to 64 months in prison for her role in the heists and, as part of a plea deal, agreed to testify against her co-defendants.

During questioning by Tom Maddox, Dancy’s attorney, Smith admitted she never physically saw Dancy in the bank from her lookout location.

Maddox also highlighted Smith’s prior testimony at trials for Collins and Phillips, during which she didn’t mention she and Dancy staked out potential robbery locations together.

Other testimony Wednesday came from tellers and employees of banks targeted in the heists who described their frightful experiences; and from police detectives, who told of how their investigation led to the group’s apprehension.

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com