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Palmetto man gets 9 years for robbing 6 banks

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 22, 2009

TAMPA - A 36-year-old Palmetto man was sentenced today to nine years in federal prison for robbing six banks in four counties in less than a month.

James Franklin Fogarty, who has a lengthy record of robberies and burglaries, blamed his actions on a serious drug problem.

"I want to try to get off these drugs, and I'm tired of doing wrong," he said before he was sentenced. "It's not that I chose to. If I hadn't been on these drugs, I wouldn't have done what I've done. … I need help."

Sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of 92 to 115 months, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eduardo Toro-Font went along with the plea agreement and recommended a sentence on the low end, or seven years and eight months.

Toro-Font said the lower sentence was justified because Fogarty didn't use a firearm in the robberies and cooperated with authorities, saving the government the cost and trouble of a long, complicated trial.

But U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington didn't believe that sentence was adequate.

"As I sit here, I see someone who has consistently broken the law, and by doing the same thing, by taking something that doesn't belong to him," she said.

Defense attorney Dionja Dyer said Fogarty "clearly has a drug problem, which, unfortunately, he chooses to support by stealing other people's property.

"He's not just out there reigning terror because he likes to reign terror on victims," she said. "He has a problem."

The judge agreed Fogarty has a problem but told him, "I just think that it's time that somebody came down somewhat hard on you so that you don't ever do this again."

Fogarty wore a "Miller" baseball cap in four of the robberies and a camouflage hat in two. On one day, he robbed two banks, one in Brandon and one in Sarasota.

In each robbery, he walked in, told the teller it was a robbery and demanded money. He walked out of the bank and then ran away.

Fogarty pleaded guilty in the following robberies:

• $890 from SunTrust Bank, 109 44th Ave. E., Bradenton, on Sept. 9.

• $6,149 from Bank of America, 5315 39th St. E., Bradenton, on Sept. 12.

• $1,026 from Bank Atlantic, 301 W. Brandon Blvd., Brandon, on Sept. 19.

• $1,340 from Cadence Bank, 8592 Potter Park Drive, Sarasota, on Sept. 19.

• $1,200 from Calusa National Bank, 1850 Tamiami Trail, Port Charlotte, on Sept. 25.

• $2,519 from Trust Co. Bank, 6285 14th St. W., Bradenton, on Oct. 3.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837.

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