SAN FRANCISCO – A teller who helped mastermind the $74,000 robbery of Metro 1 CU in Antioch was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison.
In a letter to the court, 21-year-old Daniel Ramsey pleaded for a second chance. "I am asking for a second chance. I am so young and worried that I have destroyed my whole future,” he wrote, adding that he had "already learned my lesson" and "cannot even imagine what prison is like.
Ramsey planned the heist and modeled it after a takeover robbery of the credit union that he witnessed a year earlier, only he sought to "improve" upon it, federal prosecutors said. He used his inside knowledge of Metro 1's layout and security procedures to help carry out the holdup, authorities said.
Two gunmen, Jarrett Sermeno, 20, and Kevin Michael Taylor, 39, carried out the robbery, authorities said. The men pointed their guns at Ramsey and told him to open the vault, which he did, police said.
Ramsey was teary-eyed when officers interviewed him shortly after the robbery, but investigators concluded that he and Angelo Leyesa, 21, had planned the heist, police said. Investigators later determined that on the night of the robbery, Ramsey met with the other suspects to collect his $2,000 share of the stolen proceeds, and they burned evidence of the robbery in an old barbecue grill, authorities said.
Leyesa, Sermeno, Taylor and alleged getaway driver Shannon Sorrell are expected to plead guilty in the case and be sentenced on Thursday
