Convicted bank robber guilty again in $30,000 O.C. heist

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A man convicted of robbing banks in Los Angeles County 20 years ago has been convicted in the robbery of a Bank of America in Orange in 2011 in which he threatened employees with a gun and fake bomb and made off with $30,000, prosecutors said.

Garry Allen Reeder, 50, pleaded guilty Monday to two felony counts of second-degree robbery, one felony count of false bomb delivery and one felony count of second-degree commercial burglary, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors said he faces sentencing enhancements for four previous federal convictions from 1992.

Reeder, of Santa Fe Springs, is set to be sentenced in April, facing a possible term of 25 years in state prison, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that on the afternoon of Jan. 4, 2011, Reeder entered a Bank of America branch under the pretense of opening a checking account. He sat at a desk with a bank employee and opened a day planner that contained what appeared to be a bomb, prosecutors said.

He told two employees they had 30 seconds to give him $30,000 in cash, according to prosecutors. As the employees went to the vault, prosecutors said, Reeder lifted his shirt, showing a firearm to bank customers to keep them from moving.

Prosecutors said he took the money, left the bomb -- later determined as fake -- on a desk and fled on foot.

Reeder was arrested Jan. 7, 2011, by Orange police at a hotel in Corona. Prosecutors said he had in his possession $19,000 in marked bills; he had spent the other $11,000 on hotel rooms, rental cars and other personal expenses.

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-- Rick Rojas