A 46-year-old bank robber whose underground bunker was discovered in Sammamish earlier this year was sentenced to prison on May 18.
Bradley Steven Robinett, 46, featured on “America’s Most Wanted” in 2011, pled guilty in January to escape, being a felon in possession of a firearm and interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
U.S. District Judge James L. Robart sentenced Robinett to 12 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, as well as $12,886 in restitution last week.
Robinett had been convicted of bank robbery in 2004 and was released from a federal prison in Arizona seven years later. He had been bussed to Seattle on the condition he report to a halfway house, but he never showed.
Police encountered him twice in 2009.
In September 2009 he fled police during a car chase on Bainbridge Island. In November 2009, Washington State Patrol attempted to corner Robinett at a Bellevue park and ride, where the suspect rammed a patrol vehicle before fleeing the area.
“This defendant left a dangerous wake wherever he went—for the law enforcement officials who tried to apprehend him, and the public who lived near his stashes of weapons and other stolen goods,” U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes said in a press release. “I commend the FBI and ATF agents who continue to use information from this defendant to protect public safety.”
He was finally apprehended in Hillsboro, Oregon in June 2014.
His guilty plea helped investigators locate dozens of stolen firearms stashed in Portland, Oregon, Sammamish and, most recently discovered, in Olympic National Park.
A joint team of investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as well as local law enforcement and the Washington State Patrol, uncovered the underground Sammamish bunker March 10, which was dug into the hillside at 3500 East Lake Sammamish Parkway SE. Within the roughly 8-foot-by-10-foot bunker, authorities removed several full storage containers.
Approximately five storage containers were buried on private property in northwest Portland, Oregon, unearthed by the ATF, FBI and Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon.
Friday, May 22, authorities located the last cache of stolen goods in Olympic National Forest near Quilcene, the Peninsula Daily News reported.
