An Edgartown man who pleaded to robbing a Falmouth Bank last year was sentenced to eight years in prison this week.
Petar Petyoshin, who was arrested in May for stealing more than $21,000 from the Davis Straits Rockland Trust, was also given five years of supervised release by U.S. District Court judge Angel Kelly at his sentencing Monday.
Police say Mr. Petyoshin, 40, robbed the bank at gunpoint in April while wearing a blond wig, sunglasses and a surgical mask.
Mr. Petyoshin entered the bank just before 9 a.m. April 8, placed what he said was a bomb on the bank teller counter and pulled out a handgun.
Mr. Petyoshin, who worked at the Oak Bluffs water district and had a clothing store on Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, then had customers and employees zip-tie their hands together and forced two tellers to hand over $21,579, police said. He fled in a car he stole from a customer.
Police arrested Mr. Petyoshin at the Island registry of motor vehicles and a search of his home produced 57 firearms, a large quantity of ammunition and thousands of dollars bundled together in Rockland Trust money bands.
Immediately after the robbery, Mr. Petyoshin made a several thousand-dollar cash down payment on a new Mercedes, according to prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney's Office had asked Mr. Petyoshin be sentenced to nine years in prison.
At the court hearing Monday, several statements from victims were read to the court. Some said the incident had left lasting psychological damage.
In one letter, a bank employee who was ordered by Mr. Petyoshin to fill a bag with money said the events meant they could no longer continue to go to work.
“Since the day of the robbery, I have left Rockland Trust and the entire banking industry,” the employee wrote. “Before leaving the banking industry, I was constantly forced to relive the trauma experienced by customers and others asking about the experience, resulting in flashbacks and extreme anxiety as the events of the day came rushing back.”
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