Ten-year federal prison sentence for Abilene bank robber

ABILENE, Texas — An Albuquerque man who is accused of robbing the Chase Bank in south Abilene in March 2022 was sentenced in a Lubbock district court to 10 years in prison.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 29, 2022, Fernando Enriquez entered the Chase Bank in the 3200 block of Rebecca, displayed a weapon, demanded money and left in a vehicle. He was stopped by police an hour later in Merkel and brought back to the Abilene Police Department, where he was later arrested for the robbery.

Enriquez has been linked to a string of other bank robberies in Texas, New Mexico, Mississippi and California.

Enriquez, 35, pleaded guilty in July 2022 to one count of aggravated bank robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. He was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix.

According to plea papers, Enriquez admitted that on March 29, he entered the Chase Bank in Abilene brandished a firearm, demanded cash from the teller and then fled the scene.

Both the teller and another employee activated their silent alarms during the robbery. When law enforcement arrived, a witness turned over cell phone video he had recorded of Enriquez leaving the bank and getting into a white Chevrolet Suburban with Mississippi license plates.

Shortly after that, Texas Department of Public Safety and Abilene Police Department officers pulled over the suburban in Merkel and detained Enriquez and his girlfriend. Inside the SUV, officers found a firearm, a gray hoodie that matched the descriptions of the one worn by the robber and a significant sum of money.

Law enforcement took Enriquez and his girlfriend to the PD, where the woman told FBI agents that over the past 14 months, she and Enriquez lived in Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and California. She told them even though Enriquez was unemployed most of that time, he always seemed to have cash on hand.

She told officers that prior to the Abilene robbery, Enriquez left her and his children at a motel, saying he had to fill the car with gas. When he returned, she said, he rushed to get the SUV loaded and leave. She described Enriquez’s driving during their departure from Abilene as faster and more erratic than usual.

Based on physical description and pattern, investigators believed the suspect who committed the Abilene robbery may have committed similar robberies in Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and California. They showed the girlfriend two photographs from the other bank robberies, both provided by FBI Phoenix. She identified the man in the photographs as Enriquez.

On April 19, 2022, Enriquez was indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Arizona on four counts of bank robbery and four counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Following Thursday’s sentencing, Enriquez will be taken to the District of Arizona to face those charges.

An indictment is merely an allegation of criminal conduct, not evidence. Like all defendants, Enriquez is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations’ Phoenix and Dallas field offices conducted the investigation with the help of Texas DPS, the APD and the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Tusing and Jeff Haag of the Northern District of Texas prosecuted the case with significant support from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Arizona.

The Abilene Police Department helped the FBI to help bring this case to a close. The department credits the alert citizen who was in the bank when the robbery happened and helped in identifying Enriquez.