A man who has spent most of the past 18 years behind bars for multiple bank robberies will spend the next 25 years in prison after he stole $80,000 during bank robberies the day after he was released from an 8-year prison stint.
Timothy Jones, 60, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for bank robbery this week.
According to court records, Jones was released from Putnam County Correctional Facility after having served an 8-year sentence on June 1, 2022. Jones had been incarcerated for a robbery that he committed at a Wells Fargo bank along Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando.
On June 2, 2022, the day after his release, Jones walked into the Truist Bank at 11200 S Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando at around 9:55 a.m. Jones met with an employee in an office and announced that he was robbing the bank.
Jones told the employee that he had a gun and that he would shoot everyone in the bank if he was not given $150,000. He told the employee there would be a “bloodbath” if he did not get the money that he demanded.
Employees provided Jones with $30,000 and he forced one of them to accompany him outside of the business. He then carjacked a vehicle and fled the scene.
On June 9, 2022, a week after the first robbery, Jones entered a SouthState bank in Kissimmee and, similarly, met with an employee in an office at the facility. Jones told the employee that he was robbing the bank and that he had a gun.
According to court records, Jones told the employee that he did not want any “funny business” and demanded $50,000.
The bank complied with Jones demand and provided him with the amount he requested. He then took the keys to an employee’s car and escaped the scene.
Later that afternoon, Jones was apprehended near the employee’s car with $1,815 in cash and $47,200 in the vehicle.
After he was arrested, Jones told authorities that he was mentally incompetent and unable to stand trial.
In May 2023, law enforcement authorities obtained a handwritten letter written by Jones to a relative. Jones had attempted to disguise the letter by marking it as correspondence to an attorney, which would have made the communication privileged and confidential.
In the letter to his relative, Jones explained that he was pretending to be incompetent in order to “manipulate,” “trick,” and “fool” doctors and the court system into showing him leniency and reducing his sentence.
According to court records, Jones was convicted of robbery in 1995, 2006, and 2013. Before his arrest in June 2022, he had spent almost all of the past 18 years incarcerated for robbery charges. As a result, he was sentenced as a career offender.
As part of his sentence, Jones must also forfeit $30,000 of unrecovered proceeds from the robberies. He pled guilty to the charges in September 2023.