Houston Man Sentenced for Armed Bank Robbery and Money Laundering
| U.S. Attorney’s Office February 29, 2012 |
NEW ORLEANS—ABDEL RAHIM MUHAMMAD, aka Charles Ramee, age 58, a resident of Houston, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan to 13.5 years (162 months) in federal prison for armed bank robbery and money laundering. In addition to the prison sentence, MUHAMMAD was ordered to pay restitution to the Whitney Bank. Upon completion of his prison sentence, MUHAMMAD will be required to complete five years of federal supervised release.
On November 15, 2011, a federal jury found MUHAMMAD guilty of robbing the Whitney Bank located on Poydras and Camp St. in downtown New Orleans at gunpoint. In addition to the armed bank robbery conviction, MUHAMMAD was also convicted of conspiring to launder the stolen bank money.
According to testimony, MUHAMMAD entered the Whitney Bank on Poydras St. shortly after it opened on July 21, 2009, brandishing a gun. MUHAMMAD disarmed the bank security guard and then proceeded to point the gun at the first bank teller while demanding cash. The teller turned over cash but, unbeknownst to MUHAMMAD, the teller was also able to include an exploding dye pack amongst the cash.
In sentencing MUHAMMAD at the top of the federal sentencing guidelines, Judge Berrigan noted a pattern of violent behavior throughout MUHAMMAD’s life. MUHAMMAD was previously convicted of aggravated rape in Orleans Parish in 1980 and of two counts of armed bank robbery in Georgia in 2002.
This case was investigated by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the United States Postal Inspection Service and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney’s Rick Veters and Edward Rivera.