The Reverend Bernard Pagano (portrayed by Ralph Waite) was a Roman Catholic priest wrongly suspected of committing nine robberies in which an otherwise polite man held a gun on store clerks and demanded money. A woman who claimed to have been Pagano's lover gave his name to the police.
During the trial in 1979, several witnesses testified that Pagano was the robber. Then, in a dramatic turn, Ronald W. Clouser came forward with a lawyer and admitted he was the Gentleman Bandit. He pleaded guilty and went to prison. The charges against Pagano were dropped.
After the trial, Pagano became an advocate for people wrongly accused of crimes. At the time of his death, he was living in a mobile home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He died on August 1, 2006 at the age of 80 after suffering a stroke.
State university of New York's Maritime College (Bronx,NY), historic Fort Schuyler, was used as the hospital for the criminally insane in the film.