A Portland man who robbed two banks in Portland last October was sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland to more than 12 years in federal prison.
Francis J. Ready, 59, used a revolver to rob the TD Bank branch at 1410 Congress St. on Oct. 3 and to rob the Bangor Savings Bank at 883 Forest Ave. on Oct. 12.
Ready stole $2,846 from TD Bank and then made off briefly with $14,189 from Bangor Savings Bank before being caught, according to court records.
Ready pleaded guilty last Nov. 19 to charges of armed bank robbery and using a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence.
Judge D. Brock Hornby sentenced him on Wednesday to serve 147 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
Within minutes after the Bangor Savings Bank robbery, Portland police Officer Edward Ireton stopped Ready as he fled through a nearby parking lot carrying a white bag filled with cash, wrote FBI agent Patrick Clancy in an affidavit filed with the court.
As Ireton had Ready detained in the parking lot, Ready asked the officer if he could get his cigarettes from his nearby car, Clancy wrote.
That car, a black Pontiac Grand Prix, matched the getaway car captured in surveillance footage from the TD Bank robbery, in which the robber wore a scarf and a hooded windbreaker and pointed a silver-colored revolver at several people in the bank, according to police and court records.
Police determined that the owner of the Pontiac, Corey Berrick, had been staying with Ready at his St. John Street apartment. When police showed Berrick footage from the TD Bank robbery, Berrick identified Ready as the man in the picture and said he had seen him wearing the same red windbreaker on the day of the TD Bank robbery, Clancy wrote in the affidavit.
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