Three-Time Armed Bank Robber Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison; Deportation Hearing to Follow Prison Term

Dwayne, K. Lewis, 28, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was sentenced Friday to 120 months in federal prison on armed bank robbery charges. Lewis pleaded guilty February 1, 2010 to armed bank robberies in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York in which nearly $269,000 was taken. Lewis, a Jamaican national, faces a deportation hearing after completing his prison sentence.

United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha announced the sentence, which was imposed by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mary M. Lisi in U.S. District Court, Providence.

Chief Judge Lisi imposed the sentence after referencing letters by several bank employees describing the emotional impact of the armed holdups. Some of the employees indicated they have been unable to return to work.

At Lewis’ change of plea hearing in February, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerard B. Sullivan said the government could prove that Lewis and two other men, all brandishing weapons, went into a Sovereign Bank branch on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston in June 2007 and robbed the bank of $27,254. The three men committed similar armed robberies at a Berkshire Bank in Chicopee, Massachusetts in March 2007, in which they took $26,000, and at a North Fork Bank in Deer Park, New York in July 2007, in which the robbers made off with $215,771. Lewis, 28, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, three counts of armed bank robbery, and one count of attempted bank robbery.

The other defendants, Richard Ducran and Tiashen Johnson, were arrested at the scene of an unsuccessful bank robbery attempt in Holyoke, Massachusetts in May 2008. Lewis was waiting outside the Holyoke bank in a rented car and managed to flee when Ducran and Johnson were arrested while attempting to flee from the bank. In June 2009, agents arrested Lewis in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Investigators linked all three to the Cranston, Chicopee, and Deer Park robberies.

Ducran and Johnson pleaded guilty to bank robbery charges in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ducran was sentenced to eight years in federal prison; Johnson is scheduled to be sentenced in September 2010.

In addition to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cranston, Chicopee, Holyoke, and Deer Park Police Departments investigated the robberies.