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Recidivist Bank Robber Sentenced to Life Imprisonment

U.S. Attorney’s Office January 22, 2010
  • Northern District of California (415) 436-7200

SAN FRANCISCO—Frederick Lim Johnson was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison and ordered to pay $315,119 in restitution for an armed bank robbery spree committed in the Bay Area in 2007, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced.

Following a two week trial, Johnson was convicted by a jury on Aug. 24, 2009, of six counts of armed bank robbery and one count of conspiracy. During the trial, evidence showed that in January and February of 2007, Johnson conspired with Tavaras Lee Blackmon, Richard Duran, and Vanessa Short to rob banks in the San Francisco Bay Area. From Feb. 24, 2007, through May 15, 2007, the defendant led the crew on an armed robbery spree of eight banks and was eventually arrested by the FBI in a parking lot near a bank in Sunnyvale, Calif. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying a gun, a mask, gloves and a stocking cap. The defendants robbed banks in Belmont, Fremont, Cupertino, San Mateo, Sunnyvale, and San Jose, Calif. During the robberies, Johnson, Duran and Blackmon armed themselves with pistols and performed takeover style robberies where one of the men controlled the bank lobby while the others vaulted the bank teller windows and demanded money. Short was the getaway driver for three of the robberies. The total amount taken from all the banks by the robbery crew was $315,119.

This latest conviction was Johnson’s third federal armed bank robbery conviction (1996, 2005, and 2009). In addition to the bank robberies in 2007, Johnson participated in multiple armed bank robberies in 1994 and again in 2003.

Johnson, 39, of San Francisco, was indicted by a federal grand jury on April 17, 2008. He was charged with eight counts of armed bank robbery 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d), and one count of conspiracy to commit bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 371.

Blackmon, Duran and Short have all entered guilty pleas. Blackmon was sentenced to 151 months imprisonment, Duran was sentenced to 68 months, Short is scheduled to be sentenced on March 3, 2010. Johnson, Blackmon and Duran have all been in custody since their 2007 arrests; Short has been on supervised pretrial release.

Derek Owens and Dave Hall are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case with the assistance of Lillian Arauz-Haase, Kevin Costello, Julie Edwards and Hui Chen. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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