PITTSBURGH – A man who shot a Westmoreland Community FCU teller during a January 2010 robbery was sentenced yesterday to 25 years behind bars.
The robber, David Mathis, 47, asked the judge for mercy and to consider the difficulty he had finding a job or a place to live in 2009 after serving 15 years in prison for a 1994 armed bank robbery.
Mathis, who also pistol-whipped another teller during the hold-up, said he fired the gun accidentally and was only carrying it to scare the tellers.
He was also ordered to pay $228,925 to Liberty Mutual for the workers’ compensation the insurer paid to the teller as a result of the shooting.
Charges are still pending against the getaway car driver, Lamont Laprade, 35. The two men fled the credit union with $6,878 in a blue bag, which was later recovered from Laprade’s SUV, after the two men abandoned it in a nearby cemetery.
