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Jail
Fri Apr 9, 2004 09:41 PM ET
BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a pentecostal minister to more than six years in prison for robbing banks from Maine to Massachusetts of more than $10,000, prosecutors said.
Jerry Hayes, 53, of Hartford, Maine, was arrested in May after he gave a Massachusetts bank teller a note saying he was armed and demanding that large-denomination bills be placed into a bag.
The note added: "Do not put any device into bag: paint, track, etc. If I sense an alarm is set: Someone will be hostage."
The teller gave the minister $2,550 in cash and a dye pack that exploded as he fled. Police later arrested him and found a loaded .38 caliber handgun on the floor of his car.
Federal prosecutors said a subsequent investigation showed he had robbed four other banks in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and that he was laundering the proceeds through an account in the name of the church where he was pastor, the Shema First Apostolic Assembly in Canton, Maine.
Hayes pleaded guilty to the robberies in September. U.S. District Judge Reginald Lindsay sentenced him on Thursday to six years and six months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.
Jail
Fri Apr 9, 2004 09:41 PM ET
BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a pentecostal minister to more than six years in prison for robbing banks from Maine to Massachusetts of more than $10,000, prosecutors said.
Jerry Hayes, 53, of Hartford, Maine, was arrested in May after he gave a Massachusetts bank teller a note saying he was armed and demanding that large-denomination bills be placed into a bag.
The note added: "Do not put any device into bag: paint, track, etc. If I sense an alarm is set: Someone will be hostage."
The teller gave the minister $2,550 in cash and a dye pack that exploded as he fled. Police later arrested him and found a loaded .38 caliber handgun on the floor of his car.
Federal prosecutors said a subsequent investigation showed he had robbed four other banks in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and that he was laundering the proceeds through an account in the name of the church where he was pastor, the Shema First Apostolic Assembly in Canton, Maine.
Hayes pleaded guilty to the robberies in September. U.S. District Judge Reginald Lindsay sentenced him on Thursday to six years and six months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.
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