A man who spent nearly two decades behind bars for robbing three banks in Baltimore was found guilty of robbing a bank in Orlando in order to fund the production of a film in Florida.
Nacoe Ray Brown pled guilty to bank robbery and violating the terms of his supervised release, according to a statement issued by United States Middle District of Florida Attorney Roger B. Handberg on Thursday, January 5.
Brown, who is from Baltimore, was previously convicted of robbing three banks in the Baltimore area in 2001. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison and was granted an early release in 2020. After he was released, Brown began serving a term of supervised release under the U.S. Probation Office in Baltimore.
On June 28, 2022, while Brown was visiting Florida, he robbed the McCoy Federal Credit Union located at 1900 McCoy Road in Belle Isle. Brown entered the bank wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, a surgical style facemask, and plasstic gloves and passed a note to a teller threatening that he had a gun and demanding money.
The teller gave Brown $4,296 before he fled the bank and entered a nearby gas station where he had a change of clothes staged.
A witness who saw Brown leave the bank and enter the gas station contacted the Belle Isle Police Department.
Shortly thereafter, police responded and located Brown at a hotel where he was staying. They recovered the demand note that Brown had passed to the bank employee, and the bag in which he was storing the cash. Police also recovered the disguise that Brown had discarded in the restroom of the gas station.
After Brown was arrested, he told authorities that he committed the bank robbery because he was filming a movie in Florida and had run out of money to pay for production.
A sentencing date has not yet been set in the case. Brown faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for the bank robbery offense and up to 3 years imprisonment for violating the terms of his supervised release.