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A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania man was sentenced March 7, 2022 to 40 months in prison and three years of supervised release for robbing a bank in Ayden, North Carolina, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina. Alexis Baez Morales, 40, pleaded guilty to the charges on December 7, 2021.

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, according to the release.

“The bank teller gave $2,494 to Baez who then left the bank,” stated the release. “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 Pennsylvania, Delaware and Hamlet, North Carolina – in the same manner during July 2019, according to the release.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police departments were able to track Baez and Morales to Charlotte, North Carolina and arrested them.

The release stated that Baez previously pleaded 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.

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