(Image source from: The Indian-origin Bombshell Bandit gets 66 months jail term)
"The Bombshell Bandit" was sentenced to 66 months imprisonment and fined tens of thousands of dollars for robbing the banks in state of Arizona.
The 24 year old Indian-origin nurse, Sandeep Kaur was convicted in the robbery cases, where she robbed four banks by threatening the staff. On June 6 last year, she had robbed USD 21,200 at a Bank of the West branch in Valencia, California. That was her first time robbery.
And in her second robbery at a bank Lake Havasu City in Arizona she grabbed USD 1,978. And in her third the nurse robbedUSD 8,000 at bank San Diego, before her strike on a St George bank which led to her capture in July, eight weeks after her crime spree began.
Kaur was actually given up to 20 years in federal prison on each of the four charges against her, as well as fines of USD 250,000, and three years supervised post release on each charge.
Defense attorney Jay Winward pleaded for lighter sentence of four years in prison, citing the challenges of Kaur's upbringing. "She is educated, she has great worth to society ... and she does want to make amends," Winward said.
District Judge Ted Stewart shed some light on the closed discussions when he noted that Kaur had gone into debt with "a loan shark" and robbed banks to repay him.
"She amassed a large gambling debt and, in order to repay a loan shark, she robbed the banks," Stewart said.
FBI dubbed the California nurse "The Bombshell Bandit" after robberies last year she did in which a well-dressed woman approached and threatened the bank tellers and threatened to detonate a bomb.
-Kannamsai