Louisiana Man Sentenced to 21 Months for Attempted Bank Robbery

FORT SMITH, AR—Conner Eldridge, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced that Frederick Charles Davis, 25, of Shreveport, Louisiana, was sentenced on Tuesday to 21 months in prison for conspiring to commit bank robbery. Chief United States District Judge P. K. Holmes, III handed down the sentence in federal court and also ordered Davis to pay $32,322 in restitution.

According to court records, during the early morning of September 3, 2012, Davis attempted to rob an ATM at the Citizen’s Bank and Trust of Mountainburg. Davis was aided by another individual, who had obtained a cordless grinder from a local home improvement store. The two planned to use the grinder to remove the hinges of the bank’s ATM. While Davis was attempting to grind the hinges off the ATM, he was communicating with the other individual, who was serving as a lookout, over an open Internet connection on his smartphone. After grinding off the hinges, Davis then used an SUV and a tow chain to force open the ATM door; however, one of the hinges was not fully removed, and the ATM door failed to open. During the time of the attempted robbery, law enforcement was conducting surveillance on Davis as a result of an extensive investigation into similar ATM robberies in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Davis was apprehended shortly after the failed robbery attempt. The restitution was ordered to compensate the bank for damage to their ATM machine.

Davis was originally indicted on October 11, 2012. He pleaded guilty on January 16, 2013.

This case was investigated by the FBI, the Fordyce Police Department, and the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin Wulff prosecuted the case for the United States.