WILMINGTON, N.C. – A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania man was sentenced today to 40 months in prison and three years of supervised release for robbing a bank in Ayden, North Carolina. On December 7, 2021, Alexis Baez Morales, 40, pled guilty to the charges.
According to court documents and other information presented in court, Circe Nena Baez, Morales’s co-conspirator, entered the Southern Bank in Ayden on July 24, 2019, and handed a note to the bank teller demanding money. The note also threatened that that Baez’s children were being held hostage. The bank teller gave $2,494 to Baez who then left the bank. After leaving the bank, Baez met with Morales who was the get-away driver for the robbery. Law enforcement agents later verified that no children were held hostage as part of the robbery.
Baez and Morales also robbed three other banks in the same manner during July 2019. Those robberies occurred in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Hamlet, North Carolina. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police departments were able to track Baez and Morales to Charlotte, North Carolina and arrested them.
Baez previously pled guilty to the bank robbery and was sentenced to 42 months in prison, followed by three years on supervised release.
Michael Easley, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina made the announcement after sentencing by Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Ayden Police Department, the Hamlet Police Department, the Delaware State Police, the Carlisle Borough Police and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department investigated the case and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan Stephany and John Parris prosecuted the case.
Related court documents and information can be found on the website of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina or on PACER by searching for Case No. 4:20-cr-00072-M.