An admitted drug addict who teamed to rob the Union Bank branch at 1175 Rosecrans St. and who made off with $8,125 was sentenced May 15 to nearly 11 years in federal prison.
All the money was recovered minutes after the June 6, 2007, robbery, according to prosecutors. As a result, Timothy Jessie Thompson, 23, of Oak Park, was not ordered to repay the money from the Point Loma robbery case.
However, Thompson was also convicted of a second bank robbery of a Union Bank branch in Clairemont, leading U.S. District Court Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz to order Thompson to repay $11,500.
A second defendant, Daniel Robert Wayne Brown, 21, of Chollas View, was sentenced April 11 to nearly 6 years in prison for helping Thompson rob the Point Loma bank.
Brown pleaded guilty to this robbery, while Thompson pleaded guilty to committing two bank heists and to carrying a loaded firearm to commit the robberies.
Thompson used an unidentified accomplice who displayed a firearm in the Clairemont robbery on May 11, 2007. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is urging anyone with information to contact the FBI.
On the day of the Point Loma bank robbery, Thompson admitted parking his black Mercedes on Upshur Street and admitted both he and Brown walked to the bank. They left a teen-age girl in the car, according to court records.
Inside the bank, Thompson admitted to displaying his firearm and to ordering the bank’s customers to get down on the floor while Brown obtained the money from a teller.
Thompson had been under FBI surveillance even before the robbery, and agents and San Diego police officers were at his car when he and Brown returned. They were arrested and the money wasrecovered.
A silver semi-automatic pistol was taken from Thompson’s possession.
In explaining his actions for the robberies, Thompson wrote the judge and said he was working as a security guard at night and that he used crystal methamphetamine to stay awake. He admitted to becoming addicted to it and lost his job as a result.
“I was only living for the next high,” Thompson wrote, according to court records. “Before I knew it, I was hooked on using methamphetamine, marijuana, crack cocaine, heroin and alcohol.”
Moskowitz sentenced Thompson to 46 months in prison for the robberies but added 84 months consecutively for the use of a firearm, bringing the total term to 130 months.
Moskowitz also ordered Thompson to pay $300 in penalty assessments.