‘Bombshell Bandit’ nurse jailed for bank robberies in US
Saturday, 11/04/2015
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LOS ANGELES: A 24-year-old Indian-origin nurse, dubbed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as “the Bombshell Bandit”, has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison and fined tens of thousands of dollars for robbing banks in the US state of Arizona.
Sandeep Kaur, a professional California nurse, admitted that she is the woman the FBI dubbed “the Bombshell Bandit” after robberies last year in which a well-dressed woman approached bank tellers and threatened to detonate a bomb if they did not hand over cash from their registers. Kaur, who escaped longer prison terms, derives her nickname of “Bombshell Bandit” from the bomb threats she made during the robberies, according to the FBI.
66 MONTHS IN PRISION
She was on Tuesday sentenced in St George to serve 66 months in federal prison and pay tens of thousands of dollars in penalties as a result of her short-lived crime spree, The Spectrum reported.
Kaur escaped with USD 21,200 from her first robbery at a Bank of the West branch in Valencia, California, on June 6 last year, the most success she had at any of the four robberies she pleaded guilty to. In subsequent robberies, she grabbed USD 1,978 and USD 8,000 at banks in Lake Havasu City in Arizona, and San Diego, respectively, before her strike at a St George bank which led to her capture in July, eight weeks after her crime spree began. FACES 20 YRS IN PRISON
Kaur faced up to 20 years in federal prison on each of the four charges against her, as well as fines of USD 250,000 ( ` 1.5 crore) and three years of supervised post-prison release for each charge. Defence attorney Jay Winward asked the court for a sentence of 48 months. He told the court that Kaur was young, well-educated, capable of paying restitution, and had no prior criminal history. She was raised in a traditional Indian family and grew up feeling “trapped” and bullied, Winward said.
She had run from an arranged marriage, to her boyfriend, whom she subsequently married. However, the relationship turned abusive, Winward said.
GAMBLING ADDICT
After making some money in the stock market, Kaur ended up in Las Vegas, acquiring a gambling addiction and becoming indebted to loan sharks, according to the attorney. He told the court that Kaur was not a run-of-the-mill criminal, but rather a “good, wholesome person who made some horrible decisions”.
Kaur felt remorse, Winward said, and had been a model prisoner, and she had turned back to her religion. She was willing and capable of paying back the money she had stolen in the bank robberies, and could become a useful member of society, he said. Winward said even though Kaur threatened violence during the robberies, she was not a violent person and did not have a firearm or explosives during the robberies.
Prosecuting attorney Paul Kohler said that during the robberies, the bank tellers did not know Kaur did not have a weapon, and so were afraid for their lives. The tellers were “trapped”, as were the families driving on the I-15 motorway during the police chase, and the police officers who responded.
Before pronouncing the sentence, US district judge Ted Stewart called the case “complex”, citing both the violence of Kaur’s crimes, and her intelligence and opportunities.
