Texas bank robber borrowed getaway car from BMW dealership. Now he’s going to prison.
A bank robber has been sentenced to 20 years in a federal prison for a 2019 holdup in the Lubbock area where he drove to the bank in a car he was test driving, and then went back to the dealership to try to buy a BMW with the stolen money.
He was arrested at the car dealership just hours after the bank robbery in Wolfforth near Lubbock.
Eric Dion Warren, 50, was sentenced on Tuesday in a federal courtroom in Lubbock after he had pleaded guilty in August to the federal charge of bank robbery.
Warren was given the maximum sentence.
Federal court documents gave this account of the holdup:
Warren entered an AIM Bank in Wolfforth at about 12:45 p.m. on June 7, 2019, placed a fast food bag on a counter and handed a note to teller. The note said, “This is an (expletive) robbery. Play with me and die. I want $10,000 in 50 and 100 dollar bills now you got 1 minute or I will kill you.”
He pulled out what appeared to be a handgun and said, “I ain’t playing around. I only want 100s and 50s.”
The teller placed the money in the bag including bills with recorded serial numbers.
Warren grabbed the bag, saying, “Don’t push any buttons,” and fled the bank.
The bank robber jumped into a car which had been loaned to him at a Lubbock car dealership while the sale of a black BMW was being finalized.
Just 15 minutes after the holdup, Warren arrived at the dealership, entered the finance office and pulled out $3,000 in cash as a down payment for the BMW.
At some point, an employee at the dealership received a telephone call about the bank holdup, realized the car used in the robbery matched the one the dealership had loaned Warren and called authorities.
Warren was arrested with $5,086 in cash, and authorities recovered a pellet gun that resembled a real handgun. Warren’s fingerprints and DNA were found on the note given to the bank teller.
