A federal judge sentenced two men to 12 years and three months in prison yesterday for being part of an armed gang that stole $117,000 while terrorizing a Rodgers Forge bank, where the bandits also stole a .357-caliber revolver from a guard.
Kittrell Decator, 24, and Craig L. Scott, 25, protested the guilty findings during the sentencing hearing before Baltimore U.S. District Court Judge Frank A. Kaufman.
"I must appeal to the conscience of the people . . . to help save this dying institution known as the American criminal justice system," Scott told the judge. "The government is not concerned with the truth, but simply with the convictions of black men."
Scott was arrested at the Westview Mall in Catonsville the day of the robbery -- June 8 -- after he hurled a duffel bag containing nearly all of the stolen money at an FBI agent who tried to question him. He was arrested after a brief struggle and chase through the mall.
A key witness, a doctor who spotted the robbers making their getaway near the bank in the 6700 block of York Road, provided the FBI with the license tag number of the truck they used. The vehicle belonged to Decator.
Among the evidence linking Decator to the crime were items found in a car in which he was riding at the time of his arrest, including two semi-automatic pistols used in the robbery and the gun belonging to the bank guard, prosecutors said.
Decator, of Belcamp in Harford County, is believed to have been one of two gunmen who went into the bank wearing latex gloves and black hoods.
The robbers disarmed the guard, held the employees at gunpoint, and forced them to fill a duffel bag with money from the vault.
Scott, of the 3300 block of Presstman St. in Baltimore, is believed to have driven the getaway vehicle.
The other gunman, Jonathan M. Jones, 23, who lived with Scott, also was convicted of the bank robbery and is awaiting sentencing.
Federal investigators said the bank was robbed eight months earlier by a group of men who employed similar tactics.
No charges have been filed in that robbery, however.
Prosecutors said the $117,000 taken in the June robbery was tainted by red ink from an exploding dye pack that went off during the getaway.
Much of the money that was recovered was covered with the ink, despite the robbers' apparent attempts to cleanse the bills with nail polish remover, prosecutors said.