Staten Island, New York Man Sentenced to More Than 14 Years in Prison for Bank Robberies

CAMDEN, NJ—A Staten Island, N.Y., man was sentenced today to 151 months in prison for committing two bank robberies in Middlesex County, N.J., U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Jermaine Dawkins, 38, pled guilty in July 2010 to an Indictment charging him with the bank robberies of a Mutual Bank branch in Edison, N.J., on June 6, 2009, and a Skylands Community Bank branch in Metuchen, N.J., on June 9, 2009. He entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle, who also imposed the sentence today in Camden federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court: Dawkins admitted robbing the banks by presenting a demand note to a teller at each bank. He received $5,288 from the teller at the Mutual Bank and $457 from the teller at Skyland Community Bank. He also admitted that following the Metuchen robbery, he led the police in a vehicle pursuit, stopping only when his vehicle was blocked by traffic. Dawkins admitted that he refused to submit to custody, requiring officers to break the vehicle’s windows and forcibly place him under restraint. Dawkins committed the robberies shortly after his release from federal custody from a previous conviction for a string of nine bank robberies he committed in 1996 and 1997.

In addition to the prison term for the bank robbery offense, Judge Simandle sentenced Dawkins to 20 months in prison for violating the terms of his supervised release from federal custody. Judge Simandle also ordered Dawkins to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $5,288 in restitution.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward in Newark; investigators with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan; and police officers with the Metuchen, Edison, and East Brunswick Police Departments, for the investigation leading to today’s sentence.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall H. Cook of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Newark.

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Defense counsel: Maggie Moy, Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Camden