ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
There is sufficient circumstantial evidence to hold Jermaine Jerrell Sims without bond in connection with a Jan. 30 bank robbery in which a teller was killed, a federal magistrate ruled Thursday.
Prosecutors say Sims was one of two men who burst into a NationsBank branch on the east side of Richmond and began shooting. Sims was arrested Feb. 11 as he went to a Richmond welfare office to collect food stamps.
U.S. Magistrate James Bradberry ordered Sims' case sent to a federal grand jury. He said it would be ``an act of irresponsibility'' to release Sims because of the violent nature of the crime.
Sims, who faces a federal bank robbery charge, was arrested after a Richmond gun dealer told police that Sims had purchased the kind of weapons used in the robbery just three days before it occurred.
FBI Agent Wayne Waddell testified Thursday that ammunition found at the crime scene matched ammunition Sims bought from the gun dealer.
Waddell said the ammunition was rare because the body of the bullet casing didn't match the color of the bullet. He said it may have been made in Malaysia - it was stamped MAL - especially for the kind of AR-15 semiautomatic weapon Sims bought.
The two robbers sprayed the inside of the bank with fire from semiautomatic weapons and waged a brief gunbattle with police. They escaped out the front door and ran through Richmond National Cemetery.
Teller Lori Ann Robinson, 23, died of a bullet wound to the chest, and three other people inside the bank were wounded. Among these was a security guard who shot back at the robbers, police said.
The second suspect remained at large Thursday.
Waddell testified that $3,000, a .38-caliber handgun, a felt hat like the ones worn by the suspects in the robbery and two containers of lighter fluid - one bearing Sims' fingerprint - were found near the 5 1/2-foot wall around the cemetery, which the suspects scaled during their escape.
LENGTH: Short : 44 linesby CNB