Westerly Bank Robber Gets 70 Months

A 36-year-old man from Pawcatuck, Conn., has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for robbing a Westerly bank.

Lawrence M. Sullivan, 36, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Providence on Thursday to 70 months in federal prison for robbing a branch office of the Washington Trust Company in Westerly, R.I., on September 15, 2014, announced United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha and Westerly Police Chief Edward W. St. Clair.

At sentencing, U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith also ordered Sullivan to serve three years supervised release upon completion of his prison term. Sullivan pleaded guilty on March 2, 2015, to one count of bank robbery.

According to court records, at the time of his guilty plea, Sullivan admitted to the court that on September 15, 2014, he approached a teller at a Washington Trust Company branch office located inside a supermarket in Westerly and demanded cash. The teller gave Sullivan $1,049, and he threatened to ‘start shooting’ if his demands were not met.

On September 16, 2014, acting on information provided by Westerly Police Department detectives, Groton, Conn., police located and arrested Sullivan at a motel in Groton. Sullivan was discovered hiding inside a storage closet at the motel.

This is not Sullivan’s first run-in with the law. According to court records, at the time of his arrest, Sullivan was serving a term of 3 years federal supervised release, having recently completed serving a 63-month federal prison sentence imposed in February 2010 for robbing two banks in Connecticut and one in Maine, in 2008 and 2009. He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New Haven in December 2009 to two counts of bank robbery.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra R. Hebert. The FBI and the Groton, Conn., Police Department assisted the Westerly Police Department in the investigation of this matter.