Omaha Man Gets Life for Sioux City Bank Heist

An Omaha man has been sentenced to life in prison for his third bank robbery, a crime that landed him behind bars after a string of previous convictions.

Richard Allen Shaffer, 54, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced on September 5, 2014, after pleading guilty to one count of bank robbery in a United States District Court in Sioux City, Iowa.

The crime took place on October 12, 2012, when Shaffer walked into a bank in Sioux City, approached a teller, and handed her a note demanding money. The note read: “Be Quiet (GUN) Gimmie the money in the drawer and the replenishment drawer 100, 50, 20 10, 5, Now Be Quiet!”

The teller gave Shaffer $3,710 and he fled with the money. Police arrested him the next day on an outstanding warrant. They then searched his girlfriend’s home, with her consent, where they found the clothes he had worn during the robbery and the note he handed to the teller.

Shaffer committed this robbery after he was released from federal prison for six 2004 bank robbery convictions. Because he was sentenced for all six convictions at the same time in 2004, those six convictions counted as only one predicate felony under the three strikes law.

Shaffer’s criminal history also included a 1979 conviction in a United States Army General court-martial for unpremeditated murder, for which he was sentenced to 25 years confinement at hard labor and served 18 years.

Shaffer was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett who found, in a case of first impression, that the Army court-martial conviction was a qualifying serious violent felony, along with the 2004 bank robberies, and the present bank robbery conviction, triggered application of three strikes law as requested by the United States.

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