March 05, 2009

VINCENT ANTHONY PIAZZA INDICTED IN BANK ROBBERY

New Orleans Native Indicted for robbing Citibank branch in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Anthony Vincent Piazza on Thursday for robbing a Citibank branch located at 99 Post Street in San Francisco February 20, 2009.

According to an affidavit filed by a Special Agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Piazza was located and arrested at a hotel in the Financial District on the same day as the bank robbery. The loss to the bank totaled approximately $800. Piazza was videotaped on the bank’s video surveillance camera system and admitted to the bank robbery.

Piazza pled guilty in 2001 to six counts of bank robbery and attempted bank robbery in the Northern District of California and was sentenced to 77 months imprisonment. Piazza was still under supervised release following that imprisonment at the time of the bank robbery on February 20, 2009.

The defendant made his initial appearance in federal court in San Francisco on February 24, 2009. He remains in custody. The defendant’s next scheduled appearance is at 9:30 a.m. on March 3, 2009, for a detention hearing and arraignment on the indictment in federal magistrate court.

The maximum statutory penalty for bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2113(a) is 20 years imprisonment, 3 years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

Cynthia Frey is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case, with the assistance of Marina Ponomarchuk. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Please note that an indictment contains only allegations against an individual and, as with all defendants, Mr. Piazza must be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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For more information on federal criminal defense law, contact the Law Offices of Joseph Shemaria of Los Angeles, California.