LAS VEGAS - - A man who committed five bank robberies in the Las Vegas area in 2005 while he was on escape status for a prior bank robbery sentence, has been sentenced to just over ten years in federal prison, announced Daniel G. Bogden, United States Attorney for the District of Nevada.

ROBERTO CHARLES YSASSI, JR., age 46, of Las Vegas, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roger L. Hunt on Monday, December 12, 2005, to 125 months in prison, the maximum period of imprisonment he could have received.

YSASSI was convicted by a Las Vegas jury on September 8, 2005, of robbing two banks in Henderson and three banks in Las Vegas between February 25, 2005, and March 31, 2005. The banks included the Nevada State Bank at 4001 East Sunset, Henderson; the Wells Fargo Bank at 791 North Nellis, Las Vegas; the Citibank at 2891 North Green Valley Parkway, Henderson; the Bank of America at 4290 South Rainbow, Las Vegas; and the Bank of the West at 10249 Torrey Valley Court, Las Vegas. YSASSI used notes to commit each of the robberies, and did not display or threaten a weapon.

Following a three-month investigation, YSASSI was apprehended in Las Vegas on June 20, 2005, by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Officers. In April 2005, shortly after the last robbery, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Officer saw photographs of the robber during a shift briefing, and recognized him as a driver of a green pickup truck with whom he had contact during an investigation of an unrelated case. YSASSI had identified himself as “Robert Charles”. Officers established Surveillance at “Robert Charles’” apartment complex, and soon thereafter arrested him on traffic violations, including displaying fictitious license plates and driving without a license. A search of his person yielded controlled substances and false identification cards. A search of his vehicle yielded a distinctive folder and hat that the robber had used in all of the robberies. YSASSI was charged in a Federal Criminal Complaint with Bank Robbery and indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on June 28, 2005.

For approximately two years, YSASSI had been on escape status from a 130-month federal prison sentence entered against him in 1995 for two counts of Bank Robbery in the Las Vegas area. In May 2003, the Federal Bureau of Prisons had furloughed him from a prison facility in Texas to travel by bus to a community corrections center in Las Vegas to serve the remainder of his sentence. He allegedly escaped while in route to Las Vegas. For that offense, YSASSI has been charged separately in Case No. CR-S-05-0261-BES, and trial is scheduled for January 31, 2005, before U.S. District Judge Brian Sandoval.

The case was investigated by Detectives with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Special Agents of the FBI, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys William R. Reed and Margaret M. Stanish.

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