By Jeff Lehr
news@joplinglobe.com
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A federal judge sentenced a Diamond man Wednesday to 10 years and one month in prison for robbing four banks a year ago in Missouri and Kansas.
Judge Richard Doerr assessed Richard A. Bratt, 58, the term in a federal prison without any chance of parole during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Springfield. Bratt had pleaded guilty earlier this year to robbing banks in Joplin, Webb City, Neosho and Independence, Kan.
The robberies took place between June and October of 2009 and netted the robber about $39,000, according to court documents. Bratt also admitted to investigators last year that he had robbed the box office at Hollywood Theaters and an Aldi grocery store in Joplin in the month preceding the spree of bank robberies, according to court records.
Bratt was caught after a robbery of the U.S. Bank in Neosho on Oct. 15, 2009.
He had entered the bank wearing a white hockey face mask, and pointed a gun at an employee in a side office and at a teller in the main lobby. He ordered all the bank’s employees down on the floor before trying to make his getaway in a white Chevrolet Lumina that he is believed to have used in several of the robberies.
A Neosho police officer spotted the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot eight minutes after the robbery, and officers surrounded the suspect. Bratt refused to get out of the vehicle and was reaching for a gun when an officer threw open the driver’s door and shot him with a stun gun. A .38-caliber handgun was removed from Bratt’s hand while he was incapacitated by the shock. He was placed in handcuffs and taken into custody.
The hockey mask and some black gloves with white stripes that Bratt had worn during the robbery were discovered inside the car. In a search of his home on Lime Kiln Road near Diamond, officers discovered a multicolored cat mask that was worn during a Sept. 10 robbery of Commerce Bank at 2980 S. McClelland Blvd. in Joplin, and a khaki “boonie” hat that was used in a July 10 robbery of the Commerce Bank in Webb City.
Investigators also found in a shed a full-face motorcycle helmet that was believed to have been worn in a June 5 robbery of Commercial Bank in Independence. Court records indicate that the bank robbery spree started there while Bratt was attending a three-day event for recovering drug addicts in Oak Cliff, Kan.
Police in all three cities were assisted by the FBI in the investigation of the robberies.
‘Takes’ released
According to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Missouri, the “takes” in Richard Bratt’s four bank robberies last year were $4,597 from Commercial Bank in Independence, Kan.; $9,975 from Commerce Bank in Webb City; $11,458 from Commerce Bank in Joplin; and $12,636 from U.S. Bank in Neosho.
