Bank robber sentenced to 9 years in prison

A gambling addiction motivated a serial bank robber whose luck ran out last October in a Spokane Valley bookstore, a federal judge was told Thursday.

Troy Alan Horne was sentenced to 112 months in prison after earlier pleading guilty to nine bank robberies in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Utah. He confessed to six other holdups, but didn’t specifically plead guilty to those robberies under terms of a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

After getting out of prison, Horne also will have to pay $29,683 in restitution to the 15 banks.

Now, before he goes to prison, Horne will sit down with bank security officials and tell them why he robbed some banks and avoided others.

He pulled the bank robberies over a 34-day period and spent most of his stolen loot at casinos, his attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Tina Hunt, told the court. “He has a very severe gambling addiction,” Hunt said. “He fed that gambling addiction by robbing these banks.”

Horne was abandoned on the streets of Seoul, South Korea, as a baby and was in an orphanage until he was 6. He was adopted and raised by a Utah couple. Hunt’s client now is blind in one eye and has “serious mental health issues,” including depression and low self-esteem related to his malnutrition and orphan-status as a child, Hunt told the court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Harrington countered, recommending the maximum under the 100- to 125-month sentencing range. During one holdup, Horne displayed a CO2 pellet gun that looked like a real firearm, frightening tellers, Harrington said.

Hunt urged the court to sentence Horne to only 100 months because he has cooperated with authorities from the moment he was arrested following the Oct. 30 holdup of a U.S. Bank branch at 15426 E. Sprague Ave.

His spree began Sept. 27 when he got away with $721 at a Wells Fargo Bank in St. George, Utah.

Horne has expressed a willingness to meet with bank security officials and explain why he thought certain banks were easier targets, Hunt told the court.

Shea said while that level of unusual cooperation is commendable, the robber’s actions still terrified tellers in 15 different banks. “The tellers will carry this experience throughout their lives,” the judge told Horne.

Last October, after robbing the Spokane Valley bank on East Sprague of $2,599, Horne drove to a shopping mall, apparently hoping to disappear in the day-time crowd.

But Spokane Valley police Officer Greg Lance, given a description of the getaway car, spotted Horne sitting in the biography section of a Barnes & Noble store at Spokane Valley Mall.

As he saw police surround and enter the bookstore, Horne said he knew his successful bank robbery string had ended. If he’d been armed, Horne said, “I would have at that point shot myself.”

Instead, he was arrested and almost immediately confessed to police and FBI agents.

After reading victim-impact statements from the tellers he robbed, Horne said he realizes their fear.

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to prison,” Horne told the judge, “but it will be a chance to clear my head.”