A New Haven man was found guilty Thursday of robbing a Naugatuck bank at gunpoint.
After two hours of deliberation, a federal jury found 29-year-old Michael Massey guilty of robbing the Naugatuck Valley Savings Bank last fall. The verdict capped a four-day trial before Judge Robert N. Chatigny in U.S. District Court in Hartford, according to Tom Carson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
A second city man, Devon Patterson, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of armed bank robbery on Monday, at the end of the first day of the trial, Carson said.
Massey and Patterson put on disguises and entered the bank shortly after noon on Sept. 22, 2008, court records allege. Massey brandished a gun while Patterson “leapt over the teller counter and stuffed money from the teller drawers into a bag,” Carson wrote. They fled with $24,178. They drove one getaway car to a second getaway car. They were caught after they crashed the second car following a high-speed chase with Naugatuck police.
Massey was found guilty of one count of armed bank robbery and one count of “possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.”
Both men face up to 25 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for the robbery charge. Massey faces a mandatory five extra years in prison for wielding the gun, Carson said. They are due to be sentenced on March 5.
In other crime news, according to police spokesman Officer Joe Avery:
A mugging took place outside Reyes Market at 1613 Chapel St. at 5:50 p.m. on Thursday. The mugger had a black mask and a black handgun. He stole a wallet with an unknown amount of cash and four packs of Newport 100s, then fled on Ellsworth Avenue.
A Domino’s Pizza delivery man told police he was robbed at 9 p.m. on Thursday. He had arrived to deliver a pizza to a house on Admiral Street when a 13-year-old boy and a 25-year-old man simulated handguns and demanded money. Both wore masks. They stole a pizza, soda, and $10.
