Mobile Resident Receives Two Years Imprisonment for Bank Robbery

United States Attorney Richard W. Moore of the Southern District of Alabama announces today that United States District Judge William H. Steele sentenced defendant Stephen Allen Mathes, 37, a resident of Mobile, Alabama, to twenty-four months imprisonment for bank robbery. As part of the sentence, the judge ordered that Mathes undergo three years of supervised release after finishing his term of imprisonment, pay a $100 mandatory special assessment, receive drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment as directed by the U.S. Probation Office, and pay restitution totaling $2,400 to the victim financial institution.

According to documents filed with the court as part of his guilty plea, around 10:00am on August 31, 2018, a white male entered BBVA Compass, 6470 US Hwy 90, Spanish Fort, Alabama 36527, a federally insured bank. He was unmasked and gave a bank teller a robbery note that said, “This is a Robbery[.] Place all 50 & 100 Bills in a [sic] envelope [.] No funny money or marked bills & nobody gets hurt!” The teller asked if the male was serious about wanting to rob the bank. He said yes. The teller gave the male $2,400, and the robber left the bank. The suspect robbed the bank by means of intimidation but did not use a weapon. The robbery note was left on the teller’s side of the counter.

A Spanish Fort Police Department detective responded to the scene around 10:30am. The bank’s surveillance system captured the robbery, but no outside video of the offense was available. The police sent pictures of the suspect to local media. A person called the police and said he recognized the robber as Mathes. The police later learned that the robber went to BBVA Compass in Daphne before 10:00am on August 31.

In a photo line-up on September 4, 2018, the BBVA Compass bank teller in Spanish Fort who had interacted with the suspect identified Mathes as the robber. Later that day, the police obtained a state warrant to arrest Mathes.

On September 6, 2018, agents with the Spanish Fort Police Department and the FBI went to Mathes’s home in Mobile, Alabama. He was taken into custody without incident and agreed to be interviewed. Mathes was transported to FBI in Mobile and Mirandized. He waived Miranda and confessed to robbing BBVA Compass in Spanish Fort and to earlier visiting BBVA Compass in Daphne to open an account. Mathes said he entered the bank in Spanish Fort on August 31 with a robbery note that he had created earlier that day. Mathes also gave a written statement and consent for police to search his phone and apartment, where agents found the shoes he wore during the robbery.

On October 25, 2018, a federal grand jury for the Southern District of Alabama charged Mathes with one count of bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). On December 27, 2018, Mathes pleaded guilty before District Judge Steele to the charge. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Spanish Fort Police Department investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Sinan Kalayoglu prosecuted the case.