OKLAHOMA CITY – An ex-con with an active arrest warrant was driven to a fast-food restaurant by a police officer last May and robbed a nearby bank minutes later.
Brandon Scott Newberry was indicted June 3, 2020, by a federal grand jury on one count of bank robbery, entered a guilty plea last August, and was sentenced earlier this month to 14 years in federal prison.
U.S. Western District Judge Scott L. Palk imposed a 169-month federal prison sentence against Newberry on February 4, followed by three years of supervised release. Palk also ordered Newberry to pay $770 in restitution, the amount of stolen money that was not recovered by law enforcement after the holdup.
An affidavit filed by an FBI agent relates that at 4:34 p.m. May 12, 2020, an Oklahoma City police officer responded to a disturbance call and contacted Newberry.
Newberry informed the officer there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest from Muskogee. The officer confirmed the active warrant but it was a “no extradition” warrant.
At Newberry’s request, the officer dropped him off at 5:41 p.m. in the vicinity of a McDonald’s restaurant in the 9000 block of NE 23rd Street in Oklahoma City, just south of the City National Bank and Trust inside a Walmart Supercenter in the 9000 block of NE 23rd Street.
At 5:49 p.m. Newberry walked through the Walmart store, and at 5:51 p.m. he walked to the bank and waited in line behind two other customers.
At 5:57 p.m. Newberry approached one of the bank tellers and said, “I’m robbing you. I have a gun in my waistband.” He handed the teller a yellow piece of paper on which was written, “I have a gun in my waist! Give me all the money in your register with no GPS, Die [cq] Packs or tracking devices!”
Newberry walked away from the bank with $3,070 stolen from the teller’s drawer.
Subsequently the OKC police officer viewed the surveillance footage and identified Newberry as the bandit. In addition, the teller and Newberry’s brother ID’d the suspect from a photograph.
Later that night Newberry arrived at the Oklahoma County Crisis Intervention Center “and advised he robbed a bank,” the FBI agent wrote in his affidavit.
Police arrested Newberry, recovered approximately $2,300 cash in his possession, and retrieved the clothing he wore during the robbery discarded near the bank and the Walmart store.
At the sentencing hearing, Judge Palk noted Newberry’s continued propensity to engage in criminal activity despite his prior felony convictions that include theft, robbery, grand larceny, and possession of stolen property.
Newberry, 39, has a criminal record that spans two decades.
Newberry was convicted in Muskogee County of second-degree burglary and false declaration of ownership of property in a pawn shop. For those crimes he was imprisoned from September 2000 through May 2002, Oklahoma Department of Corrections records reflect.
According to the court clerk in Dallas County, Newberry received a one-year state jail sentence on a theft conviction in 2007 in the 195th Judicial District Court in Texas.
Newberry was charged in Tulsa County with robbing an Arvest Bank on November 14, 2016, while in possession of a stolen car.
He pleaded guilty on May 1, 2017, to second-degree robbery and possession of a stolen vehicle, along with a grand larceny charge that had been pending in Oklahoma County since 2006.
Although Newberry was sentenced to seven years in prison, he was released in January 2020 after two years and eight months.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oklahoma City said Newberry is from Guthrie, but an Ada television station reported he is from Ada.
The OKC bank robbery case resulted from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Oklahoma City Field Division, with assistance from the Midwest City Police Department and the Oklahoma City Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stan West prosecuted the case.