GREENEVILLE, Tenn. – A husband and wife who claim to have robbed a dozen credit unions and banks across the country two years ago, netting just $30,000, this week were sentenced to prison for heists of two credit unions and one bank.
Michael Watson, 33, was sentenced to 188 months in prison for an October 2008 robbery at Appalachian Community FCU in Tennessee, a November 2009 holdup at Evansville Diamond Valley CU in Indiana, as well as a December 2008 heist at Chase Bank in Ohio.
The robbery note Watson passed to the teller at the Evansville Diamond Valley CU stated “I got a gun and I ain’t playing. I want all the loose bills 100s, 50s, 10s, 5, 1s. Don’t act stupid, I will shoot you,” according to court records. He made off with $6,500 from that holdup.
Watson’s wife, Nikki Watson, 28, the getaway car driver, was sentenced to 115 months behind bars.
The prison sentences run concurrent to a 20-year prison sentence handed down on the Watsons in July 2009 for the attempted robbery of a bank in Hattiesburg, Miss., in January of that year — the incident where law enforcement apprehended the couple.
The Watsons robbed banks in Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Kansas, Alabama, Colorado, Utah and Nebraska in 2008 and 2009. Nikki Watson testified at the sentencing hearing she and her husband robbed 12 banks, stealing about $30,000 in cash, and used the money to buy marijuana and cocaine and to gamble.
