A Texas man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for bank robbery, after using a borrowed dealership car to make a highly illegal withdrawal.
Eric Dion Warren, 50, previously pleaded guilty to the charge, which stems from his attempt to buy a BMW on June 7, 2019.
Warren had committed to buy a car from a dealership in Lubbock at the time, and he borrowed a loaner car from the dealership so he could get the cash together, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Warren drove the car to an AIM Bank in nearby Wolfforth, approached a teller and handed over a paper bag and a note.
“This is a f—ing robbery. Play with me and die,” the note said, according to court documents. “I want $10,000 in 50 and 100-dollar bills now, you got 1 minute or I will kill you.”
Warren then pulled out what looked like a handgun. “I ain’t playing around,” he told the teller, according to the court documents. “I only want 100s and 50s.”
The teller handed over the loot, which included several stacks of $20 bills with tracked serial numbers. “Don’t push any buttons,” Warren told the clerk, before fleeing the scene with several thousand dollars.
“Mr. Warren admitted to driving away in a vehicle that had been loaned to him by a car dealership, while the sale of a black BMW was being finalized,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
Warren returned to the car dealership 15 minutes after the robbery, then began “waving the cash that he had illegally obtained from the bank robbery at employees in the car dealership.” He took the money to the financing office and tried to put down a $3,000 deposit on the BMW, documents say.
Someone called the dealership to report the robbery — and the car — while Warren was working out the sale, and an employee quickly put the scheme together. He realized that Warren had used the dealership car to rob the bank, so he called police.
Warren was arrested with $5,086 in cash on him. The serial numbers matched the bills that had been taken from the bank, authorities said.
“Law enforcement also recovered a painted pellet gun, resembling a real handgun, approximately 10 feet way from Mr. Warren at the time of his arrest,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Investigators later matched up Warren’s handwriting to the robbery note, and he was ultimately arrested.
Warren pleaded guilty to a charge of bank robbery in August of last year.
A U.S. district judge gave him the statutory maximum sentence of 20 years on March 9.