Selma Resident Convicted On All Counts in Armed Bank Robbery Trial

United States Attorney Richard W. Moore of the Southern District of Alabama announces that a federal jury in Mobile, Alabama found defendant Stanley Young, 32, of Selma, Alabama, guilty on all charges in an armed bank robbery case. United States District Judge Terry F. Moorer presided over the trial, which started on October 19, 2020 and ended three days later. Young is scheduled to be sentenced on January 21, 2021. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 17 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

After the jury’s verdicts, United States Attorney Richard W. Moore said, “This case demonstrates the efforts that we will take to catch and prosecute bank robbers.  Local law enforcement and the FBI vigorously pursued the three suspects in this case and now all of them are going to the federal penitentiary.  These three bank robbers believed that they could outsmart the cops and they were wrong.  Also, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has some of the very best prosecutors in the country and we will spare no expense in bringing bank robbers to justice. Bank robbery violates the peace and dignity of our small towns like Marion, Alabama and we won’t stand for it. I offer my sincere thanks to all of our law enforcement partners who brought this case to a successful conclusion.”

On December 30, 2019, a federal grand jury for the Southern District of Alabama charged Young and his two codefendants, Jabriel Bell and Fortune Hoppins, with bank robbery and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime.  Hoppins and Bell entered guilty pleas in July. Hoppins is scheduled to be sentenced on November 16, 2020. Bell’s sentencing date is December 3, 2020.

The jury heard evidence that on September 14, 2016, Young, Bell, and Hoppins robbed the West Alabama Bank & Trust, a federally insured bank in Marion, Alabama. The victim tellers testified that one robber, Bell, held them at gunpoint while another robber, Hoppins, stole money from the tellers’ drawers.  Eyewitness testimony and expert analysis of historical cell-site records established that Young was the getaway driver. After the robbery, the defendants fled the crime scene and later set fire to the getaway car on the side of a county road a few miles from the bank. There, the robbers moved to a “switch car,” which Young had borrowed earlier on the morning of the robbery, to flee from Marion to Selma. Young and Hoppins then fled to Connecticut, where they were located and arrested by the United States Marshals Service.

The FBI, the Fourth Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, the Perry County Sheriff’s Office, the Marion Police Department, the Selma Police Department, and the Bridgeport, Connecticut Police Department investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorneys Sinan Kalayoglu and Justin Roller are prosecuting the case.