A 31-year-old King County man received a seven-year prison sentence on Tuesday in Seattle for his involvement in eight bank robberies last year in Western Washington, including two in Kent.
Vincent G. Thompson helped recruit juveniles who he and a partner trained to commit what became known as the “Buddy Bandits” robberies, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office media release.
Thompson and his partner, Robert Cal Adams, also robbed a Chase Bank in Puyallup on April 14, 2014.
U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour said the sentence was appropriate because Thompson involved juveniles in the crimes. Coughenour ordered Thompson to serve three years of supervised release following the prison sentence.
On Jan. 26, Thompson pleaded guilty to two counts of bank robbery. Adams, Thompson’s co-defendant, was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a string of bank robberies where three juveniles were provided with threatening notes and instruction on how to execute the bank robberies.
Those 2014 robberies included on April 1, Chase Bank on Pacific Avenue in Tacoma; April 7, US Bank on 176th St., Puyallup; April 9, Alaska Federal Credit Union branches in Renton and Kent; April 9, US Bank on Pacific Highway in Des Moines; April 10, Wells Fargo on 72nd Street East, Tacoma; April 11, BECU on Pacific Highway South, Kent; and April 11, Bank of America on Southwest 336th Street, Federal Way.
In asking for the seven-year sentence prosecutors wrote to the court, “Thompson’s choice to assist in sending juveniles to rob banks presents an extraordinary risk to the community, bank tellers, security guards, law enforcement and – most significantly – the juveniles themselves. This was quite literally a tragedy waiting to happen…. for an adult to encourage juveniles to engage in serious criminal actions – simply because the adult wanted to be ‘paid’ without working – is deserving of a significant period of incarceration.”
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