Pettway Pleads Guilty to Bank Robbery

Antoine Pettway, who was arrested on bank robbery charges, pleaded guilty to bank robbery and using a firearm during a violent crime in a federal court last week.^[1] The plea came less than a week after his cousins, Marcus and Douglas Burrell, entered their own guilty pleas.^[2] All three admitted that they robbed the First Community Bank in west Mobile on March 1, getting more than $15,000.^[3]

According to Pettway's written plea agreement, the three men went inside bank on Cottage Hill Road, one of the robbers pointed a gun at people inside the bank and ordered employees to get on the ground, while the other two went behind the counter and took $15,472.^[4]

Mobile police, honing in on "bait money" included in the stash, tracked the robbers to a relative's house on South Ann Street and arrested them about 30 minutes later. Police seized a gun and found the money stuffed behind a washing machine.^[5]

Bank robbery
Bank robbery is a federal crime and is committed when a person, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, from the person or presence of another, or obtains or attempts to obtain by extortion any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association; or when a person enters or attempts to enter any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association, or any building used in whole or in part as a bank, credit union, or as a savings and loan association, with intent to commit in such bank, credit union, or in such savings and loan association, or building, or part thereof, so used, any felony affecting such bank, credit union, or such savings and loan association and in violation of any statute of the United States, or any larceny. ^[6] A person found guilty of this crime shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.^[7]

The sentence for this crime can be lengthened if a firearm was involved, because 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) states that except to the extent that a greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by this subsection or by any other provision of law, any person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime (including a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime that provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device) for which the person may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, uses or carries a firearm, or who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence or drug trafficking crime;^[8] be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years;^[9] if the firearm is brandished, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 7 years;^[10] and if the firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years.^[11]

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^[1] Brendan Kirby , Federal court digest: Mobile man pleads guilty to robbing west Mobile bank, The Mobile Press Register, July 02, 2007, available at http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news (last visited July 2, 2007).
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a)(2007).
^[7] Id.
^[8] 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)
^[9] Id. at § 924(c)(1)(A)(i)
^[10] Id. at § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii)
^[11] Id. at § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii)