The ringleader of a crew of masked males who robbed a Martha’s Winery financial institution will spend a decade behind bars for a theft that netted $39,100 — cut up 4 methods.
U.S. District Courtroom Choose William G. Younger sentenced Miquel Anthonio Jones, 33, of Edgartown, to 10 years in federal jail to be adopted by three years of supervised launch for his management function within the Nov. 17, 2022, armed theft of the Rockland Belief financial institution department in Winery Haven.
Jones’ fellow robbers, Omar Odion Johnson, of Canterbury, N.H.; Romane Andre Clayton, of Jamaica; and Tevin Porter, of Bridgeport, Conn.; have every pleaded responsible for their very own roles within the theft and are scheduled for sentencing on separate dates subsequent month.
“This case highlights some of the most old-fashioned, blatant and terrifying criminal behavior we face: armed bank robbery. Miquel Antonio Jones orchestrated and led a calculated and violent robbery that terrorized bank employees and the surrounding community,” Massachusetts U.S. Legal professional Joshua Levy mentioned following Jones’ sentencing. “His conduct left lasting emotional scars, and today, he is paying a significant price for his actions.”
Jones was the one Martha’s Winery resident within the crew so, prosecutors say, he determined which financial institution to rob, deliberate the heist and picked up the instruments of the commerce: dark-colored clothes, zip-ties, duct tape and a terrifying disguise: “plastic masks that resembled an elderly man with exaggerated facial features.”
The three males met up at Jones’ Edgartown residence the day earlier than the heist and slept there. Early the subsequent morning, they got down to the financial institution, in keeping with the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace, the place Jones, Johnson and Porter hid in close by bushes and Clayton drove the getaway automotive to a close-by state forest earlier than bicycling again to the financial institution.
“As the bank’s three employees arrived that morning, Jones, Johnson and Porter — wearing the plastic masks and displaying two handguns — approached them and forced their way through the rear door,” a spokesperson for Levy’s workplace wrote in an announcement following sentencing.
They then pressured at gunpoint one of many workers to open the vault, from which the robbers took $39,100. They then certain the workers with duct tape and zip-ties and demanded entry to considered one of their autos, in keeping with prosecutors.
They used that automotive to get again to their very own automobile within the Manuel Correllus State Forest and fled the scene. The plastic masks and different issues had been burned at a neighborhood farm related to Jones’ landscaping job, the place the robbers additionally buried the 2 handguns used within the heist.
